Disclaimer: The datasets shared in the following article were compiled from a set of online resources and do not reflect AMBCrypto’s research on the topic
MATIC has been having a roller coaster ride on the price charts lately. Where now? And where is it going?
On June 19, 2022, the crypto-winter saw MATIC drop as low as $ 0.324, the lowest level in over a year. However, the price has since recovered and has gained over 190% in the charts. So does this reversal signal a bull run or is it a dead cat bounce waiting to rob unsuspecting investors?
In this article, we will take a look at the events that have affected MATIC’s price and those that will affect its future so that investors can make an informed decision.
Source: PolygonScan
At the time of writing, MATIC was trading at $ 0.786. Market capitalization stood at $ 5.84 billion with $ 520.6 million traded in the past 24 hours. With over 142 million unique user addresses and $ 5 billion in protected assets, Polygon PoS has processed over 1.6 billion transactions to date.
In 2017, Sandeep Nailwal and his team decided to build a platform on the Ethereum blockchain, capable of solving problems such as network congestion, high fees and low transaction throughput. All this, without compromising features such as security and the dynamic ecosystem that Ethereum offers. This led to the launch of the Matic network.
2021: turning point for Polygon
In February 2021, Matic was renamed Polygon in an effort to provide a scalable version of Ethereum’s infrastructure and introduce overlapping rollups to combine other Tier 2 platforms for instant transactions, among other things. Polygon kept the name of its native MATIC token. The token continued to gain over 200% over the next 30 days. Polygon runs on the proof-of-stake consensus protocol and can be described as an Ethereum level 2 scaling solution with the best of both worlds.
In 2021, the price of MATIC skyrocketed thanks to Ethereum’s growing popularity and increased activity in NFTs and play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity. MATIC started the year with a modest $ 0.018 and a market cap of $ 81 million. By the end of the year, MATIC’s market cap hit a whopping $ 20 billion, with the altcoin hitting its all-time high of $ 2.92 on December 27.
On May 12, 2021, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin donated $ 1 billion worth of cryptocurrencies to India’s Covid-19 relief fund set up by Nailwal. This apparently unrelated event caused a 145% increase in MATIC within the next 48 hours. By May 18, the token had jumped from $ 1.01 to $ 2.45, gaining 240%.
In May 2021, Polygon was in the news after receiving support by billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who revealed plans to integrate his Lazy.com NFT platform with Polygon. After his investment in Polygon, Cuban claimed the Polygon network was “destroying everyone else” at the Defi Summit virtual conference in June 2021.
Since early 2022, Polygon has secured various partnerships, most notably with Behance, Adobe’s Draftkings, and billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard for Web3 project development. Polygon boasts partnerships in various sectors. Instagram and Polygon also collaborated on NFT.
Stripe has launched global crypto payments with Polygon. Fashion brands such as Adidas Originals and Prada have launched NFT collections on polygon
Based on the adoption metrics gathered, Alchemy described Polygon as the best positioned protocol to drive the burgeoning Web3 ecosystem. Alchemy’s data also showed that at press time, Polygon was hosting more than 19,000 decentralized applications (dApps) on its network.
On May 27, 2022, Tether (USDT), the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, announced its launch on the Polygon Network. MATIC rose more than 10% after the launch news.
Citigroup released a report in April 2022, in which it described Polygon as the AWS of Web3. The report went on to say that the Metaverse economy is estimated to be worth a whopping $ 13 trillion by 2030, with most of it developed on the Polygon network. Citigroup also believes Polygon will see widespread adoption thanks to its low transaction fees and developer-friendly ecosystem.
The collapse of the Earth network in May 2022 triggered an exodus of developers and projects. Polygon soon announced a multimillion-dollar Terra Developers Fund in an effort to help migrate anyone looking to switch networks. On July 8, Polygon Studios CEO Ryan Wyatt tweeted that over 48 Earth projects had migrated to Polygon.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase released a report on August 8, 2022 stating that the future of Tier 2 scaling solutions could very well be a zero-sum game, suggesting that Tier 2 solutions like Polygon could outperform Ethereum in terms. of economic activity.
On August 8, 2022, blockchain security forms PeckShield reported a rugpull of the Polygon Dragoma-based play-to-earn game, following a steep drop in the value of its native DMA token. The same was corroborated by Polygonscan data showing a clear increase in token transfers and the transfer amount on the day of the alleged rugpull which resulted in a loss of over $ 1 million.
In the week following Polygon’s announcement of the Gnosis bridge, MATIC rose more than 18% breaking the crucial resistance at $ 1 for a short time. This feature paves the way for Web3 teams such as the DeFi and DAO protocols to transfer assets between Ethereum and Polygon, for significantly lower gas rates without compromising security.
