Polymarket's' Declaration of Independence ': Abandoning Polygon to Build L2, Are We Going to Issue Coins? In this industry, traffic is everything, but retention is the king. Just this week, Hildobby, the data director of Dragonfly, threw out a Dune chart that severely slapped the faces of all the bad singers: Polymarket's total trading volume exceeded $1.3 billion this week, setting a new historical high. Note that this data even exceeds the peak during the 2024 US election period. Latest news from Polymarket - Break away from Polygon and establish your own Layer 2 empire, also known as the legendary 'POLY Chain'. Today, let's delve into this heavyweight bomb: Why does Polymarket "backstab" Polygon? What does building L2 mean? And most importantly, where are our opportunities in this wave? 1、 Why did you leave Polygon The official Mustafa's statement on Discord was very straightforward, even with a hint of 'enough' resentment. To summarize, there are two points: Polygon can no longer sustain itself: frequent downtime has even led to instability from third-party suppliers (GoldSky, Alchemy), making it unable to support the existing transaction scale. Strategic priority 1: Developing our own L2 is currently the top priority for the company. If you frequently use Polymarket this year, you will find that the experience is indeed declining. Especially when there is sudden news (such as an escalation of a geopolitical conflict or a central bank interest rate decision), on chain confirmation is so slow that it makes people want to hit the keyboard. For a platform dedicated to creating a 'global instant messaging market', latency is a death sentence. The current size of Polymarket is no longer a DApp. Its daily activity, cash flow, and demand for high-frequency data have made it a 'super application'. When an application reaches a certain level of scale, a universal public chain (even a high-performance L2) becomes its constraint. This is like dYdX leaving Ethereum L2 to create an application chain in Cosmos, or Unichain announcing its departure from the mainnet. 'Independent portal' is the ultimate fate of all super DApps. Only by having one's own chain can one control TPS (transactions per second), overcome the lag of third-party RPC nodes like Alchemy, and achieve true 'vertical integration'. 2、 The Ambition of "5-minute Market" and High frequency Trading Mustafa also revealed a crucial piece of information: the "5-minute market" will be launched this week. This is not simply adding a new bet. This is a crucial step in Polymarket's transformation from a "prediction platform" to a "binary options exchange". Previously, we bet on 'who will be the president' and 'whether the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next month', which are low-frequency and long tail events. What are you betting on in the '5-minute market' now? It could be 'Will Bitcoin prices rise or fall in the next 5 minutes' or' Will a goal be scored in a certain game in the next 5 minutes'. What does this mean? This means high-frequency trading (HFT). This means that users no longer come once a week, but a hundred times a day. This means that the trading volume will multiply several times from the current billions. Polygon's existing architecture cannot withstand this level of high-frequency throughput. So, Polymarket must build their own L2. They need a chain that can run high-frequency contracts, has almost zero gas fees, and is completely controlled by themselves. 3、 L2 has arrived, will the token still be far away? This is the part that everyone is most concerned about. When Mustafa was asked about Token in the community, he replied, "The next step is Token! ） This is not just a hint, it's a clear sign. If Polymarket had issued a governance token POLY in the past, I might have thought the valuation would be the same, at most it would be Uniswap. But now the logic has completely changed: It is not issuing a DApp token, but a gas token for a public chain (L2). The valuation logic here is vastly different: As a DApp, its value depends on the distribution of transaction fees. As an L2 public chain, its value depends on the prosperity of the entire ecosystem, gas consumption, revenue from sequencers, and the possibility of other applications running on POLY Chain in the future. Looking at the current Base chain, although no coins have been issued, Coinbase is making a lot of money. If Polymarket turns this L2 into a 'settlement layer for global forecasting and information markets', the market cap of POLY will be completely lifted. 4、 Cold thinking on the industry landscape: Polygon's twilight? Polygon was undoubtedly the king of L2 in the last bull market, bringing in Starbucks, Nike, and Reddit with its strong business development (BD) capabilities. But the current situation is that all the super apps that truly emerge have to run away from home. Polymarket is the most core and popular application on Polygon, without exception. Its departure is a devastating blow to Polygon's TVL and Nikko. This once again confirms the trend that universal L2 is losing its moat, and the future is an era of "one super (Ethereum mainnet) and multiple strong (super application chain)". This also reminds us that the old mainstream coins in our hands need to be exchanged. If it does not possess unique irreplaceability, it will be mercilessly crushed by new narratives in 2026. 5、 What should we do? (Practical suggestions) Since L2 and coin issuance are already "obvious signs", the current strategy is very clear: 1. Interaction, still interaction: Even if you used to think prediction was something to play during an election, you must go back and brush it up now. Especially for the upcoming "5-minute market", this must be a highly weighted airdrop standard. Don't just look at quantity, look at frequency. 2. Pay attention to the "migration" action: The official said they will abandon GoldSky and Alchemy, which means the underlying data architecture will change. Pay attention to when the official will start "asset migration" or "cross chain bridge", and be the first batch of users to transfer funds to the new L2, usually with good news. Re evaluate valuation: If you have off exchange points or options, don't rush to sell them. Polymarket is evolving from a 'single application' to an 'ecosystem'. Its benchmark is no longer Augur, but infrastructure such as Solana or Arbitrum. finally Polymarket TVL (source "DefiLlama") 13 years ago, I thought Bitcoin was a geek toy; Five years ago, I thought DeFi was a financial game; In 2024, I think Polymarket is a general election casino. Now, looking at Polymarket's data, what I see is a new 'truth layer'. It not only has liquidity that did not collapse due to the end of the election, but now it also has its own L2 and Token. Polymarket is undergoing an astonishing transformation, and this' independent nation building 'may be one of the biggest Alphas of this cycle. everybody. See you on the new L2.