Polygon (MATIC) emerged as one of the hubs of token activity, achieving the goal to scale the Ethereum ecosystem. MATIC is a relatively well-known digital token, trading at around $1.57 after an explosive bull market in 2021.
But MATIC has a much more important feature – its network can carry transactions similar to Ethereum, but at a fraction of the cost. The Polygon protocol works by setting aside different layers for the high-throughput transaction projects, while also securing the final state of transactions on the Ethereum network. This allows projects to launch their own tokens and encourage activity without the constraints of unpredictable gas fees for even the most trivial transactions.
How MATIC Works for NFT Activity
Any project can build its version on MATIC and use the ecosystem to save on gas fees.
Using a browser extension wallet like MetaMask, it is possible to use the services through MATIC. However, bridging the assets to the MATIC version may still require an initial gas fee for the first layer of the Ethereum network. Only within the MATIC parallel blockchains users can reach low-cost transactions.
Bridging back to ETH on the original blockchain may add to the total gas fees. Moving funds out of the MATIC ecosystem may be needed for cashing out or moving to a project with no representation on MATIC.
How Polygon Supports Play to Earn
The Polygon technology is the force behind GameFi, one of the most active hubs for launching gamefi projects.
The Polygon protocol, which is open for developers, also managed to attract some of the major play to earn projects. Atari has built on top of Polygon, and the network carries its version of the Opensea market for crypto collectibles.
Decentraland (MANA), Aavegotchi, Gala Games and other projects are available on Matic, and can be bridged from any Ethereum-compatible wallet.
Using the Polygon Bridge
For all its technology, acquiring MATIC leaves you with a simple, Ethereum-based ERC-20 token. This will require at least some ETH in your wallet for gas fees.
To use the Polygon ecosystem and pay fees in MATIC, while avoiding ETH gas fees, you will need to connect a wallet to the Polygon bridge.
MetaMask will connect and sign the transaction. The bridge will allow you to choose MATIC or other Ethereum-based tokens, and transform them into version available on Polygon chain or another tokenized form.
MATIC can also be converted, in fixed amounts, to pay for gas token for more active network usage. The Polygon technology promises around 5,000 transactions for 5 MATIC tokens.
How to Get MATIC
MATIC is available on the Coinbase exchange, as well as Binance and the Kraken exchange. The Changelly service offers the easiest swap, as well as directly buying MATIC with a debit card.
MATIC is not yet available for in-wallet swap with the MetaMask wallet. The asset has a relatively low per-unit price and may be one of the easily accessible tools for play to earn games with only the initial fees needed to bridge the tokens and join projects built on the Polygon network.