Numbers from the 32nd edition of PolygonInsights, a weekly report published by Polygon outlining key networking metrics, indicated that despite dropping from the $ 1 mark MATIC had claimed just a week earlier, all was not lost. Weekly NFT volume stood at $ 902 million, a whopping 800% increase from the previous week. Meanwhile, active portfolios grew 75% to 280,000.
In an industry often criticized for being energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, Polygon stood out for achieving grid carbon neutrality after dumping $ 400,000 in carbon credits. This nullified the carbon debt accumulated by the network. According to the “Green Manifesto” published by Polygon, they now plan to achieve carbon-negative status by the end of 2022. In fact, they have pledged $ 20 million to reach that milestone.
Cercle X, the world’s first decentralized application for waste management solutions, announced on August 15 that it has integrated with Polygon to leverage Web3 to digitize the waste disposal process by developing a waste management dashboard.
Polygon tokenomics
Polygon has a maximum total supply of 10 billion tokens, of which 8 billion are currently in circulation. The remaining 2 billion tokens will be unlocked periodically over the next four years and will be disbursed mainly through staking rewards. The initial exchange offering took place on Binance via the Binance Launch Pad to facilitate the sale of 19% of the tokens.
Source: Polygon Forum
Below is the breakdown of the current supply –
- Polygon Team – 1.6 billion
- Polygon Foundation – 2.19 billion
- Binance Launchpad – 1.9 billion
- Consultants – 400 million
- Sale between private individuals – 380 million
- Ecosystem – 2.33 billion
- Staking Rewards – 1.2 billion
Understandably, there are many who are very bullish on the future of MATIC. Some YouTubers, for example, consider MATIC will soon be worth $ 10 on the charts. In fact, he said a “glorious” double-digit valuation for the token is inevitable.
“We have seen Polygon really increase the number of NFTs sold. We can see from July, when we sold 50,000 Polygon-based NFTs, to today where we have … 1.99 million NFTs sold in December on Polygon on OpenSea. This is absolutely massive and massive growth for the Polygon ecosystem. “
MATIC Price Prediction 2025
After analyzing the price action of the altcoin, Changelly’s cryptocurrency experts concluded that MATIC should be worth at least $ 3.39 in 2025. They predicted a high price of $ 3.97 for that year.
According to Telegaon, MATIC is expected to be worth at least $ 6.93 by 2025, with an average price of $ 7.18. The platform’s maximum expected price is $ 9.36.
MATIC price prediction for 2030
Changelly’s cryptocurrency experts believe that by 2030, MATIC will be trading between $ 22.74 and $ 27.07, with an average price of $ 23.36.
Here, it is worth pointing out that 2030 is still a long way off. 8 years later, the cryptocurrency market could be impacted by a number of different events and updates, all of which are difficult to ascertain. Ergo, predictions like these better be taken with a grain of salt.
On the bright side, however, the technicians at MATIC showed a BUY signal at the time of writing. It is therefore not surprising that most are optimistic about the fortunes of the altcoin.
Source: TradingView
Conclusion
The recovery of MATIC after the market sell-off in May was impressive, but it is possible that the trend will reverse if investors choose to book their profits. Especially given that many of them have seen their holdings decline due to the ongoing crypto-winter and the prospect of going green will be tempting.
Speaking at Korea Blockchain Week 2022, co-founder Sandeep Nailwal suggested that bearish conditions such as the ongoing crypto winter provide a “noiseless” environment suitable for talent acquisition and marketing. This could mean that Polygon takes the lead once the trend reverses and the bulls get back in command of the market..
Cryptocurrency experts seem divided over the consequences of the long-awaited Ethereum merger, which is expected to take place next month. Some believe that when ETH 2.0 arrives, it could make scaling solutions redundant, or at least less important. The converse is that matic plans to expand to other blockchains and interoperability capabilities in the future will offset any threats posed by merging Ethereum.
The other side of the experts said the merger will make Ethereum greener by reducing energy consumption and, by extension, will benefit Tier 2 scaling solutions like Polygon by increasing its appeal to investors as an environmentally friendly cryptocurrency. . On top of that, MATIC would also be poised for a rise in value as the Ethereum merger will have no effect on its controversial gas fees, effectively advertising the Polygon use case.
The arrival of ETH 2.0 could make scaling solutions redundant, or at least less important. The converse is that Polygon plans to expand to other blockchains, and the interoperability capabilities in the future will offset any threats presented by Ethereum’s Merge.
The main factors that will affect the price of MATIC in the coming years are:
- Successful zero-knowledge implementation of EVM
- Expansion to new blockchains
- Growth of dApps hosted on the network
The forecasts are not immune to changing circumstances and will be updated with new developments. Note, however, that forecasts are no substitute for research and due diligence.
It is worth pointing out here that as far as social sentiment is concerned, everything is positive for Polygon.
Source: CoinDesk
The Fear and Greed index also shows signs of steady improvement in the wake of the market recovery.
Source: Alternative.me