Polygon Developer Education with Rahat Chowdhury
Rahat Chowdhury explains Polygon’s developer tools, proof-of-stake architecture, scaling plans, Polygon ID, and developer education in 2022.
Episode Description
Rahat Chowdhury explains Polygon’s developer tools, proof-of-stake architecture, scaling plans, Polygon ID, and developer education in 2022.
Episode Summary
In this June 2022 QuickNode Twitter Space, Polygon developer advocate Rahat Chowdhury describes his path from frontend engineering and Developer DAO to Polygon, where he focuses on workshops, conferences, and making Web3 development more approachable. He presents Polygon as a suite of Ethereum-scaling tools rather than only its proof-of-stake chain, discussing Polygon Hermez, Polygon Edge, upcoming zero-knowledge and optimistic-rollup work, and Polygon ID. Rahat explains the proof-of-stake chain’s relationship to Ethereum through checkpoints that record hashed state on Ethereum, while distinguishing it from customizable Polygon Edge chains. The conversation then explores decentralized identity, including privacy-preserving proofs for NFT ownership, community access, age requirements, or other credentials. Rahat closes by discussing upcoming releases, hackathons, developer experimentation, and Polygon’s education resources and channels as of 2022.
Speakers
- Noah Hein
- Rahat Chowdhury
Chapters
00:00:00 - Introductions and Rahat’s Path into Web3
The conversation opens with Twitter Spaces audio problems before Noah Hein and Rahat Chowdhury reconnect and exchange brief updates from Austin and New York. Noah then introduces the QuickNode discussion and asks Rahat to explain his role. Rahat identifies himself as a Polygon developer advocate focused on developer interactions, conferences, workshops, and improving the experience of building in Polygon’s ecosystem.
Rahat traces his Web3 interest from casually following 2017 ICOs to investigating NFTs in early 2021. With several years of frontend engineering experience, he began learning Solidity and smart contracts, then found stronger conviction through conversations with builders in Developer DAO rather than social-media noise. Organizing Web3Con connected him with Polygon, and later led to his developer-advocacy role after an earlier position as a frontend engineer at Rabbit Hole.
00:06:03 - Polygon as a Suite of Ethereum Tools
Rahat explains that Polygon should be understood as a suite of tools for developing and scaling on Ethereum, even though many people associate the name primarily with its proof-of-stake blockchain. He frames the broader goal as improving Web3 usability and accessibility, with different products intended for different technical and organizational needs rather than one universal solution.
He highlights Polygon’s scaling and infrastructure work, including Polygon Hermez for transfers and payments, Polygon Edge for creating custom EVM-compatible blockchains, and Polygon ID as an emerging zero-knowledge identity product. Rahat says Polygon Edge can suit enterprises seeking more control, while the proof-of-stake chain may help applications in areas such as NFTs and DeFi reduce barriers for users making smaller transactions.
00:11:27 - Developer Advocacy and Polygon’s Internal Structure
Noah asks how Polygon can maintain such a broad collection of products and where developer advocacy fits into the organization. Rahat says the advocacy function is primarily external, while the teams building each solution generally maintain its documentation because they understand the systems most closely. Advocates work with those teams to translate complex material into useful developer guidance.
Rahat describes his practical focus as technical evangelism through workshops and interactive experiences. He mentions working with Steph Aurelia, who supports hackathons and developer education, and emphasizes hands-on learning over purely promotional explanations. This approach lets the advocacy team identify common questions, understand real developer use cases, and turn internal product knowledge into accessible ways for builders to start using Polygon tools.
00:13:35 - Proof of Stake, Polygon Edge, and Rollup Options
Noah asks for a distinction between Polygon’s proof-of-stake blockchain and layer-two systems. Rahat outlines a high-level architecture involving MATIC, the Polygon chain, Ethereum as the parent layer, and a Plasma layer connecting them. He describes the Polygon chain as operating in parallel with Ethereum while using checkpoints to anchor its state, rather than treating it as identical to a rollup that simply bundles transactions for Ethereum settlement.
