Ernst & Young, one of the Big Four consulting multinationals, announced today it has integrated India-based Polygon, a Layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution, to allow its corporate clients to process blockchain-based transactions on the Ethereum mainnet.

Fast facts

  • EY has connected the public Polygon commit chain with EY’s blockchain services including EY OpsChain and EY Blockchain Analyzer. EY clients can connect their operations with Polygon’s systems network, allowing businesses to move transactions from EY’s blockchain portal onto the public Ethereum mainnet.
  • Integrating with Polygon’s commit chain solutions allows EY to offer its clients faster and increased transaction volumes with predictable fees and settlement times, EY’s press release said.
  • Increasing transaction volumes and costs on the main Ethereum blockchain have been a growing concern. Canadian businessman and “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary told CNBC yesterday he finds Ethereum “too slow” as a user. Ethereum currently handles around 30 transactions per second although its upcoming upgrade Eth2, which is expected to be fully deployed next year, may scale this to around 100,000 transactions per second. Congestion on the Ethereum network drives up transaction costs which averaged at US$39.74 on Sunday, despite the London hard fork, which promised to make transaction fees more predictable, being deployed last month. To tackle these issues, Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solutions like Polygon and other rollups have come to the fore.
  • The two firms are also collaborating to create permissioned, private industry chains leveraging new models of transaction verification to boost efficiency and bring down costs. These chains will provide businesses with the security of a closed system that is closely aligned with the Ethereum mainnet. This would allow them to make a future transition to public networks faster and less risky.
  • “Working with Polygon provides EY teams with a powerful set of tools to scale transactions for clients and offers a faster roadmap to integration on the public Ethereum mainnet,” said Paul Brody, EY Global Blockchain Leader. “We discovered our shared priorities around open system and networks and the Ethereum ecosystem would make collaboration in this area much easier.”
  • Sandeep Nailwal, Polygon co-founder, said: “The EY commitment to the public Ethereum ecosystem and to open standards was a big driver in evolving shared approaches. No other organization has made the same scale of commitment to the ecosystem and to open systems, or brings the depth of technology that the EY organization has in this space.”