There is a lot of concern in the market about the future of Polygon MATIC relative to EIP1559, the coming Ethereum network upgrades. EIP1559 is due out in July and MATIC raced from $0.35 to $1.80 in a month as it caught on as a Layer 2 solution for the Ethereum network.

Pulling back for a moment, Ethereum 2.0 is well into it's roadmap to completion and each milestone improves the base layer. The beacon chain was launched back in December and The Merge and Data Sharding come later. And while improving the utility of the base layer, they do not increase the Transactions Per Second (TPS) abilities of the network. 

As a group, Polygon, Loopring, Fuel, Deversfi, OMG Network, Optimism, ZkSnarks, ImmutableX are the future of Ethereum 2.0, perhaps they ARE Ethereum 2.0.  The Ethereum ecosystem is likely going to be all-in on rollups as a scaling strategy moving forward into the near and mid-term. Today Ethereum has 15 TPS. If everyone adapts rollups, the network is expected to handle 3000 TPS. Phase 2 progress could increase that number to 5,000-10,000 TPS and when rollups move to eth2 sharded chains for data storage, the theoretical max is 100,000 TPS. However, by the time we get to Phase 2, will anyone care? Hence, the approach that "phase 1.5 and done" is gaining traction. In other words, ETH2 aims to focus on doing a few things well, consensus and data availability. 

With all these projects out there, how does Polygon set themselves apart? Polygon is focused on an ambitious multi-technology approach where other projects are focused on specific arenas, ImmutableX is focused on gaming NFTs. In order to succeed with this approach, Polygon needs to work closely with other teams and this is happening, Polygon partnerships are springing up all the time. All these projects might give one the impression that the space is crowded, but really they are all working together to create demand. And, as evidenced by the chaos of high gas fees, demand is well ahead of supply. Ethereum must be scaled so that people will continue to want to use it. 

EIP-1559 will supercharge the base layer and provide a reliable Layer 1 where sidechains like Polygon can be deployed while being regularly monitored. Gas fees are likely to remain high on EIP-1559 due to roll-up demand. EIP-1559 aims to make the network more functional in a world with many roll-ups, but it will not scale to the point that gas goes to zero. 

So the future is multi-chain with many competing technologies aiming to accomplish the same general goal but with different focuses. Polygon's vision to combine these technologies under one roof, an umbrella approach, is what differentiates the project.

We know there are now so many coins and tokens out there that not all can possibly survive. We've experience the dot-com bubble and we can expect that projects will consolidate and merge. Polygon has established itself as a team able to collaborate and work closely with others and this is why we see so many projects going their way. There are some popular analogies floating around:

Ethereum is the city and Layer 2 solutions are the skyscrapers. Ethereum is the circuit board and Layer 2 solutions are the soldered on components. 

The Big Mac doesn't sell a billion burgers if the McDonald's system isn't there to scale it for the international market. 

It would seem that selling MATIC into the EIP-1559 upgrade, or even into the Eth2 upgrade, would be pointless. Polygon is here to stay, but to beat the test of time, collaboration will be key. The indicator is regular announcements of new partnerships. 

Current chart (looks like consolidation is ending and MATIC is gearing up for another run, perhaps to test $2?)

New MATIC Price targets:

Targets range from $1.65 to $3.49 and up to $5.00 for the 12-month period ahead.