Polygon, the layer 2 blockchain, has announced plans to migrate its MATIC token to POL as part of its upgrade to Polygon 2.0. The upgrade is set to begin on September 4th and will see POL replace MATIC as the primary token for gas payments and staking within the proof-of-stake consensus. In the long term, POL will play a crucial role in the AggLayer, Polygon’s growing network of aggregated blockchains. This includes supporting block generation, zero-knowledge proof generation, and participation in Data Availability Committees.
The POL upgrade has already gone live on the Polygon testnet, allowing developers and infrastructure providers time to prepare for the mainnet upgrade. Users holding MATIC on the Polygon network do not need to take any action as their tokens will be automatically upgraded. However, those holding MATIC on Ethereum, Polygon zkEVM, or centralized exchanges will need to bridge, update smart contracts, or use a migration contract.
Most major centralized exchanges are expected to automatically complete the upgrade for their users. However, non-custodial users must ensure they update the RPC settings in their crypto wallets to display the correct token symbol, as failing to do so may result in “MATIC” being displayed instead of “POL”.
There is currently no deadline for MATIC holders on Ethereum and Polygon zkEVM to upgrade to POL, but the community may establish one in the future. Plans to replace MATIC with POL were initially announced in July 2023, with the Ethereum contract for the POL token launched on October 25th.
The migration to POL is the first step in laying the foundation for Polygon 2.0, which aims to be the “Value Layer of the Internet”. The upgrade is expected to bring significant scalability and liquidity improvements. POL will have an initial supply of 10 billion tokens and offer holders governance rights within the Polygon 2.0 ecosystem. Additionally, 2% of the entire POL supply will be allocated annually for validator rewards and the community treasury.
This announcement comes as Polygon’s NFT sale volume surpassed that of Solana and Bitcoin earlier this month, despite a decline in the overall number of NFT buyers in the market.