by Forrest @0xStacker

It has already won and the blockchain nerds are completely missing it.

Thesis:

Polygon (MATIC) has reached a critical tipping point in mainstream brand awareness and is becoming the accepted industry standard for web3 integrations among traditional businesses.

This will accelerate network demand and the price of MATIC should appreciate accordingly, amplified by deflationary value accrual tokenomics. 

Partnerships:

Polygon has penetrated the non-crypto market in a way that no other project has been able to.

Here’s a list of companies that Polygon has partnerships or integrations with: @Reddit @Meta @instagram @stripe @DraftKings @Disney @adidas @NFL @Starbucks @Adobe @Nike @CocaCola @jpmorgan

Each one of these partnerships adds additional value to the Polygon network in two ways:

1) Network Participants

More network participants, more transactions, more demand for $MATIC, more network value (Metcalfe’s Law). 

2) Brand Awareness/Trust

Blockchain is incredibly complicated and nuanced. Most traditional companies do not have the time or resources to conduct due diligence or compare multiple web3 options. Most times they are going to go with the one that has already been vouched for by another company. Matic is good enough for Stripe, JPMorgan, and Meta? It’s probably good enough for us too. 

How?

How has Polygon been able to secure such high value partnerships?

The answer is:

1) Product Market Fit

2) Onboarding Support

Polygon has positioned themselves as a blockchain solution for traditional businesses and focuses on making it easy for businesses to integrate Polygon into their products. 

Coca-cola wants to launch NFTs on Ethereum?

They’re going to have to figure it out themselves. Coca-cola wants to launch NFTs on Polygon?

“Oh hello… Step right this way, we’ll hold your hand through the entire process.” 

Most blockchains provide little more than online documentation and a Dev Discord.

Meanwhile Polygon has built multiple robust onboarding pipelines to support builders joining their network. 

It’s incredibly easy to get in contact with a Polygon team member, discuss an integration, and get development support for that integration:

Polygon's onboarding pipelines include:

1) Polygon Studios

Polygon Studios is an arm of Polygon that solely focuses on investing in, onboarding, and incubating Gaming and NFT projects.

2) Polygon Funds:

Polygon Funds advance and boost the Web3 space by supporting ventures, developers and projects.

3) Advocate Program:

The Polygon advocate program mobilizes Polygon community members to create Polygon content and onboard new members to the community.

4) Sustainability:

Polygon’s sustainability program has helped Polygon go carbon negative in 2022 and plays into the sustainability and green-investing narrative.

Polygon's carbon comparison chart is silly bc none of these companies are even remotely comparable to Polygon in their product or operations.

But kudos to Polygon for removing the environmental concern associated with blockchain, thus making it easier to onboard investors.

5) Cope.studio:

"The moonshot factory" for the Metaverse (aka an incubator for web3 projects) that feeds projects directly into the Polygon ecosystem.

6) Polygon for Institutions:

Solutions for enterprise-scale growth utilizing side-chains, off-chains, and zero-knowledge proof technology. 

Polygon is indisputably better at ecosystem growth than any other blockchain. 

Tech:

Polygon is more than just a layer 2 scalability solution for ETH.

“Rather than simply act as a highway for transactions, Polygon will become a platform for developers and companies to access a suite of tools compatible with Ethereum.” source: @coolwallet 

In simplified terms, Polygon is just a suite of products that make it easier & cheaper to access & use Ethereum.

I can already hear the nerds complaining.

But Polygon doesn’t have the best tech!

It’s not as scalable as Arbitrum!

It’s not decentralized enough! 

Doesn’t matter.

Polygon’s key differentiator is their ease of integration with web2 businesses. 

Web2 businesses aren’t decentralized.

Why should the purist decentralization rhetoric of BTC maxis apply to a Starbucks loyalty program?

Spoiler alert, it shouldn't. 

Tokenomics:

MATIC tokens are almost fully distributed, with 88% of the total maximum supply already circulating and most of the remaining locked tokens vesting linearly via staking rewards through mid 2025.

Similar to ETH, MATIC has deflationary burn function. Roughly 4.5M MATIC have been burned to date, permanently removing this MATIC from the total supply

The team, founders, and early investors do own significant amounts of MATIC...

...But the actual unlocked circulating supply to total supply ratio is quite favorable to token appreciation over time. 

TLDR:

Ease of integration + social proof are making Polygon the industry standard for traditional business blockchain integrations...

...despite the blockchain nerds only caring about max decentralization & transactions per second.

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