How SEC lawsuits affect Polygon

The U.S. remains a key market for large blockchain services, including Polygon. But strict regulation of their token circulation is forcing them to find new ways to position their assets and developments

MATIC is a Polygon blockchain token developed by the American company Polygon Labs with an investment of more than $450 million and a valuation of $20 billion. The market capitalization of the token, even after a major price drop, exceeds $6 billion. And the asset itself is in the top ten of CoinMarketCap. Polygon solutions are used by major brands, including Adobe, Starbucks, Mastercard, Reddit, etc.

Faced with the growing consequences of sensational lawsuits by U.S. regulators. Now Polygon Labs has unveiled a concept for the Polygon 2.0 network update package. And among which is an emphasis on the “utility and evolution of the native token.” Interestingly, two days before the announcement, the company released a statement on Twitter. In which it openly emphasized its focus on the market outside of the U.S.

“We are proud of the history of the Polygon network – developed outside the US, deployed outside the US, and focused to this day on the global community that supports the network. MATIC was a necessary part of the Polygon technology from Day 1, ensuring that the network would be secure – and remains so to this day,” the company wrote. And while adding that “the market outside the U.S. is the largest in the world.”

In April 2019, when the project was called Matic Network before rebranding to Polygon. At that time, the team held an ICO token sale, raising $5.6 million. Several investment rounds followed. And the main event of which was a closed sale of tokens worth $450 million. American investors participated in the financing of the company. As well as firms such as Galaxy Digital or Seven Seven Six. Polygon says that while they always intended to “make MATIC accessible to a wide range of individuals,” the fundraising “has never been aimed at the United States.”

Polygon 2.0

The announcement of the new network from Polygon Labs also emphasizes. That the initiative belongs to the global community of token holders and developers interested in the development of the project. “Only the community that controls the Polygon protocol has the right to adopt and implement Polygon 2.0 solutions,” the publication states. However, our experts note that Polygon Labs, as the main developer of the protocol, obviously has significant influence over the project. And so the ability of the “community” to manage the development of the network is somehow limited.

According to SEC head Gary Gensler, decentralized finance (DeFi) projects are often not technically very decentralized. And their developers make profits in the same way that traditional businesses do. At some point there is always management or developers present. And sometimes there are investors who can be held accountable on behalf of the project.

“The core development teams of Uniswap, Open Sea, Alchemy and many other major Web3 projects are still based in the United States.” Antonio Giuliano, co-founder of decentralized cryptocurrency exchange dYdX, wrote this. His service runs on smart contracts, which does not involve a centralized intermediary. But behind its development and support is an American company, dYdX Trading, which employs about 50 people.

According to Giuliano, the U.S. has a very proper approach to technology. And all that regulators need to do in the matter of regulating the Web3 sphere is to “at least regard it prudently.”