Palm Network is taking the leap over to Polygon, outlining a new roadmap to deploy on the network’s Supernet by 2024.
Led by the creator’s network eponymously named foundation, the two-step process kicks off today, signaling a migration from its current proof-of-authority (PoA) consensus mechanism to a proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism by next Tuesday.
The second step, slated for next year, will be a full move over to Polygon.
Palm Network was originally built as an Ethereum sidechain, offering key tools to let creators and artists share, create, and sell their works as tokenized assets. Thanks to a recent merger with Candy Digital, the network also plays host to IP from brand names like Major League Baseball and Warner Brothers.
Renowned British artist Damien Hirst counts among the many artists building on Palm. He released his work ‘The Currency’ there back in 2021.
The move to Polygon in 2024—specifically its highly-scalable app-specific chains called Supernets—is aimed at continuing to scale its suite of tools for even more brand names and artists to make the jump into Web3.
“We want to scale the network to be the go-to destination for any creator that wants to delve into Web3,” Palm Foundation director Andrea Lerdo told Decrypt. “We want to give fans a new outlet to interact with their favorite brands, themes, sports, or players.”
These Supernets are part of Polygon’s recent network upgrade, which will see its native MATIC token deprecated and introduce the POL token. Polygon 2.0, as the network is called, will also roll out supernets built specifically for financial markets, NFT creation, and other niche use cases. These Supernets are expected to introduce zero-knowledge (ZK) technology down the line too.
Palm Network leaves the ConsenSys nest
First launched by ConsenSys in 2021, the move to Polygon’s tech stack instead of deploying on ConsenSys’ newly launched layer-2 solution Linea was a rare piece of collaboration in such a competitive industry.
“As we're trying to scale the network, Joe Lubin basically reached out to Sandeep to say, we need to bring the network into the next phase,” Lerdo said. “We are all living in a bear market. It’s time to start collaborating at the same time as we compete. And Palm is the perfect playground to do that.”
With Polygon providing technical support and ConsenSys offering business development and marketing, Lerdo admits it’s “a very difficult time for us in the middle.”
Still, the balancing act is nonetheless “interesting,” with Lerdo saying that onboarding contributors to Palm “will be beneficial not only for the companies, but for the ecosystem generally.”