Polygon Network Raises $100 Million to Support Growing DeFi Adoption

Ethereum scaling project Polygon recently launched a fund aimed towards making decentralized finance (DeFi) more accessible to end-users.

Dubbed “#DeFiforAll”, the fund will look to integrate users to decentralized products and platforms. The funding, which will be facilitated through Matic coins, will come from the Polygon’s network and be deployed over the next several years. 

Without a doubt, the DeFi space has grown at an exponential rate in the past year. When the fledgling industry first gained traction in the summer of 2020, its total value locked (TVL) was barely at $1 billion. Now, with protocols such as Polkadot and UniSwap more popular than ever before, the figure sits closer to $65 billion. 

Ethereum’s Sky-High Gas Fees a Blessing in Disguise for Polygon

But Defi’s success hasn’t come without hefty costs. With the Ethereum network more congested than ever, transactions fees have shot up. According to YCharts, Ethereum’s average gas price is at 79.19 Gwei as of press time — marking a 650% increase in the past year alone. 

These ultra-high gas fees have been a barrier to entry for many interested in participating in the DeFi ecosystem. But with its latest fund, Polygon will seek to introduce millions of users to DeFi products and platforms. Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, said:

“Polygon is committed to making DeFi accessible to the next million users, and we hope to achieve this through the #DeFiforAll Fund. We want to support the top DeFi protocols on Ethereum and help them scale and grow with Polygon.”

Citing the recent surge in popularity of DeFi Protocols such as Curve and Aave, Polygon’s $100 million fund will continue to bolster and support the space. Aave and Curve are the latest protocols to migrate to Polygon’s layer 2 network in lieu of Ethereum’s. 

This migration in user base has helped Polygon achieve massive growth in transactions and active users. The recent boom in network activity served as one of the major catalysts for the Matic token rallying over 4000% year-to-date.

Featured image from UnSplash