Why Polygon went from partnering with Starbucks and Reddit to degens – DL News

• Polygon’s emphasis on alliances with household names has been wiped out in this bull market.
• CEO Marc Boiron wants to let degenerates do what they do best.
• The evolution of the Layer 2 blockchain ecosystem reflects broader market movements.

As of July 2023, the Polygon blockchain network was best known for attracting major corporate brands.

Starbucks, Reddit, Meta, Salesforce, and Mastercard have all launched projects on the Polygon ecosystem.

Crypto supporters impressed called Polygon Labs’ business development team, the lead developer behind the Polygon ecosystem, “gigachads,” although two of the team’s leaders were women.

Today, CEO Marc Boiron and Polygon’s founders are moving away from flashy partnerships and turning the network into a home for “someone who wants to get into Web3 protocols and have fun, even if they lose money.”

In other words, degenerates.

Change of strategy

The change in strategy reflects a broader shift in the cryptocurrency market. In this bull cycle, projects like pump.fun allow users to revel in what crypto does best: volatile speculation.

Boiron, the former general counsel of Polygon Labs, is not the stereotypical supporter of degenerates.

He is a seasoned lawyer who decided to take the plunge into crypto when he joined dYdX as the DeFi protocol’s chief legal officer in 2021.

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In 2022, after spending much of his career in crypto, primarily advising DeFi projects, he joined Polygon Labs, serving as Chief Legal Officer and then CEO.

“I [didn’t] “I want to do pure legal work my whole life,” he told DL News.

Chords that are running out of steam

Boiron, in consultation with Polygon’s founders, has decided to stop seeking high-profile partnerships.

“We were doing a lot of random activities that I would say were very volume-driven, but weren’t really focused on some of the key Web3 audiences,” he said of the company’s previous strategy.

And many of these “random activities” were running out of steam.

“If we wanted to bring in the degenerates, we couldn’t be the partner channel. It couldn’t happen.”

In 2023, Meta farm its attempts to integrate NFTs into Facebook and Instagram.

A year later, Starbucks announcement that it would end Odyssey, its NFT-based customer loyalty program.

And while Reddit’s NFT marketplace, built on Polygon, still exists, the number of users creating NFTs has declined since January, according to Dune Analytics.

“We assumed too early that they would create a chain business today,” Boiron said, referring to corporate brands.

Focus on DeFi

As Big Tech has lost interest in cryptocurrencies, the founders of Boiron and Polygon have decided to turn to DeFi, which Boiron believes is driving the growth of blockchains.

“If we wanted to attract degenerates, we couldn’t be the partnership channel,” he said. “That couldn’t happen.”

So, Polygon Labs doubled its DeFi team and hired, for example, the pseudonymous Carnation, who describe themselves as “[j]just a degenerate flower on CT [Crypto Twitter].”

This too spear its community grants program, which makes it easier for crypto-native projects to get funding, he said.

And it shifted its organizational focus from marketing and negotiations to product development.

These include Polygon’s continued focus on zero-knowledge technology as well as the AggLayer, a way for protocols to send assets to other chains more efficiently.

Caustic memes

Degen culture is not for the faint of heart, however. It features caustic memes, a gambler’s obsession with risk, and a general distaste for the conventions of Fortune 500 companies.

Boiron doesn’t believe Polygon Labs’ change in strategy will prevent major brands from relying on Polygon.

For example, Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News, recently selected Polygon to create protocol to identify deepfakes.

However, Boiron knows that every strategy involves trade-offs.

“If we alienate one or two brands,” he said DL News“it’s OK.”

Ben Weiss is a Dubai correspondent for DL News. Got a tip? Email him at bweiss@dlnews.com.

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