Rahat contrasts this with Polygon Edge, which allows developers to create a customized EVM-compatible chain and take greater responsibility for its security and configuration. He also references Polygon Miden in beta and Polygon’s work across zero-knowledge and optimistic-rollup technologies. His central recommendation is architectural fit: developers should select the tool that matches their privacy, enterprise, application, or customization requirements.
00:17:37 - How Plasma Checkpoints Anchor Polygon State
The discussion focuses more closely on the Plasma layer and why Polygon’s proof-of-stake chain is often described differently from systems such as Optimism or Arbitrum. Rahat says checkpoints periodically capture the current state of the Polygon chain and store a hash of that state in a contract on Ethereum. He characterizes this primarily as an archival and anchoring mechanism rather than a description of every transaction being bundled directly into Ethereum.
Noah restates the practical implication for ordinary users: they can transact on Polygon using MATIC without managing the underlying checkpoint process, while the recorded state is intended to make historical data resistant to alteration. Rahat agrees with that framing and points listeners toward Polygon’s documentation for implementation details, including the relevant contract and methods for validating or tracking the state recorded on Ethereum.
00:20:30 - Scaling Strategy and Polygon ID’s Direction
Rahat places the proof-of-stake chain in the context of Polygon’s larger scaling strategy. He says the organization is heavily investing in zero-knowledge technology and SDKs so developers can choose solutions for distinct needs, including privacy-focused applications, on-chain identity, optimistic rollups, and other deployment models. Polygon ID is presented as an example of this effort, though Rahat says more information will become available soon in the 2022 timeline.
When Noah asks what excites him most as a developer advocate, Rahat points to tools that respond to repeated requests from developers. He cites conversations at Graph Hack and elsewhere about decentralized identity, where builders were already proposing applications they wanted to create. His role is to learn from internal teams and repackage emerging technology into workshops, office hours, and other accessible experiences.
00:26:08 - Decentralized Identity and Zero-Knowledge Credentials
Noah asks why developers might use decentralized identity and what Polygon is trying to solve. Rahat explains that Web3 users may want to remain anonymous or pseudonymous while still proving facts about themselves, such as holding a particular NFT or meeting a community requirement. Zero-knowledge systems could allow an application to verify a credential without exposing the underlying identity or all of the associated information.
The examples include access to token-gated communities, age-based requirements, and other applications where a user needs to demonstrate eligibility without handing the application a complete identity record. Noah summarizes this as showing a badge without revealing its contents, and Rahat agrees. He presents Polygon ID as a way to add privacy and safety by limiting what a decentralized application can learn or retain about the person being verified.
00:29:52 - Upcoming Building, Resources, and Closing
Looking six to twelve months ahead from June 2022, Rahat says he is most eager to see what developers create with Polygon tools expected in the coming weeks and months. He connects that anticipation to hackathons and the collaborative learning that originally attracted him to Web3, emphasizing support for builders rather than making a specific forecast about which application category will win.
For people seeking Polygon developer information, Rahat points to the Polygon developer account, Polygon’s technology website, Polygon Village, and the then-current hackathon and educational resources. Noah thanks him for joining and for sharing resources that developers can use to learn, connect with the community, and begin building. Rahat returns the thanks as the conversation closes.
Episode Links
Transcript
This automatic transcript retains the original timestamps and wording apart from clear name corrections. It may contain transcription errors or turns that combine speakers.
00:00:00 - Noah Hein
I can't hear you. Oh, no. Twitter spaces strikes again. Another one is has bitten the dust. Hey, welcome. Welcome back.
00:00:39 - Rahat Chowdhury
Can you hear me?
00:00:41 - Noah Hein
Yeah.
00:00:42 - Rahat Chowdhury
Okay. Great. Sorry. I'm having a bunch of technical issues.
