Both MATIC and POND act as native tokens that are part of their respective ecosystems. MATIC is the native coin of Polygon, an Ethereum scaling solution that’s often regarded as one of the most important Ethereum-based projects. On the other hand, POND is part of the Marlin protocol, which offers a programmable network infrastructure and is considered a significant step forward to Web 3.0.
Polygon and Marlin are similar projects, and their respective cryptocurrencies are actively traded on popular exchanges. In the following article, we’ll overview MATIC vs POND and help you decide if they are worth it.
MATIC Crypto and Its Ecosystem
You can think of Polygon as a platform that connects different Ethereum blockchains, creating a network of those blockchains. Hence, it was named the internet of blockchains, and its goal is to help Ethereum scale while bridging that gap between different chains, bringing us closer to Web 3.0.
Polygon’s native token is MATIC, an ERC-20 token compatible with other digital currencies on Ethereum. MATIC owners can use the popular crypto to govern and secure the popular platform. Moreover, it’s used for paying fees for transactions made on Polygon.
Polygon is based on a modified proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.
Moreover, a user can create a blockchain using the technologies also adopted by Ethereum, such as optimistic rollup chains and ZK rollup chains.
History of MATIC’s Market Performance
MATIC’s price skyrocketed in 2021, which made it one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the crypto space. At the moment, it’s the tenth most popular crypto, and the overall market cap is around $7 billion.
A total of 10,000,000,000 MATIC will ever be minted, with 87% of that number already in circulation.
An all-time low occurred on May 9, 2019, when Polygon was still new and not noticed by many crypto investors and traders.
MATIC reached an all-time high on December 27, 2021, when a single unit was $2.92. Around that time, Polygon stuck a deal with Nike, which attracted many crypto enthusiasts to purchase MATIC, who noticed that the protocol was doing pretty well.
POND Crypto and Its Ecosystem
POND is a crypto for the Marlin protocol, which aims to bridge the gap between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. It wants to provide blockchain solutions with increased performance that work as well as traditional apps. Overall, we could say that Marlin aims to improve the decentralization, security, and scalability that come with Web 3.0.
POND is also an ERC-20 token, as Marlin is an Ethereum-based platform. Therefore, it’s compatible with other Ethereum tokens, including MATIC.
POND can be used for staking at Marlin, as the protocol is based on the delegated proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Therefore, POND owners can make passive income by staking their money and, thus, improving the platform’s operations and security.
History of POND’s Market Performance
Like MATIC, POND has a finite number of currencies, with the total supply also being 10,000,000,000 POND. A total of 50% of all POND tokens are currently in circulation. The main difference is the overall popularity between the two, as POND is not even in the first 300 most popular tokens based on market cap, which is around $37 million.
POND’s price was the highest at the time it was launched, with the all-time high recorded on December 21, 2020 ($0.3845). After that, it had ups and downs, but the lowest recorded price was on May 12, 2022 — $0.006. There’s no particular reason for this happening, as POND only followed the market trends led by Bitcoin, and it was when the price of BTC started plummeting.
Conclusion
Even though MATIC and POND are very similar cryptocurrencies supporting similar projects, they are both unique. At the moment, investing in MATIC is a much safer option, as it’s a much more popular crypto, but POND might surprise us in the future, as everything is possible in the crypto world. Your job would be to follow the latest news about these cryptos and do further research if you want to learn more about them and make the right investment choice. Alternatively, you can check other popular cryptos, such as the SRM vs FTT pair.