August 16, 2021
Indian crypto startup Polygon, formerly called Matic Network, has acquired Hermez Network, a zero-knowledge cryptography-based scaling project, in a $250-million deal. The two blockchain projects are also merging their native tokens — MATIC and HEZ — in the first ever such deal in the crypto space, reported Live Mint.
Earlier this year, two Ethereum projects, Keep and NuCypher, also merged their protocols, but they kept their brands independent of each other and did not merge their tokens. According to Polygon, only a few actual attempts have so far been made on merging two networks. “This is in a way a historical moment since this will be (to the best of our knowledge) the first full-blown merger of two blockchain networks.”
Polygon also announced that HEZ token holders will be able to swap their tokens for Polygon’s native token (Matic) via the swapping contract that companies will announce soon. The swap ratio has been set at 3.5 Matic:1 HEZ. Moreover, the HEZ token will cease to exist after a specific date, which is yet to be announced.
There are over 350 projects in the Polygon ecosystem currently and the Hermez merger will help them to have more scalability for their applications, said Bjelic.
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