Coin Catch-up: Polygon (MATIC) scale growth and focus on NFTs

Leading layer-2 Ethereum solution Polygon (MATIC) has had a busy October.

A minor rebranding was followed with a flurry of project news including the launch of its Polygon x Base Camp Accelerator Programme and a partnership launched in conjunction with DraftKings NFT marketplace.

Accelerating Polygon ecosystem growth

Outlier Ventures is behind the accelerator programme, which is aimed at stimulating significant developer activity and growth on the Polygon network. Experienced venture capitalists, Outlier has successfully run base camp accelerator programmes for Polkadot and FileCoin, and has developed an impressive reputation having grown more than 90 Web3 start-ups since 2014.

The introduction of a base camp by the Polygon network can be seen as a strategic move. Indeed, with hundreds of millions of dedicated venture capital anticipated to fund start-ups building on Polygon, stimulating developer growth on the ecosystem is critical.

It also comes at a crucial time for the project ahead of the launch of Ethereum 2.0. While the MATIC-powered ecosystem emerged in 2021 as the primary hub for scaling Ethereum-based apps – collecting more than $10 billion in value locked in the ecosystem through bridges from Ethereum – it will have to be innovative to maintain its big slice of the pie.

This was confirmed by Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, who explained there were big expectations for the growth the base camp would deliver.

“As the leading solution for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development, It is vital to support and encourage development on Polygon as the network becomes essential for broader Web3 growth,” he said.

“As such, we’re delighted that Polygon has been chosen for Outlier’s latest Accelerator program.

“Following the successes of the previous accelerators, we have high hopes that the program will discover the best the Polygon network has to offer to help drive developer activity and expedite ecosystem growth.”

Also speaking with Coin Rivet, Jamie Burke – founder and CEO of Outlier Ventures – said of the collaboration with Polygon that it would not only exponentially stimulate the scaling of the Polygon ecosystem’s presence on Web3, but would also empower a diverse group of talent in what can often be quite a homogenous industry space.

“Polygon have helped take the Ethereum ecosystem to the next level, making entirely new use cases possible that require ultra-low fee and high throughput transactions, so it was a natural partner for us to help accelerate the Web3 ecosystem,” he explained.

“Outlier Ventures is committed to investing in a diverse founder base and strongly encourages teams from all backgrounds and particularly those from communities that are underrepresented in the Web3 and technology industry to apply.”

Polygon (MATIC) launch partnership with DraftKing NFTs

In a significant fantasy sports industry adoption, DraftKings Marketplace – a digital collectibles marketplace launched by Nasdaq-listed fantasy sports platform Draft Kings (DKNG) – has partnered with the Polygon blockchain to scale the platform in a low-environmental impact way.

This comes on the back of a wave of NFT activity in the MATIC ecosystem with the launch of Polygon Studios and major NFT-related integrations with Atari, Decentraland, OpenSea, The Sandbox, ZED RUN, and Neon Districts.

Since the DraftKings Marketplace platform launched back in August it has been heavily focused on niche US sports-related NFT releases, which is rapidly becoming a big industry (as seen through the release of Fury – Wilder III NFTs by Everlast).

DraftKing Marketplace recently hosted Autograph’s Preseason Access Collection NFT drops of iconic athletes featuring Tom Brady, Wayne Gretzky, Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles and Derek Jeter, all of which sold out almost immediately.

The deal will seek to provide the scaling solution infrastructure necessary to increase throughput and expand platform capabilities for secondary-market transactions and NFT releases.

Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder at Polygon, also jumped in to explain the partnership.

“Leveraging Polygon’s technology, DraftKings will be able to expand the variety and capabilities of DraftKings Marketplace for an enhanced user experience with even more exclusive content and drops,” highlighted the CEO.

“DraftKings Marketplace already provides fans and collectors with a seamless way to buy and resell authentic digital collectibles within a highly accessible ecosystem, so we look forward to being part of its continued growth.”