POLYGON REVAMP: How a Formerly Fractured Ecosystem Now Supports Faster Execution

Polygon is an Ethereum-aligned blockchain infrastructure ecosystem developed by Polygon Labs. It includes Polygon Chain, the Agglayer interoperability system, and Polygon CDK, while POL serves as the native gas and staking token for Polygon Chain.

The project began as Matic Network in 2017, founded by Sandeep Nailwal, Jaynti Kanani, and Anurag Arjun. It aimed to reduce congestion and high transaction costs that made many Ethereum applications expensive or slow during periods of heavy demand.

Polygon Chain uses two main technical layers: Bor handles EVM transaction execution and block production, while Heimdall-v2 coordinates validators, milestones, checkpoints, and communication with Ethereum.