Polygon Becoming More Independent From Ethereum as App Numbers Rise: Report

How long does a layer 2 remain a layer 2?

A new report released on Wednesday from blockchain development platform Alchemy shows that the number of apps on self-described Ethereum layer 2 Polygon is growing at a rapid rate and that the ecosystem is increasingly becoming independent from projects on the Ethereum base layer.

More than 3,000 apps are now on the chain, up from just 30 last year, according to the report. Additionally, Alchemy has seen a 61% increase in the number of teams building on the chain month-over-month.

Polygon is growing “two times faster than Ethereum did at this point in its lifecycle,” Alchemy product manager Mike Garland said.

While Polygon is often referred to as a sidechain and developers are working to position it as a complement to Ethereum rather than a competitor, the data shows that the number of new Polygon-native apps is outstripping the number of apps deployed to both chains – possibly a sign of growing independence.

Of the new apps deployed to Polygon, only 38% are being built on both Polygon and Ethereum, versus 62% deployed exclusively on Polygon, according to Alchemy’s report.

Garland said that the data shows how projects that are ETH-native but also deploy to Polygon are growing in tandem with fully MATIC-native projects. MATIC is Polygon’s native token.

“I think the most interesting thing to me about this data is that we’re seeing both developing in parallel (roughly 4/10 using Polygon alongside Eth, 6/10 using just Polygon). There are certainly many teams that are launching and growing natively on Polygon, but also a substantial group using Polygon to deepen what they started in the Ethereum ecosystem and enable new use cases,” he said.

MATIC is up 3.86% on the day to $1.54, while ETH is up 8.35% to $4,105.

CORRECTION: Updated to accurately reflect team growth percentage