DraftKings Co-Founder Says Becoming Polygon Validator Helps 'Futureproof' Company

DraftKings, a daily fantasy sports and betting company, is doubling down on its interest in the Ethereum sidechain Polygon by becoming an official official validator for the Polygon network.

The B2B cryptocurrency company Zero Hash will be staking Polygon’s native token MATIC on behalf of DraftKings to make the betting company a Polygon validator. On the Polygon network, validators stake MATIC and run a node to help secure the network. In return, validators are financially rewarded.

Paul Liberman, co-founder and president of global product and technology for DraftKings, said in a statement that the company is becoming a Polygon validator because it wants to “futureproof aspects of our business in the Web3 era.”

DraftKings already has participated in the Polygon ecosystem through its $NFT marketplace, last year forging an exclusive partnership with Tom Brady's Autograph and offering sports-focused $NFT drops ranging from digital sports cards to signed 3D animations.

So far, DraftKings has seen over $44 million in $NFT volume and released 116 sold-out drops. The company also announced in December it would be working on “gamified $NFT collections” with the NFL.

NFTs are unique tokens that exist on a cryptocurrency blockchain like Ethereum or Polygon. The Polygon chain has appealed to many play-to-earn game developers and $NFT collectors in part because of its lower gas fees compared with Ethereum's.

Polygon has faced its fair share of challenges, experiencing security issues on its network and errors on the $NFT marketplace OpenSea. But Polygon Studios, a company building Web3 products on the Polygon blockchain, believes in the future of its blockchain and NFTs, with its metaverse lead Brian Trunzo telling Decrypt at ETHDenver that “anything that can become an $NFT will become an $NFT.”