Disclaimer: The datasets shared in the following article have been compiled from a set of online resources and do not reflect AMBCrypto’s own research on the subject
The crypto-winter saw MATIC tank all the way down to $0.324 on 19 June 2022, its lowest in over a year. However, the price has since recovered and gained by more than 190% on the charts. So does this reversal signal a bull run or is it a dead-cat bounce waiting to fleece unknowing investors? In this article we will take a look at events that have influenced MATIC’s price and the ones that will affect its future so that investors can make an informed decision.
Source: PolygonScan
At the time of writing, MATIC was trading at $0.945. The market capitalization stood at $7.58 billion with $520.6 million traded over the last 24 hours. With over 142 million unique user addresses and $5 billion in assets secured, Polygon PoS has processed more than 1.6 billion transactions till date.
In 2017, Sandeep Nailwal and his team set out to build a platform on Ethereum’s blockchain, one that would solve problems like network congestion, high fees and low transaction throughput. All this, without compromising on features like 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 rebranded to Polygon in a bid to provide a scalable version of Ethereum’s infrastructure and introduce overlay-rollups to combine other layer 2 platforms for instant transactions, among other things. Polygon retained the name of its native token MATIC. The token proceeded to gain by over 200% over the next 30 days. Polygon runs on the proof-of-stake consensus protocol and can be described as an Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution with the best of both worlds.
In 2021, MATIC’s price went soaring thanks to the increasing popularity of Ethereum and surging activity in NFTs and play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity. MATIC began the year at a humble $0.018 and market cap of $81 million. By the end of the year, MATIC’s market cap hit a whopping $20 billion, with the altcoin touching its all-time high of $2.92 on 27 December.
On 12 may 2021, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin donated crypto worth $1 billion to the India Covid-19 relief fund set up by Nailwal. This seemingly unrelated event caused MATIC to surge by 145% within the next 48 hours. By 18 May, the token had gone from $1.01 all the way up to $2.45, gaining 240%.
In May 2021, Polygon was in the news after it received backing from billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who revealed plans to integrate his NFT platform Lazy.com with Polygon. Following his investment in Polygon, Cuban claimed that the Polygon Network was “destroying everybody else” at the Defi Summit Virtual Conference in June 2021.
Since the beginning of 2022, Polygon has secured various partnerships, most notably with Adobe’s Behance, Draftkings and billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard for development of Web3 projects. Polygon boasts partnerships across various industries. Instagram and Polygon have collaborated on NFTs too.
Stripe has launched global crypto pay-outs with Polygon. Fashion brands like Adidas Originals and Prada have launched NFT collections on polygon
Based on gathered adoption metrics, Alchemy has described Polygon to be the best-positioned protocol to drive the booming Web3 ecosystem. Data from Alchemy also showed that at press time, Polygon hosted more than 19,000 decentralized applications (dApps) on its network.
On 27 May 2022, Tether (USDT) , the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, announced that it was launching on the Polygon Network. MATIC rose by more than 10% following news of the launch.
Citigroup released a report in April 2022, one in which it described Polygon as the AWS of Web3. The report went on to claim that the Metaverse economy is estimated to be worth a whopping $13 trillion by 2030, with most of it being developed on the Polygon Network. Citigroup also believes that Polygon will see widespread adoption thanks to its low transaction fees and developer friendly ecosystem.
In an industry that is often bashed for being energy intensive and harmful for the environment, Polygon has distinguished itself by achieving network carbon neutrality after offloading $400,000 in carbon credits. This nullified the carbon debt accrued by the network. As per the ‘Green Manifesto’ published by Polygon, they now plan to achieve the status of being carbon-negative by the end of 2022. In fact, they have pledged $20 million towards that milestone.
Polygon Tokenomics
Polygon has a maximum total supply of 10 billion tokens, out of which 8 billion are currently in circulation. The remaining 2 billion tokens will be unlocked periodically over the next four years and will primarily be disbursed through staking rewards. The initial exchange offering was held on Binance through the Binance Launch Pad to facilitate the sale of 19% of the tokens.
Source: Polygon Forum
Following is the breakdown of the current supply –
- Polygon Team – 1.6 billion
- Polygon Foundation – 2.19 billion
- Binance Launchpad – 1.9 billion
- Advisors – 400 million
- Private sale – 380 million
- Ecosystem – 2.33 billion
- Staking Rewards – 1.2 billion
Understandably, there are many who are very bullish on MATIC’s future. Some YouTubers, for instance, believe MATIC will soon be worth $10 on the charts. In fact, he claimed that a “glorious” double-digit valuation for the token is inevitable.
“We’ve seen Polygon really picking up in the number of NFTs sold. We can see from July, when we had 50,000 Polygon-based NFTs sold, to now where we have… 1.99 million NFTs sold in the month of December on Polygon on OpenSea. That’s absolutely massive, massive growth for the Polygon ecosystem.”
MATIC Price Prediction 2025
After analyzing the altcoin’s price action, crypto-experts at Changelly concluded that MATIC should be worth at least $3.39 in 2025. They forecasted a maximum price of $3.97 for that year.
According to Telegaon, MATIC should be worth at least $6.93 by 2025, with an average price of $7.18. The maximum price projected by the platform is $9.36.
MATIC Price Prediction for 2030
Changelly’s crypto-experts believe that by the year 2030, MATIC will be trading between $22.74 and $27.07, with an average price of $23.36.
Here, it’s worth pointing out that 2030 is still a long way away. 8 years down the line, the crypto-market could be affected by a host of different events and updates, each of which is difficult to ascertain. Ergo, it’s best that predictions like these are taken with a pinch of salt.
On the bright side, however, MATIC’s technicals flashed a BUY signal at the time of writing. It is no wonder then that most are optimistic about the fortunes of the altcoin.
Source: TradingView
Conclusion
MATIC’s recovery since the market-wide sell-off in May has been impressive, but it is possible that the trend reverses if investors choose to book their profits. Especially given that a lot of them have seen their holdings diminish due to the ongoing crypto-winter and the prospect of leaving in the green will be tempting.
When ETH 2.0 comes, it may make scaling solutions redundant – or at least less important. The counter for that is Polygon plans to expand to other blockchains and the interoperability capabilities in future will offset any threat that Ethereum’s Merge presents.
The major factors that will influence MATIC’s price in the coming years are –
- Successful rollout of zero-knowledge EVMs
- Expansion to new blockchains
- Growth in dApps hosted on the network
Predictions are not immune to changing circumstances and will be updated with new developments. Do note, however, that predictions are not a substitute for research and due diligence.
It’s worth pointing out here that as far as social sentiment is concerned, all’s on the positive side for Polygon.
Source: CoinDesk
The Fear and Greed Index is showing signs of steady improvement too on the back of the market’s recovery.
Source: Alternative.me
