Polygon's New Layer 2 Will Accept Ether As Payment, MATIC Token To Be Used For Staking Only

Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal explained via Twitter that Ether will be used for transaction fees, also known as gas.

This operates much differently than the current Polygon sidechain which accepts its native MATIC token for transaction fees.

The news comes on the heels of Polygon's recent announcement of its Polygon zkEVM at Europe’s largest cryptocurrency conference, EthCC.

Short for Polygon zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine, Polygon’s new zkEVM chain will be fully interoperable with Ethereum’s blockchain using zero-knowledge rollups. Zero-knowledge (ZK) refers to an innovation in cryptography that allows one to provide proof without exposing any of their data.

Essentially, a ZK proof refers to a counterparty being able to prove one is telling the truth without knowing any of the contents as to why a particular statement is true.

ZK technology has huge ramifications in the realms of both blockchain privacy and blockchain scalability.

In order to run, use, or develop applications on Polygon’s new chain, users will need to purchase Ether. Ether is used for gas fees on Ethereum’s mainnet, as well as other Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum.

See Also: What Are ZK-Proofs and ZK-Technology?

One of the main utilities of native tokens is to spend them on gas fees to execute functions on the blockchain. Ethereum is unique in that its Ether token is not only used on its mainnet, but it’s now being used on several scaling platforms on Ethereum. If these layer 2s gain user adoption, investors will need to purchase Ether in order to use the network, which may add buying pressure on exchanges.