What is MATIC used for?

The MATIC token has two main use cases: to pay for gas fees on the network and for staking to secure the blockchain. The Polygon network requires a small amount of MATIC to execute transactions on the blockchain. Validators on the network are required to stake MATIC to process network activity in return for staking rewards and transaction fees (paid in MATIC).

MATIC tokenomics

The total supply of MATIC is capped at 10B tokens. The initial exchange offering was conducted on Binance with around 19% of the total supply sold. Subsequently, Polygon conducted two private funding rounds that collectively sold 3.8% of the token's supply. The remaining token supply is distributed between the team (16%), advisors (4%), network operations (12%), foundation (~22%), and ecosystem (~23%).

How does MATIC accrue value?

A portion of fees paid to execute transactions on the Polygon network are burned, reducing the supply, and increasing the MATIC token's scarcity. If network demand is strong enough and the number of MATIC burned exceeds the amount minted via staking rewards, then the asset can become deflationary. Polygon implemented a similar update to Ethereum's EIP-1559 in which all base fees are burned. This deflationary effect will mostly be offset in the beginning by inflationary token emissions to reward validators.