In a blog last week, Coinbase – the world’s second largest crypto exchange by daily volume – said it is planning to integrate Indian startup Polygon‘s Layer 2 (L2) solution as its first scaling solution.
Just as it announced support for the Polygon network for both Coinbase Wallet and extension, it now plans to integrate the scaling solution to reduce prices and settlement times.
The exchange said in the blog post:
“One of the most exciting projects our protocol team is working on is to help scale Ethereum through an integration with L2 and other scaling solutions. Scaling Ethereum will help address some of the biggest challenges, including high prices and long settlement times. We want to allow our customers to quickly and cheaply withdraw directly onto a supported L2 solution.”
It added that it hopes it can help level the playing field and ensure retail users don’t get priced out of being able to participate in the ecosystem.
Although an exact date for the L2 integration was not revealed, Coinbase added its protocol team aims to contribute to open source projects, integrate cutting edge technologies with Coinbase products and support developers through Coinbase’s grant programs.
Polygon cofounders (L to R) Anurag Arjun, Sandeep Nailwal and Jaynti Kanani
Polygon was originally started as Matic Network in Bengaluru by Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, and Anurag Arjun in 2017 with the mission to solve Ethereum’s scalability issues.
In the last year, the blockchain startup rebranded to Polygon and landed US-based tech billionaire and serial startup investor Mark Cuban as an investor.
The startup was bootstrapped with funds from friends and family, and later went on to raise $5 million from Binance in an initial exchange offering that saw the founders sell a portion of the MATIC tokens they held.
The founders now aim to transform Ethereum into a multi-chain ecosystem with secured Layer 2 chains and standalone chains.
Layer 2 is a collective term used to describe blockchain solutions that help applications scale by handling transactions off the Ethereum Layer 1, or the mainnet, while leveraging the mainnet’s robust and decentralised security model.
On the back of its scaling solution, Polygon and its native token MATIC have been making big waves across the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors.