Polygon’s suite of Ethereum scaling solutions, now supports over 19,000 dApps, including leading NFT marketplace OpenSea, metaverse projects such as Decentraland, Web2 entrants like Adobe and Opera, and DEXs like Aave and Uniswap. 

As a Layer 2 scaling solution with Proof of Stake validators, Polygon had a winning formula from the outset - leverage Ethereum mainnet’s security while solving increasingly urgent scalability and affordability issues. It is now positioned as the one-stop shop for all kinds of Web3 applications. 

Polygon’s partnership with Alchemy in June 2021 proved to be an adoption catalyst, sending the number of dApps running on the network to 3,000 in October, 7,000 in January and over 19,000 as of April.

The Need: A better developer experience

Any transaction on the blockchain, whether buying an NFT or checking your wallet balance, requires connecting to the blockchain’s backend infrastructure, and some developers spend thousands of hours deploying and maintaining this infrastructure on their own. This maintenance means developers are spending less time building the next generation of Web3 applications.

The Solution: The most reliable and scalable blockchain infrastructure 

The number of Polygon apps has grown more than 95-fold since Alchemy’s support of Polygon because in addition to its infrastructure and platform tooling, Alchemy works hand-in-hand with Polygon to resolve and mitigate network-level incidents when they occur.

This means that not only does Alchemy’s tooling make it significantly easier for Polygon developers to start building, but Alchemy’s support and alert system ensures ongoing productivity and efficiency for the entire Polygon ecosystem. 

The combination of Polygons’s cutting edge scaling solutions and Alchemy’s industry leading Web3 API technology provide a uniquely salient solution for the needs of today's Web3 projects. 

Leveraging Alchemy to build on Polygon means that Polygon developers have gained back hundreds of thousands of hours to focus on their frontend experiences rather than the backend infrastructure.

Polygon’s scalable Layer 2 protocol is fueling Web3 development

Polygon adoption insights indicate that Polygon could be the protocol best positioned to power the booming Web3 ecosystem. With over 2.5 million daily transactions on the chain, volume is already more than double that of Ethereum. 

The Polygon team attributes this growth to their deep partnership with Alchemy. 

“Alchemy gives Polygon developers the infrastructure they need to grow, evidenced by the unprecedented Polygon transaction volumes, with high throughput and low fees.” -- Sandeep Nailwal, Polygon Co-Founder

How do I get started with blockchain development on Polygon?

Polygon is an EVM-compatible blockchain, so the process of building smart contracts and dApps is similar to that on Ethereum or any other EVM-based chains.

You can easily get started with Polygon blockchain development by creating a Solidity smart contract and deploying it to the Polygon network in just a few steps.

Does Alchemy have NFT APIs for Polygon?

Alchemy’s NFT API enables any developer to build NFT dApps on Polygon. Check out the NFT API documentation to learn more, and watch this video to build an NFT explorer or NFT gallery website using the NFT API. 

Why should I build on Polygon? 

Community

The Polygon network has a strong community and a large number of developers who have helped create extensive documentation and constant updates. This community network helps projects to effectively troubleshoot before going live.

Affordability

By building an EVM-compatible Ethereum sidechain secured by a set of Proof of Stake validators, the Polygon network reduces network fees as well as environmental impact compared to most Proof of Work blockchains. So building on Polygon and using MATIC is more affordable, by an order of magnitude, than developing and deploying contracts to Ethereum mainnet. 

Scalability 

The Polygon ecosystem is a growing market and building on an EVM-compatible chain allows you to take advantage of the broader Ethereum ecosystem, while participating in the growth currently defining the space. 

Polygon is a revolutionary solution. Get started on Polygon for free today.