Polygon Targets Sustainable NFTs With Latest Integration
Cent has integrated Polygon with hopes of reducing the environmental impact of minting NFTs.
Key Takeaways
- Cent now supports Polygon, one of Ethereum’s most promising scaling solutions.
- Polygon operates a Proof-of-Stake mechanism, which offers a more energy efficient alternative to Ethereum’s Proof-of-Work system.
- Cent has quickly established a place at the forefront of the NFT space after Jack Dorsey sold an NFT on the platform for $2.9 million.
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Popular Ethereum scaling solution, Polygon, is looking to make NFTs more environmentally friendly.
Polygon Shoots for Sustainable NFTs
Despite the sector’s signs of early promise, NFTs have been widely criticized for their environmental impact. As NFTs mostly run on Ethereum, the transactions associated with minting them are currently processed through a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism.
Polygon changes that by using plasma with its own Proof-of-Stake (POS) sidechain called the Matic POS. By moving transactions away from the Ethereum mainnet, Polygon can process transactions at a much higher speed and lower cost. With today’s announcement, the project is turning its attention towards the NFT space.
Arjun Kalsy, the growth lead at Polygon, said:
“NFTs make art and other creative assets more discoverable and truly reward artists and creators for their work. Our team saw a need to build an environmentally friendly and affordable NFT infrastructure to support Web 3.0’s decentralized blockchain protocol with Proof-of-Stake at the forefront of our engineering efforts.”
The NFT space has exploded this year, with fast-rising digital artists and major musicians alike jumping into Ethereum’s nascent digital economy en masse.
Cent has also been one of the key contributors to the boom, allowing users to tokenize and sell their tweets. Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey created their own NFTs through the app. Dorsey’s first tweet sold for $2.9 million last month.
Polygon Helping to Scale Ethereum
While NFTs have attracted skepticism over their long-term value, most of the criticism has been leveled at their environmental impact.
The conversations have highlighted the urgent need for Ethereum to complete Serenity. The upgrade involves moving from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. Earlier this month, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake told Crypto Briefing that he was “confident” it would ship in 2021.
Ethereum 2.0 will also target the network’s scalability issues, which have been well documented as gas fees continue to rise. In the meantime, Polygon has seen increased activity from those looking to conduct activity at a lower cost than on the base chain, including Aave, Sushiswap, and Curve. Decentraland, Aavegotchi, and various other NFT-focused games also run on the network.
Polygon’s token, MATIC, has soared throughout the network’s growth. It’s trading at $0.40 today, placing Polygon’s market cap just over $2 billion.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH, MATIC, and several other cryptocurrencies.
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