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Brief Analysis of Layer-2 and Matic

How to use Matic Wallet?

How do assets transfer from Ethereum to Layer-2?

How to find Matic's existing ecological projects?

Tip: The Matic mentioned in this article has been renamed Polygon. For the convenience of everyone, the name will continue to use Matic.

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Image source: Mark Cuban company website

Key point 1: Brief analysis of Layer-2 and Matic

Ethereum, which has the most prosperous ecology, handles huge transaction volume every day. It needs to settle billions of dollars in transactions every day, and the decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-homogeneous tokens (NFT) on the chain are also booming, and the ecology is becoming more and more prosperous. However, the block space of Ethereum is limited, and all applications are robbing the space of Ethereum, which also causes congestion on the Ethereum network, making transactions more expensive, with more fees, and slower.

In fact, the cost of a single smart contract transaction on Ethereum (such as a Uniswap transaction) may exceed hundreds of dollars, depending on the degree of network congestion, which is not very friendly to retail traders, and the cost of the transaction is too high (you can pay attention to Ethereum London was upgraded this month, and the newly implemented EIP-1559 proposal may significantly reduce transaction fees).

It is imminent to expand the Ethereum network and improve performance. At present, the expansion scheme is divided into two categories, one is Layer-1, and the other is the Layer-2 mentioned today.

We all know that Ethereum is currently upgrading to the 2.0 network, and the consensus mechanism has changed from PoW (Proof of Work) to PoS (Proof of Stake), which can significantly increase transaction speed and greatly reduce transaction fees. In fact, the upgrade of Ethereum belongs to layer-1, that is, on-chain expansion, an expansion solution that keeps all transactions on Ethereum,"Operate directly on the blockchain", to directly modify the basic rules of the blockchain.

And in the transition stage of the Ethereum network from 1.0 to 2.0 (V God estimates that the upgrade will not be completed until the end of 2022), it is actually a development opportunity for Layer-2. Layer-2, that is, off-chain expansion, transactions and calculations outside the Ethereum chain.

For example, if the expansion of Ethereum is compared to road construction, then Layer-1 means that if there are many traffic jams, the most direct way is to expand the original two-way two-lane lane to four-lane, and if it is not enough, change it to six-lane or eight-lane ; and Layer-2 is not to expand on the original road, but to build an elevated or tunnel on the existing route that can extend in all directions. Ordinary cars will drive there, and the original road should be used as much as possible unless it is absolutely necessary.

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Image credit: Glassnode

Matic’s expansion plan was first proposed in 2017, and the mainnet was launched in May 2020. Thanks to the rise in Ethereum transaction fees, Matic quickly attracted the attention of the market and became a star project in the Layer-2 track. With the low transaction fee (almost zero) and faster transaction speed on the Matic chain, more and more application developers come to Matic, either to develop native applications, or to transplant projects directly from Ethereum, such as The well-known Uniswap, Sushiswap, etc. have already been deeply cultivated on the Matic chain.

Of course, in terms of price, as the leading product of Layer 2, according to the Messari website, the price of Matic tokens has increased by more than 9525% so far this year. In just half a year, Matic has risen from a price of US$0.015 to a maximum of US$2.4.

In order to avoid the high transaction fees of the Ethereum mainnet, the number of addresses on the Matic chain is currently increasing rapidly, and the number of new addresses is about 5,000 per day.

Key point 2: How to use Matic wallet?

As the first hurdle to enter the public chain ecology, many domestic friends still don't know how to configure the wallet.

If you are just a cryptocurrency holder, then the preferred mobile wallets are Math Wallet, Imtoken and TokenPocket. After all, mobile wallets are famous for their speed and convenience.

But if you are a cryptocurrency enthusiast and want to experience the ecological application of the public chain and deeply cultivate in the ecology, then the author recommends that you use Metamask on the computer to configure the wallet (Little Fox Wallet), which can not only realize multiple public chains running side by side, You can also better participate in the experience of public chain ecological applications. As an early decentralized wallet in 2015, it currently has more than one million daily active users, making Metamask the leader in the DeFi wallet sector.

So how to use the Metamask wallet to configure the Matic public chain?

First open the Metamask wallet, click on the top network.

Then in the pop-up network list, click the last one"Custom RPC"

Then enter the configuration of the Matic network in turn, and click Save.

