According to ethereum.org, data availability (DA) is “the guarantee that the block proposer published all transaction data for a block and that the transaction data is available to other network participants.”

But how exactly do you guarantee data is available?

For most Layer 1s (L1s), it’s pretty straightforward. L1 nodes know transaction data is available by downloading and executing it themselves. This is how nodes verify blocks and is at the core of how blockchains work.

Layer 2s (L2s) change the paradigm. L2s (specifically rollups) use fancy cryptographic proofs to guarantee blocks are valid without nodes having to execute every transaction. This unlocks massive benefits and new L1 designs!

But not so fast. Rollups still need data to be available, just for different reasons.

So how do we scale? Seems like we are back to where we started.

DA layers

Introducing DA layers

DA layers specialize in, as you might expect, assuring nodes that data is available. This can take different forms, including:

• DA blockchains

• DA committees

• DA middleware

• Data sharding

We’re only going to discuss the first two, but here are a few resources if you want to learn about DA middleware and data sharding.

DA blockchains vs. DA committees

Because it’s still very expensive to post data on Ethereum, most rollup teams are posting their data off-chain. This design technically classifies them as validiums.

Ethereum’s data-sharding roadmap solves the problem and enables cheap rollup data, but to be safe, let’s assume we’re a year away from the first major upgrade. In the meantime, rollup teams have two major options: DA committees and DA blockchains.

DA committees are selected entities that hold off-chain copies of the transaction data and promise to make it available in case of emergency. These committees often have 7-10 members and are a slight improvement over fully relying on the rollup operator.

DA blockchains take the idea a few steps further by replacing small, permissioned committees with large, permissionless committees that have strong economic incentives to behave.

DA layers vs. data storage layers

A common mistake is thinking that data availability = data storage. However, this is not the case.

An easy way to think about the difference is on a time dimension.

DA layers make sure nodes can access data on a short time horizon. Their main goal is to smoothly progress blockchain state, and they typically do not make assurances about longer time horizons. As ethereum.org puts it, “data availability is relevant when a block is yet to pass consensus.”

In fact, DA layers might even discard the data after a few weeks. In Ethereum’s next major upgrade, this data will be pruned after ~2 weeks.

Data storage layers make sure data is available on a longer time horizon and are closer to the cloud storage solutions most web2 developers are familiar with. Of course, it’s not hard to imagine web3 developers opting for decentralized versions like Arweave.

Sanjay Shah ⚡️

@sanjaypshah

15/ Here's a visual of the full data flow.

With this, rollups get strong guarantees they can re-create the rollup state in an emergency.

23

10:37 AM • Oct 12, 2022

DA layer use cases

There are many things that can be built on top of DA layers. Let’s touch on three:

• Validiums

• Sovereign rollups

• 
  

As we mentioned earlier, validiums are common today. Even after Ethereum has implemented its own sharded DA layer, it’s likely that rollup teams will still use off-chain data to reduce costs. Developers have historically always pushed the boundaries of what’s possible.

Sovereign rollups not only use DA layers for data availability but also for consensus. Applications are likely good candidates to become sovereign rollups (rather than smart contract rollups or validiums) if they need full control over state transitions yet don’t want to worry about a validator set.

In his recent talk, Balaji Srinivasan envisions a future where “fiat information” competes with “crypto information.” He describes “reliable data feeds” using crypto oracles like Chainlink, where IRL metadata is posted on chain. That data could be posted onto DA layers.

DA layer endgames

It’s the early days for DA layers. Polygon Avail, EigenDA, and Celestia are all still in testnet, and Ethereum data sharding is 1-3 years away, depending on the upgrade in question.

However, there’s plenty to look forward to. Let’s highlight what seems to be a common endgame across the board. Most teams envision something like this:

Progressively increasing block sizes and sharding them across the network

Logarithmic Rex

@LogarithmicRex

(18/30) The transition from Proto-Danksharding to Danksharding involves two important changes:

- available blobs per block will increase from 1 to 64 (as of now)
- blob data will be distributed across the network, so that no single node needs to download them all

9

8:20 PM • Oct 26, 2022

Relieving nodes of downloading full blocks using KZG commitments

polynya

@apolynya

Polygon Avail is going to be the first data availability sampling network that uses KZG proofs. Similar technology will power danksharding in the future, enabling rollups to hit limitless scale in tandem with increasing decentralization or security.

Polygon

@0xPolygon

#Polygon is building a modular suite of scaling solutions to empower chains and dApps of any size.

And today, we’re sharing our vision for @0xPolygonAvail, a new data availability blockchain that improves scalability across the board.

Learn more bit.ly/Polygon-Avail

199

1:21 PM • Apr 7, 2022

Maintaining low verification costs with data availability sampling.

Logarithmic Rex

@LogarithmicRex

(11/21) Yes, no single node will download the entire block, but if we are careful about how we break up our blob and ensure our sampling is random enough, we can be confident the entire block is available.

1

9:56 AM • Oct 24, 2022

Eventually, we get to a place where DA layers enable high throughput applications while trust-minimized light clients verify on mobile devices.

That’s right - performance and decentralization!

Wrapping up

Hopefully, this article helped you gain more familiarity with data availability. The goal was to offer a broad overview and address common misperceptions about the topic.

There are many deep dives into how it works, so if you want to jump down the rabbit hole, here are some resources:

• Polygon blog

• Haym Salomon threads

• Paradigm blog

As always, this article is based on a snapshot in time, and web3 moves very quickly. The technology and timelines mentioned might change.

To keep up with the latest, I recommend following along with sources like the Polygon website, the Polygon DAO blog, and The Village Times newsletter. And to get involved, come join us at Polygon DAO.

Why real-world use cases are important for blockchains

Real-world use cases are important to keep blockchains economically and socially sustainable. Having a flow of value coming from real-world sources allows the on-chain economy and society to thrive even more. Without real-world use cases, value throughput is limited due to value only coming from users on-chain, which is unlikely to be sustainable long-term once growth slows down.

To streamline a thriving blockchain, we must bridge the gap between blockchains and real-world applications.

Why blockchains are important for the real-world

There is a myriad of blockchain implementation opportunities that go well beyond the boundaries of even the financial industry. This is because the principle of distributed ledgers in blockchains lends itself well to any industry with a database that requires a trustless and immutable storage system.

These secure and premium features have become too good to pass up, and many companies and industries have started using blockchain technology for different purposes. Apart from blockchains having amazing features that benefit companies in ways like security and transparency, they also benefit the customers of these companies in different ways.

What are some good examples of real-world use cases that utilize the blockchain?

Above we shortly introduced why blockchains are important for the real world. People have come up with brilliant ideas for real-world applications that utilize the blockchain. Anything from medical applications, financial applications, creative applications, and more.

A list of areas where blockchains become useful;

• Healthcare

• Logistics

• Personal Identity Security

• Internet of Things (IoT)

• Media

• Government

• Money Transfer

• Loyalty Programs

How the Polygon PoS blockchain is being used in the real world.

Very known and highly valued companies are utilizing Polygon for different reasons. Two of the biggest companies are Starbucks, the largest coffeehouse chain in the world, and Enegra, an international mineral commodities trading business.

Polygon x Starbucks

Starbucks integrating the Polygon PoS blockchain will allow Starbucks Rewards loyalty program members and Starbucks partners (employees) in the United States to earn and purchase digital collectible stamps in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

This integration allows people to play games and complete challenges that test their knowledge of coffee and the Starbucks brand. This one-of-a-kind loyalty program experience is powered by low fees and high transaction speeds on the Polygon PoS network.

Members can also purchase NFTs with either crypto or a credit card and trade them in a custom Starbucks Odyssey marketplace. No crypto wallet or cryptocurrency will be required.

As NFTs are collected, members’ points will increase. As more points are acquired, the better the rewards to choose from.

Some potential experiences could include a virtual espresso martini-making class, invitations to events at Starbucks Reserve Roasteries, or even trips to Starbucks Hacienda Alsacia coffee farm in Costa Rica. This whole partnership between Polygon and Starbucks will bring certain benefits and “immersive coffee experiences,” according to the company.