00:00:46 - Noah Hein
Yeah. No worries. Twitter. Twitter. Spaces strikes again. So, how are you, man?
00:00:53 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah, I'm doing good, man. How are things going?
00:00:57 - Noah Hein
things are great. I'm. I'm calling from Austin and it's been like a hundred degrees every single day for like, the last ten days. Oh, man. So I'm. I'm melting. I'm melting a little bit. how about you? What's New York look like? Assuming you're back at. At home, I imagine.
00:01:15 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah, I'm back home, which is good. it's pretty hot here. I don't think it's as bad as you, but, it's it's pretty. It's warming up now.
00:01:25 - Noah Hein
Yeah. Awesome. Well, I'm sure there's a lot of, kind of hubbub happening in New York with, NFT.
00:01:33 - Noah Hein
NYC coming up is like, there are, like a lot of, like, crypto billboards or anything, like, popping, popping up around, like, signage or anything like that. Like what? What does New York look like right now?
00:01:43 - Rahat Chowdhury
So I don't actually go into the city very much. So I couldn't tell you that, I try to stay as far away from there as possible when I can.
00:01:52 - Noah Hein
Oh, that's that's fair enough. I totally understand that having to go through Austin traffic on a regular basis. I think I can understand wanting it, wanting to stay away a little bit, but I'll go ahead and kick things off. Let's go ahead. And Rahat, if you could like introduce yourself and what you do and where you work for all that jazz.
00:02:12 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah, definitely. Hey everyone, I'm Rahat. I am a developer advocate over at polygon. so what I do there is, you know, stuff like this get to interact with folks, developers who are interested in the Web3 space.
00:02:27 - Rahat Chowdhury
going to conferences, doing workshops, that type of thing. And, overall, just trying to, help make the developer experience in sort of the polygon kind of realm a little bit easier and more approachable for everyone.
00:02:45 - Noah Hein
Awesome. and so I'd be curious. I like to get everyone's background before they start, you know, like, really diving in. I'd be curious, like, how did you wind up at polygon, and even before you end up at polygon, like what got you into Web3?
00:03:02 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah, definitely. So I was, I guess, always casually observing Web3. like I was one of those folks who were, you know, playing around in back in like 2017 with all the different ICO's and all that, made a little money, but, didn't really, like, dive in and look at things until probably. Yeah, January of last year. I just got interested by, like, the concept of NFTs, and I just wanted to figure out, like, how they worked. Why are people making so much money off of pictures? so I just started diving in to the tech side of things at that point.
00:03:42 - Rahat Chowdhury
Like, I had already been, I guess like an engineer, for about 3 or 4 years, and mainly on the front end side. So this was kind of like a whole new kind of world to me. learning a little bit about solidity, smart contracts, went through and I think what really kind of like, boosted me to the point where I guess getting here working at polygon was probably joining developer Dao and, interacting with like a lot of folks there who were like, kind of like on similar journeys to me. also like coming from Web2 or just like completely brand new to tech in general and, just like learning about all this stuff. I, I feel like I wasn't quite 100%, into, not maybe not into it or like, convinced by Web3 until like, a few weeks into developer Dao, when I actually started talking to other people in this space rather than just, like, following. Just like all the weird noise and stuff on Twitter. and once I actually started You know, interacting with other developers, understanding what people are building.
00:04:56 - Rahat Chowdhury
I got really, really excited about it. and part of what got me into polygon was I started the initiative to begin Web3 Con for developer Dao, and that was like a virtual conference that we put together there. And one of the sponsors for, well, one of the top sponsors for Web3 con was polygon. so I met and got connected to the Devereaux team. you know, through that experience. And then we just kept talking. met in person over at, like, East Denver. And, you know, one thing led to another. And then I got a job. Offered to be, you know, a developer advocate over there. and pretty much, you know, it's I'm going to take this. I really enjoyed what polygon was doing. I enjoyed, like, the whole Web3 kind of space. and. Yeah, it's my second job in Web3. I was previously working as a front end engineer at Rabbit Hole. so I've jumped around a bit, but. Yeah.
