What Is Polygon (POL)? Ethereum’s Scaling Solution Explained

Polygon started life as a solution to one of Ethereum’s biggest problems: it was too slow and too expensive for everyday use. By providing a faster, cheaper layer that remained connected to Ethereum’s security, Polygon became one of the most widely adopted blockchain networks in the world.

In 2026, Polygon processes over 3 million transactions per day and has hosted applications from Starbucks, Nike, Reddit, and dozens of other major brands. Its native token, POL (formerly MATIC), is consistently in the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap.

What Problem Does Polygon Solve?

Ethereum is the most trusted smart contract platform, but it has limitations. It processes around 15-30 transactions per second on its base layer. During periods of high demand — like the NFT craze of 2021 — gas fees can rise to £50 or more for a single transaction. For small transactions, this makes Ethereum practically unusable.

Polygon was designed to solve this by building a parallel chain that connects to Ethereum. Transactions happen on Polygon’s faster, cheaper network, and only the final settlement is anchored to the Ethereum mainchain.

The result is dramatically lower costs. Transactions on Polygon typically cost a fraction of a penny, compared to several pounds on Ethereum at peak times.

How Polygon Works

Polygon is a proof-of-stake blockchain that runs alongside Ethereum. It uses a network of validators who stake POL tokens to verify transactions and produce blocks.

Every few hours, Polygon submits a cryptographic proof to the Ethereum mainchain called a checkpoint. This checkpoint confirms all the transactions that have occurred on Polygon since the last checkpoint. This means that while transactions happen quickly and cheaply on Polygon, they are ultimately anchored to Ethereum’s security.

Moving assets between Ethereum and Polygon is called bridging. You lock your Ethereum tokens in a smart contract on Ethereum, and equivalent tokens appear on Polygon within a few minutes. The reverse process takes about 7 days when withdrawing from Polygon back to Ethereum (to allow time for fraud proofs).

Polygon zkEVM: The Next Generation

Polygon’s original architecture (now called Polygon PoS) has been enormously successful, but the company has been building a more advanced solution called Polygon zkEVM.

zkEVM uses zero-knowledge proofs — a cryptographic technique that allows one party to prove something is true without revealing the underlying data. In this context, Polygon generates a mathematical proof that all its transactions were processed correctly, and submits this proof to Ethereum.

The advantage is greater security. Instead of requiring validators to stake tokens and hope they behave honestly, the zkEVM mathematically proves correctness. This makes it harder to attack and allows faster withdrawals back to Ethereum.

Polygon zkEVM launched in 2023 and is gaining traction with developers who require Ethereum-level security guarantees alongside Polygon’s cost advantages.

What Is POL Used For?

POL (formerly MATIC, rebranded in 2024) is Polygon’s native token. It has several uses within the ecosystem.

Staking: Validators must stake POL to participate in securing the network. Users can delegate their POL to validators and earn staking rewards — currently approximately 4-6% annually.

Gas fees: All transactions on Polygon PoS are paid for in POL. Even when using the network to send stablecoins or trade tokens, you need a small amount of POL to pay for each transaction.