Polygon Introduces POL Token as the Next Evolution of MATIC

After a year-long series of comprehensive community engagements, Polygon’s development team has officially launched the migration of its MATIC token to the new POL token.

This pivotal update introduces POL as the new ticker symbol for the native gas and staking token on the Polygon PoS chain, with exchanges anticipated to support the upgraded token soon.

The shift to POL is a significant step in Polygon's strategic evolution towards becoming a ZK chain, as well as its integration with AggLayer, which is designed to unify liquidity and state across multiple blockchains. Notably, POL will retain the tokenomics of MATIC, preserving its 10 billion token supply.

The conversion rate from MATIC to POL is set at 1:1, with a planned 2% increase in emissions over the next decade to facilitate ongoing network growth. According to Polygon, this emissions strategy is tailored to ensure consistent rewards for validators, thereby encouraging the participation of new validators.

For users holding MATIC on the Polygon PoS, the upgrade to POL will happen automatically without any required action. However, those holding MATIC on Ethereum, Polygon zkEVM, or through centralized exchanges will need to manually migrate their tokens to POL via a dedicated migration contract. The upgraded POL token is expected to offer expanded functionalities in the near future, including roles in block production, zero-knowledge proof generation, and involvement in Data Availability Committees (DACs).

Polygon currently operates two scaling solutions: the Polygon PoS sidechain and the Polygon zkEVM, a zero-knowledge rollup network.

The concept of POL as Polygon's enhanced native token was first introduced in July 2023. Subsequently, Polygon confirmed in July of this year that the official upgrade from MATIC to POL would take place on September 4.