Polygon x Reddit

Reddit teamed up with Polygon to create avatars using 90 distinct designs that will be available in the future. The designs are limited edition and include features that may be utilized outside Reddit as a profile picture.

The NFTs will not be available to the general public; instead, they’ll be accessible only to people with a r/collectible avatar. This will allow users to link their Avatar with other Avatar gear and accessories.

Users with NFT enabled will be distinct from others with a glow-like appearance on their profile picture.

“You don’t need bitcoin to buy these avatars, and they aren’t being sold. They’re all priced at a set price and may be purchased with regular currency.” According to Reddit, there was no ambiguity about the situation.

The Reddit team also said this; “In the future, we see blockchain as one way to bring more empowerment and independence to communities on Reddit. Reddit has always been a model for what decentralization could look like online; our communities are self-built and run, and as part of our mission to better empower our communities, we are exploring tools to help them be even more self-sustaining and self-governed.”

Real-world use cases will allow Web3 to adopt new users at a fast pace

Web3 will likely intervene in most Internet sectors in the foreseeable future. Blockchain-based technologies might dominate the future of business ventures, meaning most companies may want to convert into decentralized software.

As discussed in this article, one of the key ways to achieve mass adoption is through real-world use cases and not just relegating Web3 to the crypto community. By demonstrating how Web3 can be used in everyday situations, people will be more likely to adopt it globally.

About the Village

Polygon Village is the centerpiece of Polygon’s long-term strategy of progressively decentralizing the ecosystem's growth to the community. Polygon DAO aims to represent and support various areas of interest within the Polygon ecosystem. Through Polygon Village, developers gain access to everything they need to build, grow, and showcase their Web3 initiatives; projects building on Polygon receive comprehensive, quality support.

Stay in the Loop

Twitter | Discord | Telegram | Village

Introduction

A model I think about quite often is the Technology Adoption Lifecycle.  It was originally penned by Geoffrey Moore in his books Crossing the Chasm and its follow on Inside The Tornado.

While I’m not a huge fan of management books (outside of Moore’s work, anything by Ben Horowitz, or the writings of the late Andy Grove), I think some of the concepts he discusses are very relevant to our space and can help us to understand just how “early” we are.

The TL;DR on the Technology Adoption Lifecycle goes like this: 

1. Innovators: Disruptive technology starts out in a place where only tinkerers and hobbyists find it interesting.  Think Hal Finney and the Cypherpunks.

2. Visionaries: The technology gains relevance, and visionaries start to realize the power of what has been created.  Real-world use cases start to emerge, and the process of building new and interesting things begins.  This is usually where we see speculators come along and a few super-geniuses like Vitalik Buterin.

3. The Chasm: Things drop off a cliff due to lack of interest and mainstream adoption (and down market cycles).  It may seem like all hope is lost during this time, but truly disruptive technologies make it through. Sometimes there are multiple down-market cycles that happen across these early stages.

4. Early Majority: People are starting to catch on and realize the technology's potential.  More progressive organizations are adopting its use, and everyday individuals are gaining more and more exposure to it.  (I would argue we’re somewhere in the early phases of this stage currently.)

5. Late Majority:  We’ve all “made it.”  The technology has gained widespread acceptance, and even the most conservative organizations are using it to great effect. Although its success, cracks are starting to form, and even though it seems like it will be up only forever, a decline has already started.  I would argue that this is where much of big tech is sitting today.

6. Laggards:  The last camp to adopt any new technology.  Imagine Paul Krugman on CNBC discussing the value of Layer 2 scaling solutions (it’s a reach, I know).

Just like you can compare this model to broad trends across technology progress, you can also apply it to individual product life cycles.  One concept that Moore discusses, specifically for early adopters, is how important a vision is to ensure a strong compass on where a project wants to go and how they chart a course to get there.

“Having a vision for what you want is not enough. Vision without execution is hallucination.” -- Thomas A. Edison

Welcome Vouchers

So you might be wondering what all of this has to do with Polygon DAO and its Welcome Vouchers.

Well, Polygon Village Welcome Vouchers seek to enable a strong vision and drive execution in ways that founders and project builders may not have been able to on their own. We at Polygon DAO want to do what we can to help you take that great idea you have and move it from its early formative stages across the chasm and into wider adoption.  

Bear markets are for building, and we believe now is the time to help enable builders to unlock their potential.

As I discussed in an earlier piece detailing the history of Polygon DAO, the DAO was founded on the notion that builders need help. There are various ways to do that over and above the traditional grants model that many Foundations or Ecosystem DAOs employ today. Ultimately, the mission of Polygon DAO is to get progressively more decentralized over time and create a support model that can cater to projects, at scale, across all stages of their lifecycle.  One of the ways we have seen success is through the use of our Welcome Vouchers.

So what exactly is a Welcome Voucher?

I’m glad you asked anon.  Welcome Vouchers are a way to offer services from a broad range of Polygon DAO partners that specialize in twelve areas, including infrastructure, hosting, DAO tooling, audits, accounting, legal, marketing, API services, and more.  

The original concept for the Welcome Vouchers was borrowed from Amazon Web Services (ironically enough, a Polygon Village Partner) with their AWS Credits Program.  AWS Credits serve as promotional coupons that are offered through the AWS Activate program.  These credits can help to cover various AWS services, tools, and/or resources, and the program has been a game changer in jumpstarting adoption for many up-and-coming projects that are building on top of AWS.

We started Welcome Vouchers to foster a fledgling project at all stages of its lifecycle and help make connections with qualified, vetted partners in ways that would benefit both the project and the wider Polygon ecosystem.

The program has grown significantly, with 35 vouchers distributed in June of this year to now 200+ each month and more than 1000 total distributed over the short 4-month lifespan of the program. In addition to the vouchers being distributed, the count of partners also grew from eight in the first month to now 54 and counting. Our team at Polygon DAO has implemented a sophisticated system of tracking incoming submissions, and we have built out strong internal workflows to make sure we can continue to keep up with the rising volume of incoming requests.

We believe the program has helped to create win/win/win (yes, three wins) by:

• Helping builders to connect to vetted resources that can bring their ideas to life and/or provide critical infrastructure needed to develop and scale their projects.

• Increasing qualified deal flow, and brand awareness for services partners across the wider Polygon Ecosystem

• Furthering our goal of bringing the next 10,000+ projects into Polygon via the Polygon DAO funnel.

The Way Forward

We’re very proud (obviously!) of the work that has been done and extremely satisfied with the results.  Does that mean we’re resting on our laurels?  No, anon, not even close.

We have big plans for the way forward with the program that you will see from us in the days ahead.  Some of the improvements and updates we have on the roadmap include the following:

• Operational Improvements: Project lifecycle tracking, trending, and in-depth analysis

• Partnerships Growth: We’re aiming for 100+ voucher partners across multiple verticals.  We believe that there is still much room for growth and many more partnership opportunities to explore.

• Ecosystem Support: We plan to actively support Polygon products directly through vouchers.  We call this sipping our own champagne, anon.

• Deal Flow: We plan to continue strengthening the deal flow to partners through enhanced marketing and community engagement.

Sound ambitious?  It should, anon.  We’re excited to close this year strong and will continue to drive growth and improvement regardless of market conditions.

How to Apply?

If you are interested in applying for a Welcome Voucher or seeing if there might be a fit as a partner, we would love to have you stop by the Polygon Village and drop us a request.  

We have created Airtable forms that are directly linked to our site, where you can request Welcome Voucher support or apply as a partner.  Fill out the simple application, and a team member will be in touch to follow up with you.  

If you have any questions about the application or the program, you can always stop by our Discord and check in with our team.

Let's see what the team has been up to over the last six months.

Polygon Village

Polygon DAO is the centerpiece of Polygon's long-term strategy of progressively decentralizing the ecosystem's growth to the community. On April 8, 2022, Polygon DAO launched the Polygon Village, a full-stack ecosystem for developers to buidl and grow. Through Polygon Village, developers gain access to everything they need to showcase their web3 initiatives, while projects building on Polygon receive comprehensive, quality support.

