Polygon vs Arbitrum for On-Chain Attestations

Specific advantage: Lower average transaction fees (~$0.01-$0.05). This matters for protocols like EAS (Ethereum Attestation Service) or Verax where high-frequency, low-value attestations (e.g., reputation scores, content verification) are core to the model. The Polygon PoS chain offers finality in ~2 seconds, ideal for user-facing applications.

Specific advantage: Inherits Ethereum's security via fraud proofs on the AnyTrust DA. This matters for high-value, immutable attestations like KYC credentials, legal agreements, or asset provenance where the cost of a successful attack is catastrophic. Its superior EVM equivalence ensures complex attestation schemas from mainnet deploy without modification.

Specific advantage: Dominant market share in gaming, social, and identity with protocols like Lens Protocol, Aavegotchi, and Quadrata. This matters for attestations tied to social graphs, in-game achievements, or decentralized identity, providing immediate composability and user bases. The Polygon CDK also offers a path to app-specific attestation chains.

Specific advantage: Largest L2 TVL (~$18B) and deep integration with Uniswap, GMX, and Compound. This matters for attestations that need to interact with or prove ownership of high-value DeFi positions, collateral status, or creditworthiness. The Arbitrum Stylus upgrade enables attestation logic in Rust/WASM for performance-critical use cases.

Specific advantage: Average attestation cost is <$0.01, significantly lower than Arbitrum's typical $0.05-$0.15. This matters for high-volume attestation use cases like decentralized credentials (DIDs) or supply chain tracking, where cost-per-attestation is a primary scaling constraint.

Specific advantage: Polygon's AggLayer aims for unified liquidity and state across chains, and its EVM+ environment offers custom WASM execution. This matters for projects building novel attestation schemas or requiring interoperability beyond standard EVM, like those using Verifiable Credentials (W3C).

Specific advantage: Dominant market share (55%+ L2 TVL) attracts best-in-class tooling like The Graph, Ponder, and EAS (Ethereum Attestation Service) deployments. This matters for teams prioritizing rich indexing, schema discovery, and integration with a mature DeFi/NFT ecosystem for attestation value capture.

Specific advantage: Leverages Ethereum's consensus directly via AnyTrust and offers consistent ~40k TPS on Nova. This matters for high-stakes institutional attestations (e.g., real-world asset tokenization) or applications where data availability and finality security are non-negotiable.

Specific weakness: Ecosystem is split between PoS, zkEVM, and CDK chains, diluting developer focus. This matters for attestation apps needing deep, unified liquidity or fearing chain-specific fragmentation of their attested data graph.

Specific weakness: While cheaper than Ethereum, base fees are 5-15x higher than Polygon's. This matters for mass-scale, user-paid attestation models (e.g., social or gaming) where marginal cost directly impacts user adoption and growth ceilings.

Specific advantage: 4,000+ dApps deployed and a mature ecosystem of identity tools (e.g., Gitcoin Passport, Verax). This matters for attestation composability, as you can easily integrate with existing identity primitives, social graphs, and credential verifiers without building from scratch.

Specific advantage: ~$0.001 average transaction cost vs. Arbitrum's ~$0.10. This matters for mass-scale attestation issuance, such as issuing millions of credentials for a loyalty program or event attendance proofs, where cost predictability and scalability are critical.

Specific advantage: Relies on a smaller, permissioned validator set for its PoS chain. This matters for high-value attestations (e.g., KYC credentials, legal proofs) where the security and liveness of the base layer are non-negotiable. The trust model is less decentralized than Ethereum L1.

Specific advantage: Ecosystem is split across PoS, zkEVM, and CDK chains. This matters for attestation portability and utility, as your credentials may have limited reach or require bridging to be used in high-value DeFi or governance applications on other chains.

Specific advantage: Inherits security from Ethereum L1 via fraud proofs (AnyTrust) and holds ~$18B in TVL. This matters for permissionless, high-assurance attestations where the integrity and censorship-resistance of the record are paramount, such as for academic credentials or asset provenance.

Specific advantage: Leads L2s with ~55% market share and $3B+ in stablecoin supply. This matters for attestations with financial stakes, like undercollateralized lending reputations or DAO membership with treasury access, where the credential's value is tied to deep, accessible liquidity.

Specific advantage: Base fees are 10-100x higher than Polygon's. This matters for user-paid attestation models or protocols requiring frequent state updates (e.g., dynamic reputation scores), where cost can become a barrier to adoption and scale.

Specific advantage: Fewer native attestation frameworks compared to Polygon. While EAS is deployed, the surrounding tooling and integrated dApps are less mature. This matters for teams that want out-of-the-box solutions and don't have resources for extensive custom integration work.