Layer 2 scaling answer Polygon has maintained robust community exercise even because the broader cryptocurrency market and its native token, MATIC, skilled a downturn within the second quarter of 2024, in line with a brand new report from market intelligence platform Messari.
Polygon Weathers Crypto Market Downturn
Whereas MATIC noticed a 44.3% drop in its circulating market cap to $5.5 billion over the quarter, inserting it because the twentieth largest crypto asset (at the moment on the twenty sixth place), the protocol’s on-chain metrics remained robust.
That is in distinction to bigger cryptocurrencies akin to Bitcoin and Ethereum, which noticed their market capitalization decline by 12% and 6%, respectively, over the identical interval.
Associated Studying
The important thing driver behind Polygon’s stability in community efficiency through the second quarter of the yr, in line with Messari, was the implementation of Ethereum Enchancment Proposal (EIP) 4844 on the Polygon mainnet in Q1 2024.
This improve, which launched “blobs” to the community, considerably lowered the typical transaction payment on Polygon from $0.017 to simply $0.01, leading to a lower of 41.1%.
Because of this, Polygon’s income derived from community transaction charges fell 40.6% to $4 million in Q2 2024. Nevertheless, this drop was not because of a lower in person exercise, however quite the decrease charges enabled by EIP-4844. Actually, Polygon’s person metrics continued to soar, with the protocol seeing robust development throughout a number of key indicators.
On-Chain Exercise And Ecosystem Development
In accordance with the report, the typical variety of each day lively addresses climbed to 1.2 million, a 47.6% enhance quarter-over-quarter (QoQ). The typical variety of each day returning addresses rose much more, up 50.5% to 1 million. Furthermore, new addresses being added to the community grew by 31.7% to 167,800 per day on common.
The report additionally notes that Polygon’s transaction quantity additionally held regular, averaging 4.1 million each day transactions, just under its all-time excessive and representing a 3.9% enhance from the prior quarter.
As compared, fellow Layer 2 networks Arbitrum (ARB) and Base noticed common each day lively addresses of 545,000 and 528,000 respectively.
Associated Studying
Whereas Polygon’s decentralized finance (DeFi) whole worth locked (TVL) dropped 22.9% to $1 billion, this was largely attributable to the decline in MATIC’s worth quite than a internet outflow of capital. Messari reported that TVL denominated in MATIC really elevated by 38.1% to 1.8 billion tokens.
Nevertheless, DeFi protocols on Polygon noticed combined outcomes, with Aave, Uniswap, and SushiSwap all experiencing declines in TVL starting from 13% to 25%. Quickswap noticed the biggest drop at 35%.
Lastly, Polygon’s non-fungible token (NFT) market additionally remained secure, with common each day NFT quantity dipping barely by 5.7% to $1.8 million. Nevertheless, the variety of each day NFT gross sales really elevated by 1.8% to 52,000, underscoring ongoing collector curiosity.
On the time of writing, MATIC has skilled a mere 5% enhance to a buying and selling worth of $0.512, after hitting a 2-year low of $0.428 on July fifth.
Coupled with this worrying worth motion, the token has seen a 30% lower in buying and selling quantity over the previous few days, amounting to $197 million, in line with CoinGecko knowledge. All of this has resulted in an 82% distinction to MATIC’s all-time excessive of $2.91, which was set through the 2021 bull run.
Featured picture from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com