Welcome Vouchers

With web3's rapid growth, service providers push new and innovative project tools at scale. While having an abundance of decentralized technology tools is excellent for industry innovation, it creates a formidable barrier to entry for fledgling projects.

The Village addresses these issues through Welcome Vouchers. Vouchers give DApps free access to the best web3 service providers under a single forum and act as a bridge between service providers to projects, covering all services a project might need through its lifecycle.

Welcome Voucher Stats

• 2000+ Welcome Vouchers dispersed to projects looking to spur higher adoption rates and benefit from the top-tiered web3 service providers.

• 53 Voucher partners onboarded across 12 Distinct verticals

  • Notable partners include: Alchemy, Akash Network, and Tatum

  • 200+ Projects referred to internal teams

  • Voucher service providers across Audit, Marketing & Community, API, Node Infra, Storage & Hosting, General Utility, Accounting and Payroll, Cross-Chain Toolings, Fiat On ramp- Off ramp, Legal consultation, NFT utility

• $382,000 grants and $750K worth of paid Vouchers distributed ​

Village Wonders

In July, Polygon DAO launched Village Wonders, a first-of-its-kind initiative providing a dedicated expansion strategy, mentorship, and funding opportunities to web3 projects building on Polygon.

During this three-month cohort, 12 selected projects across DeFi, DAO/tooling, NFT/gaming, metaverse, infrastructure, sustainability, and public utility receive:

• Mentorship & office hours with Polygon core teams and industry experts;

• $40,000 investment in return for 1.5% of equity or tokens

• Demo Day with top VCs, Polygon Ventures, and other investors

• Up to $70,000 in vouchers from Tier-1 partners for development, audit, marketing, etc.

• Recognition, ecosystem connections, marketing, and community-building support.

1st Cohort of Village Wonders

Since Wonders launched, over 500 applications have been received. The first cohort of the Village Wonders began on September 1 and included the following projects:

• Artlabs: Providing 3D & AR at scale for Commerce and Metaverse

• Deefy: Renting, lending, and BNPL infrastructure for NFTs Getting instant liquidity & 100% utility

• Hackmakers DAO: Community-driven SaaS platform to accelerate and reward innovation

• Impact Arcade: Virtual gaming arcade featuring casual games that generate real-world impact, such as planting trees, cleaning up ocean plastic, protecting rainforests, and beyond!

• MetaGameHub DAO: Hub for open Metaverse experiences and aggregation by converging Metaverse agnostic infrastructure with complementary dApps and LAND Valuation tools

• Matter Protocol: Matter Protocol is an oracle for social sentiment data, and Matter Trade (MatterTrade.com), the first app that leverages data from Matter Protocol, helps investors find trades that matter.

• Parallell: New travel-style metaverse that gamifies digital twins of the real world and fantasy planets

• RightsfuAlly: Decentralized platform that simplifies the management of film/video intellectual property rights (IPR) and enables their allocations seamlessly on blockchain

• Synphonic: Transforming the musician-to-fan relationship by enabling musicians to engage with and monetize their superfans in new ways

• Threely: Like Google in web2, Threely is the gateway to accessible and fluent web3 made for all

Since this is the first cohort, we are still on an explorative journey. We will continue iterating on the process to bring the highest value to our community to do it better and bigger in the subsequent ones.

WAGMI Jobs

To facilitate the growth of the Polygon ecosystem, Polygon DAO's Jobs initiative focuses on bridging the gap between projects in the Polygon ecosystem and relevant web3 talent. One employment initiative, WAGMI Jobs, is a simple but powerful service that facilitates building a talent network and takes manual work out of connecting people and companies.

From time to time, we find some potential employers that need an additional layer of support in finding the right candidates for roles. In that case, Polygon can facilitate this need through the WAGMI Jobs platform.

Job Stats

• New Jobs Added: 2300+

• Active Jobs: 631

• Projects added: 100+

• Total Projects: 137

• Job applications: 31,000+

WAGMI JobDrops

WAGMI JobDrops is a first of its kind job fair to bring together top web3 talent and projects from the Polygon ecosystem. The First edition was focused on connecting blockchain developers to companies in the Polygon ecosystem. There was participation from 11 hiring partners and 150 blockchain developers, who also received POAPs as a recognition of their participation and shortlisting..

Before the job fair, weeks of interactive sessions with hiring partners offered insight into the hiring perspective, the importance of collaborative work culture, and information about the open roles. The promotional campaign received over 200,000 impressions which was instrumental in generating massive interest among the talent community. This was evident with over 3000 applications received from Blockchain professionals.

Over 250 interviews were conducted, over 60 candidates were shortlisted and more than 10% of candidates received job offers.

Polygon ID

Polygon ID introduces a self-sovereign private identity solution that changes the means of verifying user identities required within DAOs. In DAOs, community members vote on protocol decisions using tokens and signatures from their wallets. Because such data exists on a blockchain, other users can trace previous transnational activity from voter wallets.

Polygon ID solves this issue by verifying private information on-chain using zkProof Request Language, a unique protocol for apps to specify the requested private attributes that the user needs to prove. This way, Identity reputation can be cryptographically verified in a privacy-preserving way directly on-chain to trigger trustless executions/actions.

Through the Polygon ID app, users go through a KYC process to verify their identity. After verifying their identity, they receive so-called claims that allow users to verify their identity privately on-chain.

PolygonID members: 1082

Polygon DAO incorporates Polygon ID-based governance into its processes, leveraging this tool to enable Sybil-resistant governance participation based on claims issued by the DAO to users.

Polygon DAO Initiatives

DeSci

DeSci was introduced to the Polygon community in early August and was described as "the application of blockchain technology to various aspects of scientific research to make it efficient, accessible, transparent, and censorship-resistant."

There are many problems facing the scientific community, but ultimately, the goal of DeSci is to put the power back in the hands of the researchers.

Polygon Village helps DeSci projects along two different paths:

Awareness: We want to engage with and bring together academics & researchers from other DAO's and ultimately help increase awareness of the entire DeSci space

Village Initiatives: DeSci projects will benefit from Village offerings, including funding, service vouchers, marketing, and more.

Polygon Village Blog + Village Times

To increase the amount of information provided to the community, Polygon DAO launched a weekly newsletter, The Village Times, and its first-ever Polygon Village Blog. The DAO ships programs and initiatives at lightning speed and wants to ensure our community stays updated.

The Village Times

The Village Times provides a weekly snapshot of what's happening in the DAO and the Polygon ecosystem and includes Village updates, announcements, partner and grantee spotlights, job opportunities, and more.

Polygon Village Blog

In September 2022, Polygon DAO shipped its first-ever blog series written for the community by the community. Articles cover a range of topics from DAO announcements, Polygon topics such as zkEVM, DeSci initiatives, and more. In the first month since launch, Polygon DAO shipped seven articles. You can check them out here.

Bounty contest

Bounties offer an opportunity to outsource work of the ecosystem to the freelance world. The Village offers a Bounty Board program accepting tasks of all kinds offered as Bounties to contributors from the Polygon Ecosystem.

In the spirit of gradual decentralization and the progressive inclusion of the Polygon Community in the operations normally administered by the Polygon DAO team, the DAO launched a Bounty Contest. The Polygon DAO Bounty Competition determined the recipient of a range of financial/non-financial support from Polygon DAO, with the winner decided by the community.

The Polygon community received claims via Polygon ID attesting to their Polygon DAO membership that was then used as a basis to vote for the project they believed was the best, decentralizing the process that the Polygon DAO Grants Team would normally conduct.

The Bounty Contest ended on September 7, with the first-place winner receiving $10K in funding, vouchers, and more.

Polygon DAO Social Growth

Polygon DAO Twitter

The Polygon DAO Twitter saw massive growth over the last six months. Twitter is a vital tool for engaging with the community, sharing resources, and growing the ecosystem.

From April to September, the Polygon DAO Twitter had over a 300% increase in followers and user engagement.

Visibility through Twitter Spaces

Each week, the DAO hosts Twitter Spaces on education through Expert Talks involving our Voucher Partners, Fireside chats with grantees and partners from initiatives like WAGIMI JobDrop and Wonders Cohorts. Expert Talks and Fireside chats are great ways for Village partners, grantees, and more to gain exposure with the Polygon community.

