Virtua taps polygon to expand NFT marketplace

by James · October 12, 2022

Virtua’s recent deal with Polygon is part of an effort to expand the NFT marketplace. NFTs and other cryptocurrency-related products faced a decline in value as the bears took control of the market. Given the excitement surrounding the NFT industry, many found this shocking.

Many in the community avoided discussing how NFTs were the future after sales of NFTs suffered a significant drop. Many began to believe that non-fungible tokens were just a fad. Popular platforms like Polygon have continued to see opportunities in the industry, however.

To enhance its NFT marketplace, Polygon has announced a new partnership with Virtua.

Polygon x Virtua collaboration will ensure a greener marketplace

With the new partnership, Virtua’s NFT marketplace will operate faster and with less environmental impact. The Virtua platform helps artists create useful, immersive 3D NFTs. Artists can display their items in Virtua’s metaverse showroom.

Virtua chose Polygon because of its scalability and environmental friendliness. The collaboration will also enable Virtua users to leverage Polygon’s zkEVM technology. This will result in faster transactions, lower gas costs and increased security.

Many platforms are attracted to Polygon due to its focus on carbon neutrality and capacity to produce NFTs more affordably. The relationship between cryptocurrencies and the environment has long been debated.

One of the main criticisms of Bitcoin, Ethereum and its proof-of-work mining consensus has been its environmental impact. Ethereum recently switched to a proof-of-stake consensus, however. This negated criticism of Ethereum’s energy-intensive mining process.

Before Ethereum switched to Proof of Stake, minting an NFT on Ethereum resulted in around 150 kg of CO2, which is comparable to watching 4,320 hours of Netflix. In contrast, embossing on the MATIC produced just 4g of CO2, which is just 40 seconds of Netflix viewing.

The merger brought Polygon’s carbon emissions down by a further 99.91%, bringing it much closer to its 2022 carbon negative goal.

Thanks to the merger, Ethereum made significant strides towards sustainability, but it continues to rely on Layer 2 solutions like MATIC to deliver the scalability, cheap gas costs, and fast transactions that platforms like Virtua require. After Ethereum, more coins are likely to follow.