Polygon, the Ethereum layer-2 network announced it will upgrade its native MATIC token to the new POL token starting on September 4.
Conversion
In the first phase, POL will take over as the native gas and staking token for the Polygon proof-of-stake chain.
Polygon’s team told to users that current MATIC holders on the Polygon PoS chain don’t need to take any action, as their tokens will automatically convert to POL. These MATIC tokens make up 14% of the total supply.
MATIC tokens in staking contracts on Ethereum, which represent 37% of the supply, will also automatically switch to POL.
For those using MATIC on Polygon’s zkEVM rollup, centralized exchanges, or the Ethereum blockchain, Polygon’s blog post provides detailed instructions for the upgrade process.
While there are no immediate deadlines for upgrading MATIC tokens on Ethereum and Polygon zkEVM to POL, the community may set a deadline in the future.
Testnet is okay, it’s time to mainnet
Tom Wan, a research strategist at 21.co, mentioned that these steps can boost the progress of the token migration, potentially surpassing 50% of the whole process.
If we take a look to Dune analytics’ data, it shows the migration progress at just 0.1%.
A testnet for the POL upgrade was launched on July 17, allowing users and developers to get familiar with the changes before the mainnet migration.
The new guy
Polygon describes the POL token as a highly productive token designed to offer valuable services across any chain within the Polygon network, including the AggLayer itself. Honestly, this description is a wordsalad.
They have a blockchain network, for some reasons they want a new token, while ditch the old one, nothing wrong with this. It’s likely not a revolutionary innovation.
Based on the reactions, the community expects POL to play a key role in the Polygon staking hub, which is set to launch in 2025.
This includes tasks such as block generation, zero-knowledge proof generation, and participation in Data Availability Committees.
Polygon Foundation also shared, POL wants to provide security for Polygon as an aggregated blockchain network, unifying liquidity and shared state across multiple chains.