Add RPC URL:

Add RPC URL:https://rpc-mainnet.matic.network

Chain ID: 137

Asset symbol: MATIC

Block Explorer URL: https://explorer.matic.network/

After saving, we return to the main interface of the wallet, switch the ETH network to Matic Mainnet, and then we can enter the Matic wallet.

Focus 3: How to transfer assets from Ethereum to Layer-2?

In the previous step, we completed the configuration of the wallet, but there are still no assets in the wallet. In fact, the easiest and most cost-effective method of asset transfer is to withdraw Matic tokens directly from the exchange to the Matic public chain, and then go to the decentralized exchange in the ecological application to convert Matic tokens into the required Other tokens (ETH, USDC, etc.).

But if your assets are on Ethereum, it is inevitable to transfer assets from Layer-1 to Layer-2.

First we open Matic's official network:https://wallet.matic.network/

Login with Metamask wallet.

After entering the web wallet, we can see the assets on the Matic chain. click"Asset transfer from Ethereum to Matic"

After entering the amount to transfer, wait 6-8 minutes for the assets to be successfully transferred to Matic.

Next, you can experience and play with Matic's ecological applications with almost zero transaction fees.

Key point 4: How to find Matic's existing ecological projects?

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Comparison between Matic ecology and Solana ecology. Image credit: Solana Daily

pay:

pay:

Matic is designed to allow dApps to increase the speed of payment, and achieve near-instant payment settlement through dedicated application programming interface (API) and software development kit (SDK) integration. This process allows dApps, merchants, and users to instantly accept or pay assets in any type of cryptocurrency (though usually ERC-20 tokens or ETH).

Lending platform:

game:

game:

Matic's Layer-2 sidechain scaling solution is designed to improve the speed and performance of blockchain games. Due to slow transaction speeds and high network latency, the development of blockchain games lags behind traditional PC and console gaming systems. Using Matic's Commit Chain expansion technology and working with the Ethereum network, developers will be able to build games more efficiently, and gamers will also improve their gaming experience. Now is a good time for Matic to promote the development of the blockchain game industry, because the popularity of non-fungible token NFT and NFT market promotes the popularity of blockchain and encryption industry-many gamers buy, sell and trade different types of Game NFTs. Top games and NFT Dapps such as Aavegotchi, Neon District, Zed Run, and Cometh have already enhanced their user experience with Matic.

Decentralized exchanges:

privacy:

privacy:

Due to user privacy concerns, most dApps require a way to sign transactions without submitting private keys. Due to its enhanced scalability, Matic helps enable an open identity framework for dApp design and usage.

If you don’t know what ecological applications are on Matic, and don’t know how to get started, you can refer to Matic’s ecological application aggregation website:https://awesomepolygon.com/, the website lists a more comprehensive ecological application and a brief introduction of each application.

author's thoughts

According to the description of V God, the founder of Ethereum, Ethereum 2.0 may not be officially launched until the end of 2022. Although Ethereum will be upgraded in London this month, the implementation of the EIP-1559 proposal will greatly reduce transaction fees. However, it is estimated that when Ethereum 2.0 goes online, the transaction fee will drop to about $1, and it will run at a speed of about 1,000 transactions per second. The transaction speed will be greatly improved, but I think it is unlikely that the transaction fee will be less than one dollar.

And Matic can process 1 million transactions per second for only $1, which is still a thousand times cheaper than Ethereum 2.0. $1 on Ethereum may not sound like much, but when considering use cases with high volumes of transactions, such as IoT, gaming, inventory systems, and logistics, every penny has an impact on the economic model of the application.

V God talked about Matic in an interview with Lex Friedman published in early June. God V said:I have a lot of respect for what Matic has achieved, and he couldn't be happier for them to be part of the ecosystem. Considering that Matic actually has something up and running, and Ethereum just announced another delay to version 2.0, maybe that's where I'm happy.

Therefore, the author believes that in the two years since the arrival of Ethereum 2.0, Layer-2’s identity is more like a substitute for Ethereum 2.0; and when Ethereum 2.0 goes online, the Layer-2 expansion plan led by Matic will Will continue to exist and continue to work for Ethereum"Summarize"。

Summarize

All in all, Matic is a very interesting project. They have started to solve real problems on Ethereum, and they have been very successful, and there have been many excellent projects built on top of Matic. In the future, Matic will become an indispensable partner of the Ethereum 2.0 ecosystem.

(Note: All articles of Baize Research Institute cannot be used as investment advice and recommendations. Investment is risky, and the cryptocurrency market fluctuates greatly. Please be mentally prepared before entering the market)