00:06:03 - Noah Hein
Awesome.
00:06:03 - Noah Hein
That's. That's a really cool story on this one. Like, I think a lot of, developer members probably resonate with. I know that that has been like a serious pipeline for a lot of, like premiere, kind of like crypto and Web3 companies. so it's, it's cool to to hear people that I know that I've definitely, like, kind of like leveled up in the space and got really cool, exciting job opportunities from it. going from like, hey, kind of like your background into polygon. Could you tell me like, I'm sure most of the people here are familiar with what polygon is, but like, can can you tell me what is polygon to you and how do you explain it to someone?
00:06:43 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah. The way I like to explain it to folks is that, polygon is a suite of tools. A bunch of tools you can use for developing and scaling on top of Ethereum. Most people, if you've already been in the Web3 space or like developing or creating, you probably may or may not have had interactions with, like our proof of stake blockchain, which I think most people think is polygon.
00:07:11 - Rahat Chowdhury
I mean, it is it's it's just one thing that polygon does. but there's, you know, I look at it as like, you know, we're building a bunch of different tools for figuring out how to make better, you know, UX choices for people in Web3, how to, you know, just get more mass adoption, get more people using it. You know, it's I guess there's a little cheap now, but, you know, when it's not of, like, making it more accessible and, like, easier just to use, you know, blockchain technology and, that sort of thing.
00:07:52 - Noah Hein
Yeah. So I'd be curious, like you say, like a suite of tools, but definitely, I think the majority of people think of polygon as being the, the, you know, the proof of stake blockchain. That's like idiom compatible. could you talk about, like, what is some of the other suite of tools that polygon has and like, why why do people use it versus like something else? Like what is like a comparable tool? and just going into, like the kind of polygon tool belt.
00:08:24 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah, definitely. a lot, a lot of stuff is under development right now, but a couple of other things that are live, like, you're able to use, we have like ZK rollups. we acquired like, Hermes a while back, and now polygon. Hermes is, a way to, like, kind of scent. It's basically mainly focused on like transferring, sending tokens, payments, that sort of thing. but more to come on that as well. And so that side of things, if you're like into DeFi, you're into wanting to scale, you know, sending funds between folks. That's probably a good solution. because, you know, if you're kind of like, if you're not a whale and you're wanting to do, like, you know, smaller transactions, you know, gas fees and stuff are probably pretty prohibitive. to send like small amounts, like 50 bucks or whatever. and, you know, something like that brings in that solution to, like, make DeFi a little bit more accessible to folks.
00:09:34 - Rahat Chowdhury
we've got other more like, I guess, enterprise solutions. Another thing that's live and out there right now is called Polygon Edge. which is something you can use to create your own EVM compatible custom blockchain. that, you know, it's, you know, compatible can be bridged with polygon and ETH. but what I'm pretty excited about are like some of the more, depth focused tools that are going to be, coming out soon. We we recently talked a little bit about polygon ID, which is a really cool, tool based on like zero technology for, working with identity on, on chain. there's going to be some more stuff about that, I think, next week. so a little bit of Alpha frail and, yeah, I mean, it's like we're trying, you know, there's never a one size fits all solution for everybody's problems, like edges for, you know, enterprises, maybe those web2 companies that like, want to experiment on the web three side, but like want like their own private, you know, customizable blockchain or whatever they can have that, you know, DApps, and like, you know, the NFT space or the DeFi space or wherever, maybe they want to use more of the proof of stake blockchain to, like, start making things more accessible and easier to use for their users and all that.
00:11:10 - Rahat Chowdhury
So depending on like what your needs are, what you want to build, what we're trying to do is build a like create a bunch of tools that you know are made for your use case, rather than you trying to turn your use case into something that fits the tools you're using.
