Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, speaks with a practiced readability that displays his background as a lawyer. Over the course of our dialog, he outlines Polygon’s technique to place itself because the connective tissue in an more and more crowded blockchain ecosystem. As competitors intensifies and market situations fluctuate, Polygon is betting on a brand new product known as AggLayer to unify the fragmented world of blockchain – a imaginative and prescient that is bold, although not with out its challenges.
Boiron’s path to blockchain management adopted an unconventional route by way of authorized corridors. A former legislation agency associate, he served as Chief Authorized Officer at dYdX earlier than becoming a member of Polygon Labs in the same capability, finally ascending to CEO. He talked about blockchain infrastructure, because the business confronts questions of interoperability, scalability, and sensible utility.
Boiron is a speaker at this yr’s Consensus pageant in Toronto Could 14-16.
CoinDesk: Your background is primarily in legislation slightly than know-how. Inform me about it?
Boiron: I am the CEO at Polygon Labs. I have been the CEO for about two years now. Earlier than that, I used to be the Chief Authorized Officer at Polygon Labs for a couple of yr. I joined Polygon after having been the Chief Authorized Officer at 0x for some time. I used to be frankly simply actually enthusiastic about becoming a member of a workforce that was seeking to scale Web3 in the best way that Polygon is.
Earlier than being on the Polygon authorized workforce, I used to be a associate at varied massive legislation corporations within the U.S., advising on crypto since 2017.
CoinDesk: Polygon describes itself as constructing an ‘Web of Worth.’ That is a compelling phrase, however what does it truly imply in concrete phrases?
Boiron: From Polygon’s perspective, we’re attempting to construct a trustless web that makes it simply accessible to anybody to do no matter they need every time they need with their property. The way in which that reveals up is thru a product that we’re growing known as the AggLayer. The AggLayer is meant to be a type of settlement for each chain throughout crypto typically.
The Web of Worth contrasts with in the present day’s web, which is primarily the Web of Data. Web3’s basic innovation is bringing precise worth on-chain. The problem we face is easy methods to scale this functionality throughout your entire digital ecosystem
Proper now the reply is many various blockchains that exist. However if you happen to truly need to have one thing that feels just like the web of knowledge turning into the web of worth, you want one thing that brings collectively all of these chains so as to get an enormous quantity of transactions occurring throughout all of those chains, however in a seamless approach that feels similar to the present web. So the Web of Worth actually will get delivered to life by way of AggLayer.
CoinDesk: Interoperability has been promised by many initiatives over time. What technical strategy is Polygon taking with AggLayer that you simply consider will succeed the place others have struggled?
Boiron: AggLayer is a product designed to unite all of Web3 on a single settlement layer. At the moment, what’s lacking within the ecosystem is a safe method to transfer between completely different chains.
The one efficient answer for safe and speedy cross-chain motion is to make use of a settlement layer like AggLayer. In apply, this implies the flexibility to finalize transactions between two completely different chains in lower than two seconds.
Our mannequin differs from different cross-chain infrastructure in the way it handles asset transfers. We monitor all property shifting out and in of chains. When somebody initiates an asset switch out of a series, we use pessimistic proof to confirm and make sure the property’ existence on that chain earlier than permitting the switch.
At the moment, this method works completely with Polygon CDK chains. Nonetheless, we’re launching an replace quickly that can enable any EVM chain to hook up with AggLayer. This enlargement brings us nearer to our imaginative and prescient of unifying all of Web3 by way of AggLayer.
CoinDesk: Actual-World Property on blockchain have been mentioned for years with restricted sensible implementation. What’s your perspective on RWAs, and the way do they match into Polygon’s general strategy to the market?
Boiron: One among Polygon’s core strengths has all the time been {our relationships} with monetary establishments, which is essential for each real-world property (RWA) and funds.
In terms of funds, Polygon POS hosts practically 50 stablecoins. Each main fintech participant that operates on different chains can be on Polygon, although many Polygon-based corporations function completely on our platform.
As an example, Lemon Cash in Argentina operates completely on our platform. Different main cost corporations like Stripe course of most of their quantity by way of Polygon POS, whereas corporations like Seize in Singapore use Polygon POS alongside different chains.
We have established 18 tokenized funds on Polygon POS, and our technique focuses on making these property really practical. At the moment, most tokenized property throughout chains stay dormant after creation, providing little benefit over their conventional counterparts.
Our focus is integrating these property into DeFi, beginning with enabling them as collateral in lending swimming pools for borrowing functions.
CoinDesk: How is Polygon responding to latest market volatility and regulatory developments?
Boiron: From our perspective, we simply preserve constructing no matter what the surroundings is. We all know what it’s that we need to construct, and we simply preserve constructing away at it.
The market reactions clearly affect adoption. In the end, the economic system finally ends up impacting the adoption for all the pieces on this planet, and it is no completely different for crypto. The one factor that we will do is preserve constructing away, and because the market turns, being very well-positioned with nice merchandise that customers need to use.
CoinDesk: A number of new blockchains have launched with claims of superior efficiency metrics. How does Polygon place its authentic POS chain on this more and more aggressive panorama?
Boiron: I believe Polygon POS is already very well-positioned for that. There is a motive why we see funds being adopted on POS — it’s as a result of it’s truly already quick and low-cost.
The factor with all the pieces that we construct, together with Polygon POS, is that we’re persevering with to adapt it. One of many issues that is thrilling is that we get to see improvements throughout the area. Folks get to see how Polygon POS is innovated and undertake a few of these issues. We get to take a look at what others are doing and undertake a few of their concepts in addition to persevering with to analysis and usher in new concepts ourselves.
So I believe what you may find yourself seeing on POS is a series that is simply as quick or quicker than all the new chains that we’re speaking about right here. The great factor is that comes together with years of excellent safety and nonetheless sustaining the low prices that at the moment exist on-chain.