Below you can find visibility metrics from the last six months:

Closing Thoughts

Much has happened in the six months since Polygon Village launched, and what has been achieved thus far is a testament to Polygon DAO's unparalleled versatility and dedication to the community. We're not only celebrating the DAO and its initiatives but also Polygon's community. So thank you, Polygon community, for being a part of the journey.

What’s Next?

To continue a cohesive support system, the Polygon DAO will move the Village inside of Polygon Technology, where we will go on supporting early-stage projects with grants, vouchers, Wonders, the JobBoard, JobDrops, and re-vamp our Bounty Board. By joining forces with Polygon, we can increase our support and offerings to the ecosystem.

Additionally, the team is iterating on a more transparent, objective, and efficient evaluation framework.

Follow along with the Polygon DAO's continued groundbreaking innovations by joining our Discord, following us on Twitter, subscribing to our newsletter, and checking out the Polygon Village blog.

For context, an EVM is a virtual CPU that runs the smart contracts written in Solidity. When a smart contract is executed, the code gets compiled into bytecodes, and every node on the Ethereum network runs a copy of these bytecodes. Once executed successfully, the initial state of the blockchain changes to a final state. The EVMs run inside a program called “geth,” with every machine running a copy of geth.

zkEVM explained

Now, what is zero-knowledge EVM or zkEVM? The EVM equivalent of the zero-knowledge rollups that help scale the Ethereum network. Simple? Not quite. The zk rollups bundle up several Ethereum transactions in Layer 1 (what we call the base Ethereum layer or L1) and roll them up to Layer 2 (L2), which sits on top of Layer 1. Now, a zkEVM, which is Ethereum-compatible, allows the network to implement the L1 smart contracts directly on these rollups. This means emulating the bytecodes running on the original EVM on zkEVM.

By doing so, the existing applications running on EVM can be transported to L2 and executed. So, the basic idea behind the development of zkEVM was to scale everything (whatever we can do on Layer 1 EVM or the original EVM) on the Layer 2 zkEVM along with bringing in scalability, and that too while not compromising the security provided by L1. After all, we want it all: scalability, security, and decentralization: the famous blockchain trilemma that we get to hear so often these days.

Compatible with zero-knowledge circuits

Along with rolling up the L1 transactions, the zkEVM also generates zero-knowledge validity proof for this rolled-up data and then transfers this proof back to Layer 1 for verification (verifying that the proof produced by the zkEVM in L1 is indeed true/valid). When these proofs are verified on L1, the state of the roll-ups changes on L1.

When the concept of EVM had initially come into existence, zero-knowledge was not addressed, and the original EVM didn’t run on zero-knowledge circuits. zkEVM came into being to do the needed, i.e., provide zero-knowledge validity proofs for the rolled-up transactions in L2 and then send this proof back to L1 for verification.

Compatible with original EVM

The zkEVM is fully compatible with the original Solidity-based opcodes written for the original EVM. But simply emulating all the existing opcodes into zkEVM that can directly run them is an upheaval task. For this, the concept of tailor-made micro opcodes was introduced by Polygon Hermez, giving rise to microVM (uVM), which eases the process of implementing certain variable EVM codes (such as CREATE and CALL).

By executing this set of uVM assembly codes, the state of the blockchain changes to a new state, just like in EVM.

zkEVM vs. EVM

Polygon zkEVM has some clear plus points over the original EVM:

• Throughput: As the transactions are bundled or rolled up, the number of transactions executed per second gets increases significantly. With zkEVM, the throughput has roughly increased to 2000 TPS.

• Lower gas fee: The batches of transactions executed together result in the gas fee going down considerably.

• Security: Since all the opcodes of the EVM are emulated in zkEVM, the security of L1 is passed onto L2.

• Cheaper: The zk-rollups ensure that minimal call data is posted back to L1, making the overall transaction cost go down

• Faster Finality: The transactions in zkEVM give faster finality times, i.e. time taken to finalize the transactions before they can be called irreversible is much less than in an L1 blockchain.

Closing Thoughts

Polygon recently released Polygon zkEVM, the future of Ethereum scaling. Through zkEVM, users will see dramatically reduced costs and improved speed. The EVM equivalence of Polygon zkEVM allows devs to BUIDL build on Polygon the same way they would on Ethereum, deploying Eth smart contracts and dApps.

About Polygon DAO

Polygon DAO is the centerpiece of Polygon’s long-term strategy of progressively decentralizing the ecosystem's growth to the community. Polygon DAO aims to represent and support various areas of interest within the Polygon ecosystem. Through Polygon Village, developers gain access to everything they need to build, grow, and showcase their Web3 initiatives; projects building on Polygon receive comprehensive, quality support.

Stay in the Loop

Twitter | Discord | Telegram | Village

Polygon zkEVM is an EVM-compatible, zero-knowledge (ZK) rollup for Ethereum. EVM compatibility means developers can easily port Ethereum smart contracts with minimal code changes. ZK rollups are scaling solutions that increase throughput by moving computation and state storage off-chain while using zero-knowledge cryptography to maintain high security guarantees.

The goal of this article, however, is to highlight where Polygon zkEVM fits in a broader market context - so for a holistic technical dive, check out the project documentation.

Tech Stack

Overview

Let’s start by framing the blockchain stack. Blockchains consist of four layers. We’ll use Volt Capital’s definition of each layer.

We’ll also use Celestia’s definition of modular blockchains.

If a blockchain handles all four functions, it is considered monolithic.

Where Polygon zkEVM Fits

Within the blockchain stack, Polygon zkEVM is considered a modular blockchain and, more specifically, an execution layer. It serves as a platform for users to build applications and transact directly while outsourcing settlement, consensus, and data availability to Ethereum. 

Let’s touch on how Polygon zkEVM interacts with the other layers - without getting too into the weeds.

As mentioned above, the execution layer is where users transact. When a user signs a transaction, the transaction is queued and processed - the same way it would be on Ethereum.

Once a “batch” of transactions is processed, three important things happen:

• ZK proof is generated

• ZK proof is posted on Ethereum

• Transaction data is posted on Ethereum

Polygon zkEVM has a system for generating ZK proofs consisting of two roles: a Sequencer and an Aggregator. Both roles are permissionless, so anyone can participate.

ZK proofs get posted on Ethereum, which acts as the settlement layer. Ethereum smart contracts verify the ZK proofs, effectively checking the work of Polygon zkEVM nodes and making sure all computation was done correctly.

Transaction data also gets posted on Ethereum, which acts as the consensus/data availability layer. This gives all nodes the ability to see account balances and the opportunity to recreate the state themselves (very important).

Note: In one of the articles shared above, you’ll see mention of Polygon zkEVM’s “consensus mechanism” called Proof of Efficiency. This, of course, begs the question of whether or not execution layers do consensus themselves. You could argue decentralized execution layers do have some form of consensus, but the industry seems to be reserving the term for base layer ordering and finality. As an alternative, we can use the term “leader election.”

Security/Trust Assumptions

Security Spectrum

So how much Ethereum security does Polygon zkEVM inherit?

To gauge this, we’ll look at a graphic below that places Polygon zkEVM along a security spectrum. Solutions on the left are not secured by Ethereum, and solutions on the right are fully secured by Ethereum.

Polygon zkEVM (formerly known as Polygon Hermez) sits to the far right - at the same point along the spectrum as other ZK rollups and Ethereum data shards.

You might already know that Polygon has made a big strategic bet and financial commitment to ZK solutions - allocating $1 billion of the treasury to ZK R&D. As a result, there are now four ZK rollups in the Polygon suite: zkEVM, Miden, Nightfall, and Zero.

Each ZK rollup has a different design (e.g. Nightfall is a hybrid optimistic-ZK rollup), but they all fundamentally use the same ZK primitives and fully inherit Ethereum security.

Data shards are also fully secured by Ethereum as (once implemented) they will be enshrined in the core Ethereum protocol.

Side note: Rollups and data shards are way better together.