00:11:27 - Noah Hein
Well, okay. Very cool. So it sounds like a lot of irons in the fire. and like, I know polygon is definitely one of the larger, like, teams in the crypto space, but it sounds like a lot of firepower required to execute and maintain all of those different projects. Like where does Deveraux fit into that? Like, are you maintaining, like the documentation for all of these different tools, or are you mostly like external facing? Could you kind of go in a little bit about like how polygon operates as like a team?
00:11:59 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah. Devereaux right now is, more external. a lot of the documentation side of things are handled more by the teams that create those solutions. which I think is a good thing because, you know, they're the ones going in creating.
00:12:17 - Rahat Chowdhury
Understand, how those, you know, solutions work intimately. and then where we come in is like, we work with them. you know, learn from them, figure out, like, use cases, figure out how to take that and like, different chunks and digestible bits for, like, you know, developers, how to introduce, you know, some of those concepts and how to build on. like if we're looking at the proof of stake chain. Like, you know, how do I get started building there? What tools do I need to know? and what I, what. Yeah, what I see like, us on, like, our, our side, like the evangelism, kind of the evangelism like, technical evangelism side of Devereaux, which is myself. and, recently we had, Steph, Aurelia, who's like, she, like, goes around to, like, a bunch of hackathons and just wins. That's just how I describe her. and, it's awesome that now she is helping me out on the technical evangelism side, and, Yeah, what we're our focus mainly has been on doing workshops, interactive, like technical experiences with developers, to get them, like, kind of hands on and just build up this stuff.
00:13:35 - Noah Hein
Very cool and very exciting to hear. moving from, like, how y'all operate. I'd be curious, can you tell me, like, from all.
00:13:43 - Unidentified speaker (Speaker 3)
Of those suite of.
00:13:44 - Noah Hein
Tools? like, there is polygon, like the the proof of stake blockchain. Could you explain to me like what is that versus a layer two? And is that the same? I know that's a lot of people think that like polygon the the blockchain is a layer two.
00:14:02 - Unidentified speaker (Speaker 3)
Could you go into.
00:14:03 - Noah Hein
Like the differences between some of the tools that y'all build for Layer twos versus like the actual blockchain itself and how those are different?
00:14:15 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah. So specifically on the proof of stake blockchain side, what we so I guess like a very, very high level of the, like, architecture behind it, it comes in like three pieces. You have like the matic. matic is like the native currency on polygon. you have like at the bottom layer, like what's called the matic sidechain, which most people think that's the end of it.
00:14:42 - Rahat Chowdhury
It's like a side chain, which is not true. so it starts as like the side chain, which is just like a chain that runs in parallel. It's like Ethereum or whatever. but in our case, it doesn't quite run parallel. We don't, like, manage the security of it, like on our own. We have a couple other layers, the route or like the kind of like the parent layer, that you can look at is Ethereum itself. And what connects the, proof of stake chain to Ethereum is this layer called a plasma layer. I love these names. but what the plasma layer does is, kind of like if you're in a video game, you have like these different checkpoints where you're saving stuff, to, to your, console or database or whatever. the plasma layer does basically that it looks at the current state of the polygon sidechain and saves that state to Ethereum. So essentially we are inheriting, you know, security and everything and being backed by like Ethereum at the base layer itself.
00:15:51 - Rahat Chowdhury
so what what the proof of stake chain is, is more of a commit chain. it inherits like the backing and safety of Ethereum as we go through, our other solutions. like, in terms of, like the difference between that and something like Polygon Edge. polygon edge would probably be more of like you creating like your own chain. Like you would be more responsible for that security. you know, you could, you know, bridge over to Ethereum and polygon, but you also have the ability not to do that. so, you know, it's it's more customizable in that sense of like, you want to, you know, change things around. You want to have like, your own kind of world in the blockchain space. Sure. so that would be a difference between, like, the proof of stake chain and like the, the, polygon edge, side of things. and then the other things that we're working on that are not quite live yet are different things in like the SSC space zero knowledge and optimistic, roll up space.
