DraftKings, a digital sports entertainment and gaming company, today joins the Polygon ecosystem as a validator and node operator, marking this the first time a major publicly-traded firm has taken an active role in blockchain governance.
A validator is a participant in the network who locks up MATIC tokens in the system and runs Heimdall validator and Bor block producer nodes in order to help run the network. Validators stake their MATIC tokens as collateral to work for the security of the network and in exchange for their service, earn rewards.
Polygon relies on a set of validators to secure the network. The role of validators is to run a full node, produce blocks, validate and participate in consensus, and commit checkpoints on the Ethereum mainnet. To become a validator, one needs to stake their MATIC tokens with staking management contracts residing on the Ethereum mainnet.
Paul Liberman, co-founder and president of global product and technology for DraftKings, said in a statement that the company is becoming a Polygon validator because it wants to “futureproof aspects of our business in the Web3 era.”
DraftKings already has participated in the Polygon ecosystem through its NFT marketplace, last year forging an exclusive partnership with Tom Brady’s Autograph and offering sports-focused NFT drops ranging from digital sports cards to signed 3D animations.
So far, DraftKings has seen over $44 million in NFT volume and released 116 sold-out drops. The company also announced in December it would be working on “gamified NFT collections” with the NFL.
According to the press release, more than 2.67 billion of Polygon’s MATIC tokens worth over $4 billion have so far been staked by Polygon validators who have earned close to $770 million in rewards to date.
“DraftKings will take its place among existing validators as an equal community member, solidifying our desire to achieve a decentralized, community-run consensus network,” said Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon.
Over the past couple of years, Polygon has emerged as an important part of Web3 infrastructure by providing an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible sidechain and scaling solution bolstering high transaction speeds and low fees compared to the Ethereum base layer.
Since its debut, DraftKings’ marketplace has released 116 NFT collections grossing $44 million in sales revenue, according to a representative. The platform’s top sale was a rare Tiger Woods collectible, bought for $70,000 in October.
Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot, by comparison, saw $47.5 million in sales volume in February, which was down 20% from its previous month and 80% from its all-time monthly volume high of $224 million in February 2021.