Economic Security

We keep saying that rollups inherit Ethereum security. You might already have a sense of how economically secure Ethereum is, but let’s make it concrete.

Because the merge is so close (at the time of this writing), let’s evaluate Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Ethereum.

There are currently ~13.3 million staked ETH on the Beacon chain, which at current token prices total ~$22 billion. Under a 2/3rd honest majority assumption, it would take ~$15 billion to corrupt the network. This is by far the best in the crypto industry.

Another aspect of economic security that should not be overlooked is monetary policy. Ethereum has implemented a very novel approach that has the potential to be more sustainable than that of Bitcoin.

Protocol Stability

As much as ZK cryptography has been around for 30+ years, practical applications like ZK rollups are still in their infancy.

It will likely take several more years before ZK rollups are considered robust like the EVM and Tendermint - technologies that have been in production and at the center of Ethereum / Cosmos development for the better part of a decade.

Risk factors

There is a chance that Polygon zkEVM doesn’t technically start off as a rollup but instead a validium or volition. In the documentation, this is referred to as the “hybrid mode for on-chain data availability.” 

This means that Polygon zkEVM would not be fully secured by Ethereum. When validiums and volitions publish transaction data off-chain, they inherit additional trust assumptions. For example, if Polygon zkEVM were to post ZK proofs on Ethereum (use it for settlement) and post data on Celestia (use it for data availability), it would be reliant on the honest majority of both Ethereum and Celestia validators. If there’s a failure mode on either chain, the entire system is at risk.

To be clear, the Polygon team has not yet decided whether Polygon zkEVM will be introduced as a rollup or use a hybrid schema. And even if they decide on the latter, a hybrid schema is an understandable place to start. Posting transaction data on Ethereum is very expensive and cuts into the rollup value proposition. There is also a clear path toward making transaction data cheap to post, and once implemented, Polygon zkEVM could transition into being a true rollup. 

Regardless - there are associated risks worth acknowledging.

Competitive Landscape

Polygon zkEVM competes on a few key dimensions:

• Performance

• Cost

• Security

• Developer experience

Performance and cost are pretty straightforward. Developers want their applications to be fast and cheap to provide better experiences for users.

You could argue that Polygon zkEVM competes with EVM-compatible L1s (e.g. Avalanche) on performance and cost. In the near term, this is likely true. However, we won’t spend time on this comparison because any successful L1 that remains optimized for high performance and low cost will need to dramatically increase fees or risk unsustainability.

Polygon zkEVM’s true competition is other EVM-compatible rollups - both ZK (e.g. Scroll) and optimistic (e.g. Optimism). There are many articles comparing the two roll-up types, so we won’t go into depth, but an easy way to think about it is that ZK rollups have higher performance (due to faster finality, which we’ll discuss soon), and optimistic rollups have lower costs (due to ZK computational intensity).

Note: It’s unclear how Polygon zkEVM measures up to other ZK rollups in performance and cost.

When it comes to security, Polygon zkEVM is far better than L1s and largely the same as other rollups (ZK and optimistic alike).

Lastly, there’s developer experience, which we’ll split into finality and EVM compatibility.

Finality is “the time it takes for a transaction to be considered final from the view of the base layer contract.” ZK rollups have faster native finality than optimistic rollups. This is because the optimistic rollup design relies on “watchers,” or nodes that monitor the chain for fraud. Because watchers need sufficient time to catch fraud and post proofs, finality is typically delayed a week (typically minutes for ZK rollups) - translating to longer wait times and degraded user experience. Optimistic rollups have workarounds for liquid tokens to achieve faster finality, which Alex mentions in the article above, but generally, ZK rollups have the advantage.

EVM compatibility can mean different things. Vitalik recently published an article categorizing solutions by Type (1-4), with Type 1 being the most EVM-compatible. He referred to Polygon zkEVM as a Type 3 building towards a Type 2, which we agree with.

Status and Traction

So where does Polygon zkEVM stand today?

Through a technology lens, Polygon zkEVM “has already passed 60% of the Ethereum test vectors suite, which is used to establish EVM-equivalence. Polygon zkEVM’s zkProver is now able to process 500,000 gas within five minutes on a single CPU.” Impressive stuff - considering ZK proof generation is a computationally intensive task.

Through a go-to-market lens, it’s very close. Based on the timeline Mihailo outlined in his recent Bankless interview, testnet should be here any day now, and mainnet should be a few months away.

One must acknowledge how much ZK teams have already accomplished. ZK rollups use state-of-the-art cryptography (moon math, as some would say) and went from theory to practice years ahead of schedule. Making an EVM-compatible ZK rollup is even more challenging, and the fact that multiple zkEVM teams have mainnet in sight is mind-boggling.

Which zkEVM teams will win is yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure - the fact that we’re at the starting line is a massive win for web3.

Hopefully, this article gave you a frills-and-bias-minimized view of Polygon zkEVM and helped you see where it fits in the ecosystem.

With that said, this article is based on a snapshot in time, and web3 moves very quickly. We strongly encourage you to stay tuned because technology and even social consensus (which is, at the end of the day, what blockchain systems are rooted in) will change.

To keep up with the latest, I recommend following along with publications like the Village Times, PolygonInsights, and PolyPulse - and to get involved, come join us at Polygon DAO!

About Polygon DAO

Polygon DAO is the centerpiece of Polygon’s long-term strategy of progressively decentralizing the ecosystem's growth to the community. Polygon DAO aims to represent and support various areas of interest within the Polygon ecosystem. Through Polygon Village, developers gain access to everything they need to build, grow, and showcase their Web3 initiatives; projects building on Polygon receive comprehensive, quality support.

Stay in the Loop

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Why BUIDL in Web3?

Buidling on web3 compared to anywhere else in this time of age comes with a list of benefits;

• Unlock a more valuable internet for everyone

• Competitive compensation for your work

• Many free, high-quality resources to get you started and going

• A large network of people willing to help and looking to expand opportunities

• A wide area of skills to expand in

Many web3 pioneers built a career for themselves because of their curiosity and discipline. People with zero background in IT started teaching themselves how to write Solidity and build DeFi protocols, NFT marketplaces, DAOs, and more. Also, other skills, like people with an interest in blockchains, started writing about them, landing content jobs at large protocols and DAOs. How about the entrepreneur from web2 that founded a project in web3 by receiving the right help? These people leveraged their curiosity and discipline to build something for themselves. Now, how can you do this too?

How to BUIDL in Web3?

As we mentioned, web3 has many free, high-quality resources to get you started. Here are three things that will help massively, but finding the right ones is difficult.

• Resources

• People

• Funding

Resources

By resources, we mean things like tutorials, hosting, mentoring, marketing support, infra support, audit services, listings, liquidity support, and more. These resources will help you leverage your ideas, tasks, and projects to a whole new level.

People

By people, we mean people that have skin in the game, experience, and a network in web3. They know everything related to the resources we mentioned above. Those people can help you fit your needs and advise you on what is best in your situation.

Funding

By funding, we mean financial support for your project and ideas. The general term for this is grants. By receiving grants, you can build at a faster pace by hiring more people, getting the right tools, and more.

What if there was a place where you could find all these three things and leverage them to grow your web3 career? Well, there is.

Polygon Village

Polygon Village, which is incentivized by Polygon DAO, is a full-stack ecosystem for developers and non-developers to build and grow. Polygon Village gives developers and non-developers the opportunity to grow at a far faster rate than competitors and allows them to reach the right resources and people. This incentive is vital to get a head start in web3. Let’s dive into what help you can receive and how to receive it.

The Beginning

Let’s say you’ve got your idea for a project, you might even have built a part of your idea, but you ran into the issue of missing either funding, people, or resources. Well, get yourself over to Polygon Village and find the place that fits your needs.

Here’s a quick guide for you;

As you can see, Polygon Village offers everything you need to BUIDL in web3. Check out the resources here; https://village.polygon.community/

Village Wonders

If you have made it this far, we have something special for you. Village Wonders.

Village Wonders is a three-month pre-acceleration cohort supporting early-mid stage dapps. Wonders is an all-in-one package for projects looking for advanced support.

