The U.S. arm of the cryptocurrency exchange Okcoin has integrated with Ethereum layer 2 scaling project Polygon to allow users to directly access the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem without using an Ethereum wallet.
The function of the integration is to allow users to avoid skyrocketing gas fees on Ethereum, which have gotten so high they are pricing some smaller players out of the burgeoning DeFi space.
Users can now withdraw any of the 13 available trading ERC-20 assets (including ETH, UNI, USDT, LINK, COMP and more) from their Okcoin wallet to Polygon’s sidechain. In doing so, users can save up to 25% on gas fees because they no longer have to bridge their assets from an exchange to an Ethereum wallet to Polygon, incurring two transaction fees for using the token bridge.
“Polygon has gotten tremendous early traction as a scaling solution and has taken the lead in scaling Ethereum,” said Okcoin COO Jason Lau. “Projects and users have both flocked to take advantage of the benefits it offers through much faster and cheaper ERC transactions. It’s seen both assets and transactions increase dramatically since the beginning of the year. Projects like Aave, Sushiswap, Balancer and 1inch also have integrations, so there’s a free flow through the Polygon network.”
Removing friction
Lau said this integration makes it quicker to get assets onto Polygon with one-click withdrawals. Transactions are also cheaper because users can skip their own wallets and move assets directly to Polygon.
The user experience is also more streamlined, with Okcoin handling the complexities of bridging assets between the base layer and layer 2.
Lau pointed out that high gas fees are driven by Ethereum’s own increasing popularity, and Polygon is the one of the major players helping to scale the network. He said Okcoin’s integration with Polygon will make it easier to access layer 2 DeFi applications, with convenient payment rails such as debit, credit, Apple Pay and ACH.
The next steps involve giving users open access to the Polygon ecosystem for things like yield farming. This would essentially let users farm on Sushiswap, for example, directly via Okcoin, similar to the current Okcoin Earn function. With Earn, Okcoin covers gas fees and users can deposit stablecoin assets into DeFi liquidity protocols to earn annual percentage yield from protocols such as Curve, YFI and Compound.
With the Polygon integration users can bypass the process of having to deposit funds to their ETH wallet, then transfer funds from Ethereum to Polygon, then go, for example, to Sushiswap or Curve, find a yield offer and invest: They can do it all from the Okcoin platform.