Vision
Polygon aims to create a world as the Value Layer of the internet where value can be freely and globally created and exchanged, similar to information. This is expected to lead to fairer, more inclusive, and efficient forms of organizations and governance that can significantly advance our society. To achieve this goal, Polygon's infrastructure is enhanced by introducing a revamped protocol architecture. This enables exponential scalability without compromising on security and user experience.
Relevant Undertaking
An example of relevant token design is Bitcoin (BTC), the first prominent native token. BTC includes miner rewards and transaction fees but has disadvantages such as lack of productivity, dependence on external resources for miners, and absence of governance rights and economic support for the ecosystem. In contrast, POL is designed to address these challenges and provide an advanced protocol economy and mechanism design.
Ethereum (ETH)
ETH is the native token of the Ethereum protocol and ecosystem. With its innovative design, it has established the next generation of native protocol tokens. ETH has diverse utility, such as staking for validators, rewards for validators, and transaction fees. It is a productive asset and offers benefits like slashing, economic support, and no supply cap, with the drawbacks being the unpredictably supply and limited economic support.
Cosmos (ATOM)
ATOM is the native token of the Cosmos Hub, the central blockchain of the Cosmos multi-chain ecosystem. ATOM has utility for staking validators, rewards for validators, transaction fees, and governance within the Cosmos Hub. Benefits include productivity, no supply cap, economic support, and governance rights, with limitations being the limited application outside of the Cosmos Hub, the token-based governance model, and limited economic support.
Polkadot (DOT)
DOT is the native token of the Polkadot multi-chain ecosystem. DOT has similar utility as ATOM but across the entire Polkadot ecosystem. Benefits include productivity, no supply cap, economic support, governance rights, and security for the entire ecosystem. Drawbacks are the restriction to DOT as a staking token, friction for developers, token-based governance model, and limited economic support.
Aave (AAVE)
AAVE is the native token of Aave, an on-chain token lending platform. AAVE has governance rights and is the successor to LEND.
Design Goals
Based on the analysis of relevant works, several ways POL can benefit the Polygon ecosystem were identified. These are formulated as POL design goals, focusing on ecosystem security, infinite scalability, ecosystem support, frictionless experience, and community ownership.
POL represents the essential instrument for coordination and incentive alignment within the entire Polygon ecosystem, with diverse utility such as validator staking, rewards for validators, community ownership, i.e., governance. The proposed design and tokenomics of POL meet stringent design goals, and the results of simulation confirm the model's hypothesis. With its infinitely scalable and interconnected network of Layer-2 chains, driven by POL, Polygon is well-positioned to secure, coordinate, and accelerate the growth of the ecosystem, marking a significant step towards realizing the vision of a fully decentralized and scalable Web3 ecosystem.
Quelle: Polygon POL Whitepaper
