MATIC Jumps 20% in a Day After Instagram’s Polygon NFT Minting Reveal

Polygon, an Ethereum side chain network, sees big price gains for its token MATIC after Meta announced Instagram would use Polygon network for its upcoming in-app NFT minting feature earlier this week.

According to CoinGecko data, MATIC is up about 20% in the last 24 hours, from about $0.94 to $1.13. In the past week, MATIC climbed 25% and has gained a staggering 35% in the past month.

What is MATIC for something? While Polygon users can pay for many transactions in EthereumMATIC is required to pay for the gas charges online. (Gas fees are essentially transaction fees paid to the network.) Polygon’s gas fees are very low, but still required for transactions. Sometimes, NFTs can be purchased with MATIC as well, so traders can avoid the process of build a bridge or packaging Ethereum or searching for a crypto exchange that will sell Wrapped Ethereum naturally on Polygon.

But Instagram’s NFT imprint feature is a big deal—last year, CNBC reported that Instagram has over 2 billion monthly users. That means a lot of potential traffic for the Polygon network.

“Creators on Instagram having the ability to engage with fans and monetize through polygon-powered digital collectibles is a watershed moment for both the creator economy and web3,” Polygon Studios CEO Ryan Wyatt previously said Decryptadding that in his view, “Polygon excels in delivering Web3 to the masses.”

Historically, NFTs – unique blockchain tokens signifying ownership – have been popular on Ethereum with creators earning over 1.8 billion dollars in royalties alone, an October research report from Galaxy Digital revealed. Compared to the Ethereum network, the Polygon NFT economy has been significantly smaller.

According to a Dune Analytics dashboard, nearly 309,000 Polygon NFTs were sold on OpenSea in October. In contrast, more than 1.1 million NFTs were sold on Ethereum’s mainnet at OpenSea last month. That’s a difference of 112%.

But with Reddit users creating above 3 millions wallets to create and trade the platform’s “Collectible Avatars,” the nearly 3 million Reddit Polygon NFTs in existence to date per data gathered at Dune, and Polygon’s massive upcoming partnership with StarbucksPolygon’s slew of partnerships with major brands is a sign that its advocates are pushing hard toward the vision of mass adoption.