Wonders supports selected projects by enabling key partnerships, unlocking private networks, and fast-tracking knowledge sharing and skills development.

The current cohort is receiving support; the next application stage will be announced soon, so keep an eye out on our Twitter.

Wonders comes with a list of benefits;

• Mentorship & Office Hours: Each selected project will receive dedicated time with some of Polygon’s top experts. This will include time with the BD, product, and tech teams within the ecosystem.

• $40K Investment in return for 1.5% equities or tokens

• Demo Day with Top VCs: The three-month cohort will conclude with a live Demo Day in front of top-level VCs, including Polygon Ventures.

• Up to $70K Vouchers from Tier-1 partners: Polygon DAO partnered with several top-level teams to provide service vouchers for selected projects. Those selected for the Wonders program will receive 70K worth of services from these partners.

• Recognition, Ecosystem connections, Marketing & Community Building support: Selected projects will receive marketing support through AMA sessions with our community and networking opportunities with other projects within the ecosystem.

Closing Thoughts

This is what Polygon Village offers for support to projects building on Polygon. If you need any other help, you can chat with the community in the Polygon DAO Discord server.

About Polygon DAO

Polygon DAO is the centerpiece of Polygon’s long-term strategy of progressively decentralizing the ecosystem's growth to the community. Polygon DAO aims to represent and support various areas of interest within the Polygon ecosystem. Through Polygon Village, developers gain access to everything they need to build, grow, and showcase their Web3 initiatives; projects building on Polygon receive comprehensive, quality support.

Stay in the Loop

Twitter | Discord | Telegram | Village

Enter Web3 (or crypto for you traditionalists), a paradigm shift in how jobs are created, defined and ultimately filled. Whether it be working for a DAO, developing some new primitive technology, or figuring out some interesting way to disintermediate traditional or “Web2” companies through a more “crypto native” approach, the future of jobs is truly here.

The beauty in these models is not only how teams are built and connected through the global network the internet has given us but how these projects can also develop and disburse direct monetary incentives to these team members in a variety of ways in addition to offering the traditional every other week paycheck to your bank account.

Add to this a diverse set of options for how work is delivered not just full-time but part-time, temporary, and even milestone-based opportunities, and you, all of a sudden, have an interesting place to look for career growth whether you want to opt out of your boring day job altogether or maybe explore opportunities to contribute in places that play to your strengths in your spare time for a few extra bucks (or tokens.)

Polygon recognizes this, and that’s why we have been focused on developing our jobs and bounties programs to offer anyone anywhere in the world a place where they can find these opportunities and connect with the teams needing help. Our mission is to ensure the right talent meets the right job, and we want to do everything we can to help teams grow their base of talented individuals through not only our platform but also our wider reach across Twitter, LinkedIn, Discord, online job fairs (which we’ll touch on below) and various other channels.

But above all, we want to make this experience intuitive and free to use and ensure that it always provides value to our partners and community members. Let’s dive into the details of both WAGMI Jobs and our bounties programs from here to give you a bit more information. Read on!

WAGMI Jobs

Let’s start with jobs or what we call WAGMI Jobs (because, as we said before, we have always just been trying to make it.)  WAGMI Jobs is a simple but powerful service that facilitates the building of a talent network and takes manual work out of connecting people and companies.  In the case of Polygon, we have gone to great lengths to build out this network and now have over 120+ companies with more than 600+ jobs listed at the time of writing, definitely one of the largest collections of jobs you will find in Web3.

Companies (or DAOs, projects, etc.) are able to link their careers page directly through WAGMI Jobs and stream real-time updates directly to the board. Thanks to this, the platform has helped to drive 25,000+ applications and 1000+ new jobs added in just the last six months. We plan to continue to up the ante in how we deliver value through this service by using the data gathered to help with things like job matching, reputation, and predictive analytics to help potential employers get the most out of partnering with us.

We also have been thinking about ways we can be innovative in linking potential employers to interested applicants, and that’s what led us to come up with what we’re calling WAGMI Job Drops.

WAGMI JobDrops

WAGMI Job Drops is an online career fair of sorts, and we hosted our inaugural event in late July that was focused on blockchain developers.  We consider it a massive success with 11 Hiring Partners participating, including Chainlink, Quickswap, Horizon Blockchain Games, Animoca Brands, CoinDCX, Hike, Airstack, Colexion, Edverse, Paxo Finance, and Router Protocol.

Along with these hiring partners, we saw 140+ developers making time in their busy schedules to come and check it out. The event was hosted on “gather.town” which gave it remarkable visual elements of a metaverse, and by the end of the day, 60+ candidates were shortlisted for next-level interviews. We plan on hosting similar events like this regularly, both in person and virtually, and will be rotating the job focus to other areas like finance, marketing, business development, and product for those of you that have an interest in this area.

From time to time, we find some potential employers that need an additional layer of support in finding the right candidates for roles. In that case, Polygon can facilitate this need also through the WAGMI Jobs platform. Polygon is one of the largest and fastest-growing organizations in Web3 today, and because of this history, we have extensive experience with qualified recruiting firms that have been used and vetted through their work with Polygon. Through our partner programs, we can broker these introductions and also offer help through our Welcome Vouchers (a program we’ll be discussing more in a future blog post right here.)

Bounties

Another area our team has been working on is Bounties. First off, what are bounties?

Well, bounties (in the Polygon DAO context) are a place where individuals and organizations (decentralized or not) can post assignments, and people can take on these assignments and receive payment for completing these assignments. We believe bounties should be a permissionless way for people to get started with working in Web3. The talent supply in our space is relatively small as compared to the demand, especially in an ecosystem as vast as Polygon. There are many different DAOs, established projects, and traditional startups, all of which need people to work on them, and that’s where we want to try and help.

Our vision for bounties is a place that connects needs to resources and allows the two parties to work directly with one another.  We're currently working on revamping our bounty program and have recently started a competition that will determine the recipient of a range of financial/non-financial support from Polygon DAO, with the winner decided by the community.  You can click here for more details and get a chance to win some merch for your time.

The competition will be bracket based, and those who make it all the way to what we’re calling the prize pool will be eligible for access to Polygon support initiatives. These may include grants, welcome vouchers, and accelerator support along with opportunities to gain visibility in the ecosystem. We invite you to check out the list of applicants and vote on those you think should make it to the next round.

Closing Thoughts

Thanks again for taking the time to get up to speed on these programs. We hope to see you at The Village soon and would like for you to join us on this journey as we continue to build out the Polygon Ecosystem.

About Polygon DAO

Polygon DAO is the centerpiece of Polygon’s long-term strategy of progressively decentralizing the ecosystem's growth to the community. Polygon DAO aims to represent and support various areas of interest within the Polygon ecosystem. Through Polygon Village, developers gain access to everything they need to build, grow, and showcase their Web3 initiatives; projects building on Polygon receive comprehensive, quality support.

Stay in the Loop

Twitter | Discord | Telegram | Village

But first, we would like to express our gratitude to all the projects for their submissions and their patience despite unexpected delays. We were and are still amazed by the response and quality of applications received across all web3 categories. Over 500+ applications were reviewed before making the final decision.

There were multiple rounds of screening by community and Polygon core teams to reduce information asymmetry and ensure a fair selection process. Key factors such as team experience, ideas, growth potential, achievements, competitive landscape, and project stage were considered for final decision-making. It was certainly not easy!

Since this is the first cohort, we are still in an explorative journey with a small cohort and will continue iterating on the process to bring the highest value to our community to do it better and bigger in the subsequent ones. For teams not part of this cohort, know that this is only the beginning, and you can always re-apply for the upcoming cohorts.

Time to shift back our attention!

Bringing you alphas and the highly anticipated first cohort of Polygon Village Wonders:

• Artlabs: Providing 3D & AR at scale for Commerce and Metaverse

• Deefy: Renting, lending, and BNPL infrastructure for NFTs Getting instant liquidity & 100% utility

• Hackmakers DAO: Community-driven SaaS platform to accelerate and reward innovation

• Impact Arcade: Virtual gaming arcade featuring casual games that generate real-world impact, such as planting trees, cleaning up ocean plastic, protecting rainforests, and beyond!

