Key takeaways:
- Fantasy sports and sports betting firm DraftKings has partnered with B2B digital asset infrastructure provider to start earning MATIC rewards for being a Polygon network validator
- Close to $770 million in crypto rewards has been earned to date by Polygon validators
- Zero Hash will stake MATIC tokens on behalf of DraftKings
DraftKings becomes the first major publicly-traded company to engage in PoS governance actively
US-based sports betting giant DraftKings has partnered with leading B2B crypto infrastructure provider Zero Hash to become the first major publicly-traded company to engage in Proof-of-Stake (PoS) governance actively. According to Monday’s press release, Zero Hash will stake Polygon’s MATIC tokens on behalf of DraftKings, allowing the company to earn validator rewards for its efforts of securing the rapidly growing blockchain network.
Paul Liberman, a co-founder and President of Global Product and Technology at DraftKings, commented on the company becoming Polygon network validator:
“Participating in validation supports DraftKings’ broader strategy of building out a robust, sustainable, trustworthy and decentralized infrastructure to help futureproof aspects of our business in the Web3 era.”
Network validators play an essential role in securing PoS ecosystems. By allocating MATIC tokens, Polygon validators make it possible for new transactions to be added to the Polygon blockchain. Once a new block of transactions is verified, stakers are eligible to receive validator rewards.
Per the press release, Polygon validators have earned nearly $770 million in MATIC rewards to date. At the time of this writing, Polygon’s staked value is $3.95 billion, roughly equivalent to 35% of its total market cap.
Sandeep Nailwal, a co-founder of Polygon, said the team is “thrilled” to “welcome DraftKings as one of the first corporate validators.”
DraftKings could be looking to expand its NFT offering to Polygon
As the leading Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, Polygon boasts fast transactions and lower fees than its parent network, making it a perfect candidate for Web3-powered solutions. For this reason, the Polygon network has become a hotbed for non-fungible token (NFT) collections.
According to market research firm Dappradar, more than $590 million worth of NFTs have been traded on Polygon, with OpenSea accounting for the largest share with $504 million trading volume.
The DraftKings team is no stranger to NFTs themselves. Last year, the company launched its own NFT marketplace. DraftKings noted that 116 digital collections had been sold out since then, generating $44 million in trading volume.
With earning potential of PoS chains and decentralized finance (DeFi) in general, it will be interesting to observe whether more companies decide to follow in DraftKings’ footsteps in the near future.