00:17:02 - Rahat Chowdhury
there is, one solution called Polygon Maidan, which is currently in beta. if you want to try that out, it's a combination of like, SSC technology and, optimistic technology. And the cool thing there is like, you know, it's, it's for if you're wanting to create like more private, privatized blockchain space, that's probably a good place to look. So again, it's just like what's what's your use case. What do you need. Like look at the proper tool for it. Yeah.
00:17:37 - Noah Hein
Very cool. and so like, I'd like to dig into a little bit if you could, on like that plasma layer bit because like, I know a lot of people think of like, people go from like, oh, yeah, polygon is a layer to where they think of it as like sort of like, like optimism or arbitrage, where everything is just kind of like settling down to Ethereum. And then they learn they're like, okay. Yeah. There's like, a proof of stake model going on.
00:18:02 - Noah Hein
And consensus is actually kind of running on, you know, the polygon chain itself. where does like, plasma come in where you're saying, like, hey, this is kind of like inheriting Ethereum security. Is that just like for archive data, would you be able to speak a little bit more about that?
00:18:19 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah, it's essentially archiving all the data from, you know, the polygon mainnet over to, Ethereum. So the plasma layer has these different checkpoints. on these checkpoints, I don't know, off the top of my head, you know, how often they run, but they run very often. And, what they do at the what happens essentially at that checkpoint is that, we look at the current state of the polygon sidechain and a hashed value of like the current state is then saved to a contract that lives on Ethereum. So, I think if you go through our documentation, you can probably find, the, like the deploy contract that actually takes care of that as well as, just like how you would, you know, want to validate or keep track of like different transactions and how they're, saved over to Ethereum.
00:19:23 - Rahat Chowdhury
so, you know, essentially like all, all of your data is backed up, you know, on eath, on Ethereum, on the Ethereum blockchain. So, that, yeah, definitely is more of like an archival purpose.
00:19:40 - Noah Hein
Okay, cool. So you can think of like, hey, I'm operating like, no one on polygon necessarily, unless they are, like, running their own infrastructure needs to worry about like, hey, this is like what's actually happening under the hood. They just get to operate on like, hey, here's the polygon side chain. I pay like exact gas fees using, matic. And then like, I, I just know that, like, all of the archived data isn't going to be able to be tampered with because we have like all of that archive state is in the contract that's on like eth minute.
00:20:11 - Rahat Chowdhury
Exactly.
00:20:12 - Noah Hein
Okay. Very cool. I'm, I'm hoping that some, some people are. This is like a revelation. I remember I kind of dug into the the polygon docs because I definitely heard of like, hey, polygon is a layer two and like a very strict sense where it's like, hey, everything gets like bundled down.
00:20:30 - Noah Hein
And then I learned that it was like a side chain. And then reading about this plasma stuff, I was like, okay, so it's like sort of its own thing, but it's also still trying to, inherit some of the security benefits that Ethereum has historically been very, very good at. I'd be curious, like, do you have any of like, the historical context on like why polygon chose that particular architecture and like where they see the future of Ethereum scaling going? You did touch on like both, optimistic rollups and zero knowledge proofs. I'd be curious to hear, like, what polygon thinks about those two different technologies and how y'all are, like, moving into the future for those two different things.
00:21:14 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah, definitely. you know, the initial thought process for, like how to scale on, You know how to provide a scaling solution was like that proof of stake chain. along with that, that, you know, using that plasma layer, for getting backed up on Ethereum. but, you know, like I mentioned before, we're trying to create more of a suite of tools.