• MetaGameHub DAO: Hub for open Metaverse experiences and aggregation by converging Metaverse agnostic infrastructure with complementary dApps and LAND Valuation tools

• Matter Protocol: Matter Protocol is an oracle for social sentiment data, and Matter Trade (MatterTrade.com), the first app that leverages data from Matter Protocol, helps investors find trades that matter.

• Parallell: New travel-style metaverse that gamifies digital twins of the real world and fantasy planets

• RightsfuAlly: Decentralized platform that simplifies the management of film/video intellectual property rights (IPR) and enables their allocations seamlessly on blockchain

• Synphonic: Transforming the musician-to-fan relationship by enabling musicians to engage with and monetize their superfans in new ways

• Threely: Like Google in web2, Threely is the gateway to accessible and fluent web3 made for all

There are two additional projects still under consideration that we will announce by the end of October. The three-month cohort will kick off on September 21st. During the cohort, each project will receive:

• Mentorship and office hours with Polygon core teams, leadership, and industry experts.

• $40,000 investment from the Wonders program and up to $70,000 in vouchers from Tier-1 partners for development, audit, marketing, etc.

• Demo Day with top VCs, Polygon Ventures, and other investors.

• Recognition, ecosystem connections, marketing, and community-building support.

Again, this is just the first of the many cohorts to come. As Wonders expands and scales, be on the lookout for subsequent cohorts. In the meantime, Polygon Village is here to support the growth of projects. Apply for Grants and Vouchers, or join the Polygon Village Twitter, Telegram & Discord for community support.

A new era for privacy, identity, and verification on the internet.

Polygon ID introduces a self-sovereign private identity solution that changes the means of verifying user identities required within DAOs and other web2 & web3 services. Traditionally, in DAOs, community members vote on protocol decisions using tokens and signatures from their personal wallets. Because such data exists on a blockchain, other users can trace previous transnational activity from voter wallets – thus reducing privacy.

Polygon ID solves this issue by verifying private information on-chain using zkProof Request Language, a unique protocol for apps to specify the requested private attributes that the user needs to prove. This way, Identity reputation can be cryptographically verified in a privacy-preserving way directly on-chain to trigger trustless executions/actions.

Through the Polygon ID app, users go through a KYC process to verify their identity. After verifying their identity, they receive so-called claims that allow users to verify their identity privately on-chain.

The Underlying Architecture

Polygon ID achieves privacy by default by using iden3, which is a decentralized identity management solution for blockchains. Iden3 uses Circom 2.0, a powerful language to build ZK-Circuits. Iden3 utilizes ZK-Snarks, which is a battle-tested cryptographic proof, and the most efficient for proof verifications on-chain.

These zero-knowledge proofs come with the benefit of:

• Allowing you to verify information without sharing all information

• Privately verifying user rights right from a Smart Contract

• zkSNARKs being the smaller proof size for optimal on-chain verification

• zkProof composability, which enables reputation models for people-powered networks

Where can Polygon ID be used?

Polygon ID can be used anywhere where a unique identity has to be securely verified with strong privacy. There are many such areas in both web2 & web3.

• DAOs

• DeFi

• Metaverse

• Businesses

• Social Media

• Fintech

• KYC

Stronger privacy guarantees mean more possible use cases, which in turn results in more users onboarded. As mentioned above, Polygon ID isn’t just limited to web3. Polygon ID is just as useful and powerful for web2 businesses and platforms.

A prime example of this could be a business that is giving away freebies but wants to make sure that every claimant is unique and over the age of 21. They can utilize Polygon ID to allow their audience to create claims and privately verify their identity.

A New Era for Privacy, Identity, and Verification Within DAOs

Identity in the digital world.

In the digital world, a person can have several identities depending on who they are interacting with. Pinning that digital person to a physical human is sometimes impossible, especially in decentralized systems. While this anonymous approach has its benefits, it also leads to certain challenges when it comes to governance, specifically in DAOs.

An example of this could be a person posing as thousands of different people and voting for a proposal that they want to sway in a particular direction. There is also the challenge of accountability, as there is no real person mapped to a digital identifier who is to be held accountable in case something happens.

Privacy, identity, verification within DAOs.

A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is an entity with no central leadership. Decisions get made from the bottom-up, governed by a community organized around a specific set of rules. The transaction history and programmed rules of a DAO are stored on a blockchain, which boosts the transparency and immutability of a DAO.

There is a strong relationship between DAOs and verifiable credentials because a well-run DAO should function as a transparent platform that allows users to retain control over their personal data and identities.

Privacy, Identity, and verification within DAOs in today’s world.

Most DAOs in today's world require you to own governance tokens representing ownership in a decentralized protocol. They provide token holders with certain rights that influence a protocol’s direction. This could include which new products or features to develop, how to spend a budget, which integrations or partnerships should be pursued, and more.

Generally speaking, exercising this influence can take two forms. First, governance token holders can propose changes through a formal proposal submission process. If certain criteria are met, and the proposal goes to a vote, governance token holders can use their tokens to vote on the proposed changes. The specific mechanisms and processes through which these rights are exercised differ across protocols.

Having governance controlled by tokens means all investors in a DAO have the opportunity to shape the decisions on running the future of the organization. The number of DAO tokens of an investor would determine their voting power in the organization.

All these DAO tokens and governance votes are publicly visible on the blockchain. Anyone can look up which address voted for what solution, thus reducing privacy. While DAOs are intended to offer seamless accessibility, a specific group of investors can accumulate major shares of DAO tokens. As a result, they would gain higher voting power on the basis of the number of governance tokens they have.

This brings the possibility for people with the highest share of governance tokens to vote for unreasonable proposals or act maliciously. Therefore, the disadvantages of DAOs in today’s world start with problems due to hierarchy in the DAO’s governance structure.

Privacy, Identity, and Verification Within DAOs in Tomorrow’s World

Polygon ID is here to change the means of DAO governance. Polygon ID allows only those that have received valid attestations to participate in voting. Once verified, activity is completely private.

Polygon ID also creates the possibility for fully-private & verifiable reputation building. Anyone adding value to a DAO can be rewarded with claims for their work. Those claims can then serve as a basis for financial incentive and decision-making powers within the DAO.

Utilizing Polygon ID instead of governance tokens comes with several benefits;

• Fully private.

• Difficult to fake identities.

• No Sybil attacks.

• Voting power by reputation, not wealth.

• Claims are more difficult to steal than governance tokens.

• Aligned with Web3 privacy ethos

• Targeted incentives

• Only required information to be requested

DAOs can now issue ecosystem-wide attestations about their members in a fully private and permissionless way. Consequently, DAOs can verify attestations about their users without the need to actually collect any private information, trusting solely the ZK proof and the source of trust (the issuer). Those attestations can then be used within governance to assist in decision making or any other system like incentive distribution, e.g., targeted airdrops.

Users can also provide proof of their identity when engaging in other activities such as initial coin offerings, token airdrops, decentralized exchange (DEX) trading, or those in which strict Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements apply.

With the capacity to introduce a Sybil-resistant one-vote-per-person mechanism, the use-cases can also expand beyond the DAO sector to the metaverse, gamify, DeFi, and nonfungible token (NFT) industries whereby asset authenticity is verified via on-chain, privatized claims.

Polygon ID x Polygon DAO Integration

Polygon DAO has recently incorporated Polygon ID-based governance into its processes. To start with, Polygon DAO will leverage this tool to enable Sybil-resistant governance participation based on claims issued by the DAO to users. Polygon DAO will allow for private-by-default verification of humans, providing DAO Membership and Proof of Personhood claims for use within the Polygon ecosystem.

Read more about this here.

About Polygon DAO

Polygon DAO is the centerpiece of Polygon’s long-term strategy of progressively decentralizing the ecosystem's growth to the community. Polygon DAO aims to represent and support various areas of interest within the Polygon ecosystem. Through Polygon Village, developers gain access to everything they need to build, grow, and showcase their Web3 initiatives; projects building on Polygon receive comprehensive, quality support.

