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One of the largest telecommunications companies in Europe uses its infrastructure to explore new sources of income and increase network security as a blockchain protocol validator.
German company Deutsche Telekom will become a validator for Polygon’s Layer 2 Ethereum scaling platform, becoming one of 100 validators providing staking and validation services for the Polygon Supernets network and solution.
Polygon is an important layer 2 in the Ethereum ecosystem, offering developers a range of scaling solutions, including zero-knowledge rollups, sidechains, and data availability protocols.
Related: Holy Grail Polygon Scaling Ethereum, zkEVM Beta Hits Mainnet
Deutsche Telekom MMS, which provides consulting and software development services, will act as Polygon’s validator for its parent company. This is expected to secure the Polygon Proof-of-Stake sidechain and Supernets chain, improving security, governance, and protocol decentralization.
The firm will operate a full node, produce blocks, validate and participate in network consensus, and pass checkpoints to the main Ethereum network.
Dirk Roede, head of Deutsche Telekom’s Blockchain Solutions Center, told Cointelegraph that supporting the Polygon network as a validator is a major milestone in its quest to become an important player in Web3 infrastructure:
“Deutsche Telekom is not only a well-known infrastructure provider for mobile and internet services, but is also making a significant commitment to expand its presence and credibility as an infrastructure provider in the Web3 domain.”
Deutsche Telekom is also a validator for Q, Flow, Celo, Chainlink and Ethereum, and Rohde said the company is committed to serving institutional clients as a trusted enterprise-grade staking provider.
Roede added that using the company’s infrastructure as a validator in monetizing its own underlying blockchain network token provides Deutsche Telekom with a “reliable, new and scalable source of income.”
The potential for larger telcos moving to Web3 could also be a catalyst for more decentralization of various proof-of-stake blockchains run by validators:
“Other telecommunications companies are also exploring opportunities in this area. In a decentralized ecosystem, the goal should be to have a diverse and reliable set of validators.”
A statement from Polygon Labs CEO Michael Blank reiterates this point, highlighting his belief that the partnership can pave the way for larger enterprises using blockchain technology.
Polygon recently announced a multi-year partnership with Google Cloud to drive the development of the Ethereum Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machine of the Ethereum Scaling Protocol, a zero-knowledge proof-of-scaling scaling solution.