00:21:40 - Rahat Chowdhury
So the proof of stake chain would just be one thing that you could use. but we're very, very, very heavily into like SDK technology now. so there's several like, products and projects that are being worked on, in the SDK kind of world on, on the within the, within the different teams in polygon. so we're very heavily invested on that side wanting to make sure that, you know, we, we move into a world where, you know, we understand that there's, again, different entities, different people with different needs and different solutions. So SDK technology, you know, might work better, for, you know, some privacy focused solutions, doing things like having identity on chain, which is what we're doing with polygon ID, as well as like, you know, optimistic, roll up solutions and, just making sure that, you know, we have the different types of, solutions needed for whatever your use case is.
00:22:54 - Noah Hein
Cool. I'd be curious, like, on on the polygon ID thing, are you able to talk any more about that? I know that you said it was kind of like, early, but, if if there's any.
00:23:06 - Noah Hein
Like, is that something you can talk more about?
00:23:10 - Rahat Chowdhury
It's something I can talk about more very, very soon. Okay.
00:23:17 - Noah Hein
Okay. That's that's fine. it's definitely an exciting piece for me is seeing like, all of these different companies start to look more at decentralized identity. I'll definitely be excited to to see what polygon ID rolls out. and you know, the upcoming weeks, for you, I'd be curious. like, what is your favorite tool that you.
00:23:40 - Unidentified speaker (Speaker 3)
Like to utilize on a regular.
00:23:42 - Noah Hein
Basis since you are kind of sitting as sort of like user zero for a lot of these polygon products where you're like learning from the people that are building them and then going out and doing workshops and demos. what is like something that gets you really excited to present where you're like, hey, I know people are really going to like this technology and get fired up about it.
00:24:02 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah, really. you know, anything that if I see if I see a tool that I know, people need to use, like, it'll be a combination of, like, what have I heard people kind of ask me about at conferences.
00:24:20 - Rahat Chowdhury
at meetups, you know, different places where I've connected with developers. like, for example, like what? I'm like, I'm really, really excited about polygon ID because, like, I was at Graph Hack, just a couple weeks ago, and more than a couple of people kind of like, came up to me and asked me about, you know, specifically about polygon ID, because we did have like an initial announcement about it, like about a month or so ago. and, you know, asking like what the status is like, what can we do? They're like giving me ideas about DApps that they want to build. using a solution like this and like when I take, like, you know, some of the things I've heard from just, like, developers in these spaces. And then I go and, like, start learning, about, you know, what we're building, you know, internally, what what always gets me excited and fired up is like, when I find a, you know, a solution like this where, you know, people have already been asking, people have already been wanting to build, things like with, you know, decentralized identity.
00:25:25 - Rahat Chowdhury
Like, that's a huge thing right now that people are trying to, like, solve, trying to, like, build with, in their DApps and, you know, something like that will get me fired up because, like, I, I hear, hear about it at conferences, on Twitter or wherever. And like, I know that there's the internal side where we're working on it and, you know, we we have like, office hour type things and like little small workshops that happen internally for, like us to learn about things. so I like to take things from there and like, figure out how to repurpose that and try to make that, accessible, I guess a little bit more for folks, you know, outside.
00:26:08 - Noah Hein
Yeah, totally. would you be able to share, like, using decentralized identity? You know, you don't need to go on, like the implementation on like, hey, what what is polygon doing specifically? But you're saying like, hey, there's people that are interested in leveraging this.
00:26:21 - Noah Hein
Could you explain to everyone here like what is a use case for decentralized identity? And like why why is polygon building it?
00:26:31 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah, if you kind of look at it from like in the, in the Web3, those like, you know, there's a big, sort of wanting to remain anonymous, wanting to or pseudonymous, you know, protect your identity in different ways. And like, how do you do that with, like, I don't know, on chain reputation or on chain credentials? how how does that, like, get, I guess, like, attached to someone who wants to remain anonymous or anything like that, like one use case could be like, this is kind of silly, but like, you know, I'm a developer Dao member, but I don't want people to know I am, you know, something like polygon ID or like SDK like SDK technology implementation could help you like verify that, you know, someone is an owner of like one of a specific NFT or something like that without having to share that on like a DApp level without you, you, the owner having to know, like who is who? Who is linked to what? because that ZK technology, like zero knowledge technology is going to allow for, you know, you to do some level of like KYC without actually knowing your customer if that kind of makes sense.
