On June 13, 2023, Polygon Labs announced the launch of the Polygon 2.0 upgrade plan to help the Polygon PoS network upgrade to Layer 2 network powered by zero-knowledge proof technology. Next, let us take a look at the specific upgrades included in Polygon 2.0.

Polygon 2.0 Roadmap

According to the roadmap released by Polygon, the Polygon 2.0 upgrade will include Polygon PoS upgrade, technical architecture upgrade, and token economic update. and the four contents of upgrading the governance mechanism.

PoS upgrade

Polygon's PoS network It will be upgraded to zkEVM Validium in Polygon 2.0, and together with Polygon zkEVM will form a complete Polygon ecosystem.

zkEVM Validium

zkEVM Validium is a Layer2 expansion solution based on zero-knowledge proof. It has two main differences from the previous Polygon PoS:

• Transaction verification mechanism

The Polygon PoS network uses the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Transaction verification. Validators verify transactions by staking $MATIC.

zkEVM Validium is based on zero-knowledge proof technology. Validators verify transactions through ZK proofs.

• Data Availability

The Polygon PoS network stores transaction data on-chain. All transaction information is available on-chain and available at any time.

zkEVM Validium’s transaction data is stored off-chain, and transaction data is not limited by the blockchain space.

Among them, data availability is also the biggest difference between zkEVM Validium and Polygon zkEVM. Compared with zkEVM Rollup, which inherits the security of Ethereum and stores transaction data on the chain, zkEVM Validium is slightly inferior in security, but its off-chain data storage mechanism has more advantages in cost and scalability.

According to current transaction data, the transaction cost of Polygon zkEVM is approximately $0.02/each, and TPS is ~2,000. The upgraded zkEVM Validium transaction cost will be reduced to $0.00005/each. If TPS refers to StarkEx’s Validium mode, it is expected to increase to around 9,000.

Therefore, in the future Polygon ecosystem, the focus of these two networks will be Differences:

• Polygon zkEVM provides a high level of security. It is suitable for security-first applications, such as DeFi applications.
• Polygon zkEVM Validium is less expensive and more scalable. It is suitable for applications with large transaction volume and low transaction fees, such as Web3 games, social networking, etc.

Protocol architecture upgrade

Polygon 2.0 has upgraded the protocol architecture and will use a layered architecture to maintain network operations. The architecture is divided into 4 layers, each responsible for different work content.

• Pledge layer
• Interoperability layer
• Execution layer
• Verification layer

Pledge layer

The pledge layer is based on the PoS consensus and is responsible for work related to the verifier. It mainly contains two key components: Validator Manager and Chain Manager.

The Validator Manager manages the validators of the entire Polygon ecosystem; while the Chain Manager is responsible for managing the validators on a single chain.

• Validator Manager

Validator Manager is a smart contract that manages all public validators in the Polygon ecosystem. It is responsible for managing all validator-related content, including validator registration, pledge volume statistics, execution of pledge/unstake requests, reward distribution, etc.

• Chain Manager

Chain Manager is a smart contract deployed on a single Polygon ecological chain to manage the verifiers of each single chain. Management content includes the maximum/minimum number of validators, penalty conditions, type/size of tokens required for staking, etc.

Verifiers can become public verifiers of the Polygon ecosystem by staking tokens, and participate in verification as validators on multiple Polygon chains as needed. The validator is mainly responsible for transaction sorting and transaction verification, and collects transaction fees and additional tokens as verification rewards.

Interoperability layer

The interoperability layer is responsible for cross-chain information transfer in the Polygon 2.0 ecosystem.

In the Polygon ecosystem, each Polygon single chain has a message queue. The message queue consists of messages sent to other Polygon chains, including content, target chain, target address, and metadata. Each piece of information has a corresponding ZK certificate. When the ZK proof of specific information is verified, then the target chain starts executing this transaction.

In order to reduce the cost of verifying ZK proofs on Ethereum, Polygon 2.0 plans to add an aggregator in the interoperability layer to aggregate ZK proofs and reduce verification costs. The aggregator is managed by Polygon's public validator pool and can aggregate multiple ZK proofs generated by the message queue into a single ZK proof and send it to Ethereum for verification.

Execution layer

The execution layer is responsible for the actual execution of transactions. It enables each Polygon single chain to generate orderly transactions and assist in transaction execution. The execution layer consists of multiple common basic blockchain network components, including the well-known P2P, consensus, Mempool, database, etc.

Verification layer

The verification layer is responsible for generating ZK certificates for each transaction on the Polygon single chain (including cross-chain transactions), and assists in building different types of VMs. It mainly contains 3 components:

• Prover

Prover is a high-performance ZK prover that supports any transaction type. It has efficient proof speed and can assist in verifying transaction proofs.

• Custom zkVM

Custom zkVM is a modular virtual machine framework. It allows developers to easily build the required virtual machines through its interface.

• VM

VM can help the verifier simulate the proof execution environment and transaction format. Simulation is generally implemented through VM Constructor. Currently, Polygon 2.0 includes two VMs: zkEVM and Miden VM.

Token Economic Update

Polygon 2.0 plans to convert its native token $MATIC to $POL to be used as a unified utility token for the Polygon ecosystem.

$POL has an initial supply of 10 billion and will be migrated 1:1 from $MATIC. $MATIC holders have four or more years to upgrade their tokens. Unlike $MATIC’s fixed supply, $POL will be minted over the next ten years with an annual inflation rate of 2%. This inflation rate can subsequently be changed through governance.

The most important feature of $POL is its cross-chain interoperability. It can be used in all chains in the Polygon ecosystem. $POL is able to verify transactions on different chains and connect different protocols, thereby promoting the development of the Polygon ecosystem. At the same time, $POL holders can become validators on multiple chains to help Polygon maintain network security and earn rewards.

Token utility

The main utility of $POL is 4 points:

• Verifier pledge

Polygon 2.0 validators need to stake $POL to participate in verification.

• Validator Rewards

Polygon 2.0 will continue to provide a predetermined amount of $POL rewards to validators. The reward share will increase or decrease with future community governance.

• Governance

$POL can be used for governance. Polygon 2.0 will have a new community treasury managed by $POL holders to support the growth of the Polygon ecosystem.

• Transaction fees

Verifiers can verify multiple chains in the Polygon ecosystem and charge transaction fees in the form of $POL.

Governance mechanism upgrade

Polygon 2.0’s governance mechanism will be upgraded around three aspects: core protocol, system smart contract, and community funds.

Core Protocol

Polygon 2.0 proposes the PIP (Polygon Improvement Proposal) framework for the core protocol. This framework is similar to Ethereum’s EIP (Ethereum Improvement Proposal) framework and is mainly used to assist developers in making development and upgrade suggestions for the core components of the protocol.

System Smart Contract

Polygon 2.0 introduces the Ecosystem Committee, which is responsible for the upgrade of system smart contracts. The committee will implement decision-making through a token holding governance model. It allocates voting rights based on holding shares of Polygon’s native token.

In addition, the ecosystem committee will also launch a Dashboard to monitor contract upgrades.

Community Funding

Polygon 2.0 plans to establish an ecosystem fund to support potential Polygon ecosystem projects. At the same time, Polygon will establish a community finance committee to be responsible for fund allocation and related community governance work.