Stay in the Loop

Twitter | Discord | Telegram | Village

Welcome Vouchers Bring WAGMI Energy

Polygon Village, an initiative of Polygon DAO, addresses these issues through Welcome Vouchers. This initiative gives DApps get free access to the best web3 service providers under a single forum. Welcome Vouchers act as a bridge between service providers to projects, covering all services a project might need through its lifecycle.

Since launch, 1000+ Vouchers have been dispersed, opening greater access to a broader ecosystem of builders and helping onboard the next 10k projects to Polygon.

The Polygon DAO aims to decentralize, grow and innovate the Polygon community. It’s been three months since the Village took effect, acting as a one-stop shop for developers in the ecosystem. As such, we believe Vouchers align with the community ethos by offering comprehensive, quality support to the projects building on Polygon.

What are Welcome Vouchers?

Welcome Vouchers, valued at up to $40,000, are designed for projects looking to spur higher adoption rates and benefit from the top-tiered Web3 service providers. Polygon Village partners with some of the best Web3 service providers across domains, hosting, infra support, audit service, listing, liquidity support, marketing, legal and more.

Polygon and projects building on Polygon will specify use cases and categories across all domains to qualify for welcome Vouchers. Eligible projects can access and request Welcome Vouchers anytime during the pre-defined timeline set by partners.

Why Welcome Vouchers?

Through Welcome Vouchers, grantees gain access to a host of benefits, including; but not limited to:

• Access to preferred Polygon partners for services across including audits, marketing, liquidity, hiring, API services, education, job board, and more.

• Visibility to partner DApps and assistance in customer acquisition.

• The competitive advantage of ecosystem play to both partner DApps & Polygon.

• Less dependency on fiat disbursal from partners/ Polygon DAO.

Notable Welcome Voucher Partners

Welcome Vouchers offer project and tooling partners visibility for DAOs coming to Polygon Village by having their services listed on the Grants page. To date, Welcome Vouchers onboarded 50+ Voucher Partners Onboarded across 12 Distinct verticals offering $1.5M in potential revenue to the Voucher Partners. Notable partners include:

• Alchemy – Alchemy offers a powerful blockchain developer platform providing a suite of developer tools to power Dapps. 

• Akash Network – a distributed peer-to-peer marketplace for cloud computing, allowing devs to instantly deploy Dapps without having to set up, configure, or manage servers. 

• Tatum – For projects in their earliest stages, Tatum offers flexibility to securely build and run a Dapp without a need for coding.

Qualifying for a Welcome Voucher

Whether you are building for DeFi or NFTs, DeSci, DAO or ZK proofs, tools, or anything else, any project on Polygon can apply. Welcome Vouchers will be free offerings available to DApps based on specific requirements such as the DApp being live on mainnet, initial traction, or as specified by the partner. Polygon DAO will disburse grants to Voucher recipients for additional operational expenses for the initial six months.

How to Apply?

For DApps

DApps can fill out an application for Welcome Vouchers through this form. Applications are reviewed bi-weekly.

For Partners

Partners can contact the Polygon DAO team through Discord to apply for a Voucher partnership and fill out this form. Please include details on the service type, Voucher offerings (including free services amount), number of DApps you want to offer services to, and qualification criteria, if any. Partner details will be featured on the Polygon DAO grants page, and partners will see applications for evaluated DApps rolling in monthly.

Closing Thoughts

Welcome Vouchers are an integral part of the Village and a key step in onboarding the next 10k projects on Polygon. Looking to join the growing Polygon ecosystem but are unsure where to start? Head over to the DAO Discord and follow the Polygon DAO Twitter for the latest ecosystem updates.

About Polygon DAO

Polygon DAO is the centerpiece of Polygon’s long-term strategy of progressively decentralizing the ecosystem's growth to the community. Polygon DAO aims to represent and support various areas of interest within the Polygon ecosystem. Through Polygon Village, developers gain access to everything they need to build, grow, and showcase their Web3 initiatives; projects building on Polygon receive comprehensive, quality support.

Stay in the Loop

Twitter | Discord | Telegram | Village

Our Ecosystem Jobs initiative has been focused on bridging the gap between projects in the Polygon ecosystem and relevant web3 talent; WAGMI JobDrops has added a valuable dimension to those efforts.

The event day was preceded by weeks of interactive sessions with our hiring partners that provided candidates with their hiring perspective, their take on the importance of a collaborative work culture, and information about the open roles.

Here are some links to the AMAs

• WAGMI JobDrops AMA Featuring: Hiring Partners

• AMA with PolygonDAO on all things WAGMI JobDrops

Through the promotional campaign, we invited blockchain developers worldwide to submit applications with information about their skill set, experience, and interest areas. It was extremely encouraging to receive interest from a diverse pool of over 3000 applicants. To maximize the number of relevant interview discussions, we had to ensure that a shortlisted group was invited.

On the other side, our hiring partners included organizations that have been pushing innovation forward and building the future of Web3  - Chainlink Labs, Hike, Animoca Brands, Colexion, Paxo Finance, Router Protocol, CoinDCX, Edverse, Quickswap, Airstack, and Horizon Blockchain Games. With more than 30 open roles, they were looking for talent within Solidity, DevOps, Backend, and Full Stack Engineers.

One of the standout features of the job fair was that it was hosted in the Metaverse (Gather Town). This meant that candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers could create their avatars, roam across the event map and start spontaneous conversations just like you would in an offline environment.

These remarkable visual elements made the event super fun to spend time in, network with fellow devs, and chat with top hiring partners.

Our hiring partners also had their own interview rooms on the map for one to one discussions with relevant talent. Candidates could walk up to these respective zones, explore the open roles and enter the room if there was interest. This made it conducive for seamless discussions and helped facilitate over 250 interviews that were conducted during the event.

Even after the event, we helped coordinate further rounds of interviews with shortlisted candidates. We were thrilled to see that more than 60 candidates were shortlisted at the event for further rounds. More than 10% of candidates have already received job offers, and several are in their final interview stage.

To recognize everyone’s participation and contribution, we shared special digital badges in the form of exclusive POAPs.

Here are some positive words from hiring partners and candidates right after the event; it was everything we could have hoped for:

https://twitter.com/my_edverse/status/1550839438153945088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1550839438153945088%7Ctwgr%5E248133bcf7aeac1834bedd44a028bdbe1dbbf470%7Ctwcon%5Es1\_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmirror.xyz%2F0xe306e70f07dDcDd15558C0e3616270B3B1D42fB3%2FKLoYjCI-fCNx5U_XvFTJaGpZ33T8WssiMAfbyt2oD9Q

Nitanshu (priv/acc)

@NitanshuL

Grateful for the invite received from @devfolio @0xPolygonDAO for attending WAGMI jobdrops @gather_town . It was really an immersive experience to cherish.

17

9:43 PM • Jul 23, 2022

Lazygames.ai

@LazygamesAi

An excellent experience meeting some great blockchain talent across the globe at @WAGMI_Jobs. Big thanks to @0xPolygonDAO @devfolio for putting this together, looking forward to hiring from some great folks we met!

#WAGMIJobDrops #Colexion

17

6:37 AM • Jul 24, 2022

WAGMI JobDrops was full of stories that ranged from long, insightful, and interesting conversations with fellow candidates to engaging interviews with hiring managers that opened up many opportunities to everyone involved.

This aligned really well with our fundamental belief that if you help the ecosystem projects connect with top web3 talent, you make a meaningful contribution to the growth journey of both sides.

Did you miss this one? Join our Talent Network to stay updated about the upcoming job fairs and also get discovered by top Web3 projects in our ecosystem. WAGMI JobDrops is an extension of our WAGMI Jobs platform, which features over 600 verified Web3 jobs from 125+ projects in our ecosystem.

About Polygon DAO

Polygon DAO is the centerpiece of Polygon’s long-term strategy of progressively decentralizing the ecosystem's growth to the community. Polygon DAO aims to represent and support various areas of interest within the Polygon ecosystem. Through Polygon Village, developers gain access to everything they need to build, grow, and showcase their Web3 initiatives; projects building on Polygon receive comprehensive, quality support.

Stay in the Loop

Twitter | Discord | Telegram | Village