TL;DR

• According to Polygon cofounder Sandeep Nailwal, if we want ​Web3​ to succeed, we need two things:

  1. Infinite, unlimited, unbounded scalability. (Translation: blockchain tech that won’t break if too many people use it).

  2. Unified ​liquidity​ for value to be transferred.

• What Sandeep and the Polygon team are working on is a solution that essentially cuts Ethereum out of this conversion process, so the congestion can ease.

• The end result? The ability to swap between any Ethereum based token in a matter of seconds, at scale..

Full Story

According to Polygon cofounder Sandeep Nailwal, if we want ​Web3​ to succeed, we need two things:

1. Infinite, unlimited, unbounded scalability. (Translation: blockchain tech that won’t break if too many people use it).

2. Unified ​liquidity​ for value to be transferred.

What does that last bit mean?

Think of these Ethereum-based chains like different global currencies.

In the real world, if you wanted to swap Zimbabwean Dollars (ZWL) for Swedish Krona (SEK) you might open up your currency exchange app, press a few buttons - and boom! It’s done.

But what you miss is what happens in the background.

You’d be hard pressed to find a Swedish bank that accepts Zimbabwean Dollars - so what the currency exchange does is it swaps your ZWL for US dollars (which is accepted everywhere) and uses that USD to buy Swedish Krona.

Something similar happens when you exchange Ethereum-based tokens.

For example:

When you exchange one small/less popular Ethereum-based token for another, what will happen is ‘Small Token 1’ is traded for Ethereum (ETH), that ETH is then used to buy ‘Small Token 2,’ which is then dropped in your ​wallet​.

Ok, ok, it’s not a perfect analogy - but the point is:

This puts a lot of pressure on Ethereum.

What Sandeep and the Polygon team are working on is a solution that essentially cuts Ethereum out of this conversion process, so the congestion can ease.

The end result?

The ability to swap between any Ethereum based token in a matter of seconds, at scale.

Let’s hope the Polygon team can pull it off!