00:27:53 - Noah Hein
Yeah. So if I were to use that as an example, like being a developer Dao member, maybe there is an application where, you are showing some specifics or some sensitive data to people that are members of developer Dao, and you want to access that without giving them any of your information. Like, I know wallet addresses are like already kind of fairly minimal on, you know, the amount of personal identification that you can get out of it. Like, you can, if you are registered to like Coinbase or whatever. And there's like some ID there, like there is some form where your actual identity is attached to this wallet address. but you're saying that like decentralized identity, if this was implemented on this specific application that I could, like, sign in and participate in this kind of like token gated community or event without sharing anything, and I could just be like, hey, look, I'm, I'm in and I'm good. Like, you just kind of like, flash your badge without like, any additional info being shared.
00:28:55 - Noah Hein
Is that kind of like, what you're you're explaining?
00:28:57 - Rahat Chowdhury
Exactly. Yeah, basically, you know, the, the SSC implementation of, like, polygon ID or like any other solution like this would kind of like mask that information, like the specifics of that information. Like, you know, they're good to go. You know, maybe they hold a specific NFT or they meet some requirement. Maybe there's like an age requirement, or maybe there's, some level of like, I don't know, like any, any type of requirement that, you know, require some type of like token gated or community or whatever, but like without having to have access to that information, without having to record, without like being able to even like record that information on your on your side through the dapp. So like you give like, you know, another layer of safety or privacy to that person.
00:29:52 - Noah Hein
Very cool. I'd be curious. We're starting to run up on time here. could you go ahead and tell everyone, like, what is something that's happening in the next, like 6 to 12 months in this space that you're really excited to to see, start happening.
00:30:12 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah. I guess in general, I'm definitely excited to see, you know, a lot of people kind of building out, you know, new solutions and things with a lot of the stuff that we're going to be putting out in the coming weeks and months. I'm very excited to just, like, be able to put, you know, some of that info out there once I'm finally able to, and just like, really, you know, see what people start building. you know what? Like one thing I touched on before is like, what really got me excited about Web3 was just, like, interacting with developers, like through developer Dao, and, like, learning from their experiences and sharing mine with them. And, I'm super excited of just like all the people in the space right now who are, you know, gearing up to start building, start creating new things, whether it be new tools, new projects, whatever it is, there's like a bunch of hackathons and things coming up that, you know, I'm really excited to just like, connect with people on and, you know, just like help them along with, like, building whatever it is they want to get out there.
00:31:20 - Noah Hein
Awesome, cool. and if anyone is interested in learning more about polygon, like where where should they be going? and with that, we'll we'll probably close it out.
00:31:31 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah. If you're interested in learning more about polygon, definitely follow. like from a developer standpoint, zero x polygon devs is the Twitter handle, to follow? for like the latest kind of like updates on things from the development side. as well as going into, you know, our, you know, landing page, polygon dot technology, which has links out to things like, Polygon Village if you're interested in like building and then getting grants for whatever you're building. a cool place to do that. and, yeah, I mean, like, we've also got like a little plug for our, hackathon that just started today. going on for the next two months. So if you're interested in getting hands on, you know, and just start building, you can do that starting right now. so that's, at, Polygon Technology. if you want to or there's going to be like a bunch of, like, education resources and things shared there to help people get started and start building.
00:32:39 - Noah Hein
Awesome, cool. Thanks for all of the resources, and thanks for coming and spending some time with me. I will let you go and I hope all of y'all have a wonderful day.
00:32:49 - Rahat Chowdhury
Yeah, thanks for having me, man.