Polygon zkEVM sees a dramatic rise in DEX volumes – Why?

• This comes two weeks after Chainlink’s integration with Polygon zkEVM.
• Polygon zkEVM’s daily active addresses jumped 51% over the last week.

L2 scaling solution Polygon [MATIC] zkEVM saw its decentralized exchange (DEX) volumes soar by nearly 200% over the last month, reflecting increased preference for projects housed on the network.

According to AMBCrypto’s analysis of Artemis’ data, trades worth $2.89 million were settled on the network on the 27th of December, the highest since the peak of $3.76 million attained on 14th November.

In fact, over the last seven days, DEX volumes have averaged 1.84 million.

Source: Artemis

While these numbers paled in comparison to DEX activity on other L2 chains, the sharp growth grabbed the attention of industry watchers.

Chainlink’s integration the reason?

These developments come on the heels of decentralized oracle network Chainlink’s [LINK] integration with the zero-knowledge scaling solution.

As part of the agreement, DeFi developers on Polygon zkEVM would have access to Chainlink’s real-time price feeds. This was expected to power the development of decentralized exchanges, liquidity protocols, and other projects on the chain.

As is well known, Chainlink is an oracle network that feeds real-world data to blockchain-based smart contracts.

While there is no conclusive evidence to link the current upsurge in DEX volumes to this development, the possibility of the same remained high.

Polygon zkEVM sees 51% jump in users

The explosion in Polygon’s DEX activity caused an uptick in on-chain activity as well. The daily active addresses jumped 51% over the last week, AMBCrypto detected using Artemis’ data.

Moreover, daily transaction on network climbed 22% since last week. On the 26th of December, more than 31k transactions were processed on the scaling solution, highest in nearly a month.

Source: Artemis

Meanwhile, Polygon ecosystem’s native token MATIC pulled back 2.32% in the last 24 hours, as some weak hands decided to lock in gains, data from CoinMarketCap

However, this wasn’t before an excellent period in December during which the returns on the coin grew by 33%. As of this writing, MATIC was exchanging hands at $1.01.

Read MATIC’s Price Prediction 2023-2024

Note that as part of the upcoming Polygon 2.0 mission, MATIC would be upgraded to a more versatile utility token POL.

In a recent interview, Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron touched down on the motivation behind the upgrade.