Associated Press (AP) says it is going to “launch a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace built by blockchain technology provider Xooa, where collectors can purchase the news agency’s award-winning contemporary and historic photojournalism.”

What Is Polygon ($MATIC)?

Polygon is “a protocol and a framework for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks”; it aggregates “scalable solutions on Ethereum supporting a multi-chain Ethereum ecosystem.”

On 18 May 2021, Anthony Sassano, who joined Polygon as an advisor earlier this year, took to Twitter to clear up some of the confusion around Polygon (e.g. some people refer to Polygon as a sidechain to Ethereum, while others call it an L2 blockchain). Below are a few highlights from that Twitter thread:

  • “There is the Matic Plasma Chain and the Polygon PoS chain. The vast majority of the activity is happening on the PoS chain.“
  • “The PoS chain is what people refer to as a ‘sidechain’ to Ethereum because it has its own permissionless validator set (100+ who are staking MATIC) which means it doesn’t use Ethereum’s security (aka Ethereum’s PoW).“
  • “The PoS chain goes beyond a standard sidechain and actually relies on and commits itself to Ethereum (what some people may call a ‘commit-chain’). It relies on Ethereum because all of the validator/staking logic for the PoS chain lives as a smart contract on Ethereum.“
  • “This means that if the Ethereum network went offline, the Polygon PoS chain would also go offline. Secondly, the PoS chain actually commits/checkpoints itself to Ethereum every so often.“
  • “This has 2 benefits: it provides Ethereum-based finality to the PoS chain & it can help the chain recover in case of catastrophic event. This also means that Polygon is paying Ethereum to use its blockspace (in ETH) & paying for it to secure the contracts & checkpointing.“

Furthermore, Sassano took this opportunity to talk about the two bridges that exist between Ethereum and Polygon:

  • “There are 2 bridges – the Plasma bridge which is secured by Ethereum and the PoS bridge which is secured/operated by the PoS chain validator set.“
  • “Of course, for the PoS bridge, 2/3 of the validators could theoretically collude and try to steal the bridge funds but there’s $3.4 billion at stake so this is risky. If this attack did happen, the checkpointing & social coordination could be the only recourse.“

He also commented on multi-sigs for Polygons contracts:

  • “The multi-sigs exist to allow the contract to be upgraded in case of a bug/exploit which is a practice used by many existing projects (especially those within DeFi).“
  • “However, Polygon’s multi-sigs are 5 of 8 which is definitely not ideal and not decentralized and the plan is to greatly improve this in the near future.“

Finally, he said that Polygon is “committed to building & deploying L2 solutions like rollups in the future” and this is what he is “most excited about.”

AP’s Polygon-Powered NFT Marketplace

AP, which was founded in 1846, is one of the oldest and most important news agencies in the world. It has “earned 54 Pulitzer Prizes, including 32 for photography, since the award was established in 1917.”

In a press release issued on January 10, AP said its new NFT marketplace would be launched on 31 January 2022.

The initial collection will feature photography by current and former AP photojournalists and a selection of digitally enhanced depictions of their work. Pulitzer Prize-winning AP images will be included.

“For 175 years AP’s photographers have recorded the world’s biggest stories through gripping and poignant images that continue to resonate today,” said Dwayne Desaulniers, AP director of blockchain and data licensing. “With Xooa’s technology, we are proud to offer these tokenized pieces to a fast-growing global audience of photography NFT collectors.”

AP went on to say thAT “each NFT will include a rich set of original metadata offering collectors awareness of the time, date, location, equipment and technical settings used for the shot.”

The debut collection will be “released over a period of weeks” starting on January 31 and the NFTs will “range from space, climate, war and other images to spotlights on the work of specific AP photographers.”

AP”s marketplace will “support secondary market transactions and purchases using credit card payments as well as crypto wallets, including MetaMask, with support for Fortmatic, Binance, and Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) to come.”

The NFTs will be “minted on the Polygon blockchain, which is an environmentally friendly, Ethereum-compatible layer two solution.”

Zach Danker-Feldman, Xooa’s head of marketplaces, has this to sY:

“Xooa is proud to work with The Associated Press to launch AP’s NFT marketplace. Xooa’s work with brands around NFTs and metaverse marketplaces provides inherent scarcity and utility for collectors as well as a powerful connection between the virtual world and the real world.

“In this marketplace deployment, emphasis has been placed on accessibility for all types of collectors to empower them to join a community that shares their interest in stunning photography.”

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.

IMAGE CREDIT

Featured Image by “geralt” via Pixabay