TLDR:
- POL token officially replaced MATIC in September 2024 as Polygon’s native token
- Polymarket emerged as a standout success with $3B+ in election bets and 140k new accounts
- Polygon’s stablecoin market cap reached $1.9B, up 10% QoQ
- $5M investment made in Verifiable Processing Units to enhance zkEVM efficiency
- 1B POL Community Grants Program launched to support ecosystem growth
In a quarter marked by major transitions and technical advancements, Polygon’s ecosystem underwent substantial changes during Q3 2024. The network completed its token transition from MATIC to POL, saw notable growth in its stablecoin market, and made key technical improvements across its infrastructure.
The most notable development came on September 4, 2024, when POL officially launched as the native gas and staking token for the Polygon Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network. This transition marks a new era for the network, though 23% of the supply remains in MATIC form, with no set deadline for complete conversion.
Polygon’s financial metrics showed mixed results during Q3. The network’s market capitalization experienced a 47% decline quarter-over-quarter, ending at $2.9 billion. This decrease partially reflects the ongoing transition period between MATIC and POL tokens, with the market cap currently split between both assets.
Transaction activity on the network showed some cooling, with daily active addresses falling to 863,000, representing a 28% decrease from the previous quarter. Daily new addresses dropped to 98,200, while daily transactions decreased to 3.2 million. Despite these quarterly declines, all metrics remained up more than 20% year-over-year.
The stablecoin sector emerged as a bright spot, with total market capitalization reaching $1.9 billion, marking a 10% increase quarter-over-quarter and a 30% rise over six months. USDC supply notably grew by 42%, increasing from $618 million to $880 million, while USDT remained relatively stable at $886 million.
One of the quarter’s standout success stories came from Polymarket, a Polygon-based predictions platform. The platform processed over $3 billion in election-related bets and added more than 140,000 new accounts in October alone, establishing itself as the leading US elections political betting market.
Technical developments remained a priority, with Polygon Labs announcing a $5 million investment in Verifiable Processing Units from Fabric. These VPUs aim to enhance zk-proof efficiency and power the Plonky2 and Plonky3 systems, supporting the zkEVM, AggLayer, and Polygon CDK initiatives.
The gaming sector, previously a major driver of network activity, saw a decline in Q3. Daily gaming active addresses fell to 75,000, an 82% decrease quarter-over-quarter, primarily due to reduced activity on the MATR1X platform as it prepared for new product launches.
DeFi activity on Polygon showed resilience, with Total Value Locked (TVL) holding steady at $1.0 billion. Aave remained the leading protocol with $482 million TVL, though Uniswap closed the gap, ending the quarter at $240 million TVL, a 114% increase.
The NFT sector maintained steady growth, with average daily volume reaching $1.3 million, up 4% quarter-over-quarter. Polygon held its position as the fourth-largest chain by NFT activity, behind Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Solana.
Institutional adoption continued to expand, with notable partnerships including Ernst & Young’s launch of an enterprise contract management service on Polygon PoS, and Franklin Templeton enabling peer-to-peer transfers for its $380 million tokenized money market fund.
The Community Grants Program (CGP), launched in Q2 2024, progressed with its mission to distribute 1 billion POL tokens over ten years. The program allocates 100 million POL annually, managed by an independent Community Treasury Board.
Developer activity remained robust, with Polygon ranking as the third-largest developer ecosystem in crypto as of July 2024, hosting 2,900 total developers, including 830 full-time contributors.
The Ahmedabad upgrade in September brought technical improvements, including increased code size limits and enhanced state sync capabilities. This followed the earlier Napoli upgrade, which had introduced improved parallel execution and new opcodes.
Governance saw structural changes with the implementation of Polygon Governance 2.0, introducing three main pillars: Protocol Governance, System Smart Contracts Governance, and Community Treasury Governance.
Leadership changes occurred at Polygon Labs, with Michael Blank stepping down as chief operating officer, while co-founder Sandeep Nailwal expanded his role to serve as Chief Business Officer.
Looking ahead, Polygon continues to focus on scaling solutions and technical improvements, with ongoing development of the AggLayer and various Layer-2 solutions positioning the network for future growth in the evolving blockchain landscape.
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