Initially, Polygon (POL) will replace MATIC as the primary token for gas payments and the staking token for its proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. Over time, POL will play a crucial role in the AggLayer, Polygon’s growing network of aggregated blockchains. The community consensus proposes that POL will support broader roles in the Polygon staking hub, including block generation, zero-knowledge proof generation, and participation in Data Availability Committees (DACs), to be released in 2025. The POL upgrade went live on the Polygon testnet on July 17, giving network developers and infrastructure providers time to prepare for the mainnet upgrade.
Polygon network users holding MATIC are not required to take any action; their tokens will be automatically upgraded. However, users 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 handle the upgrade automatically. RPC settings are configuration details that enable wallets like MetaMask to communicate with a specific blockchain network.
As of now, there is no set deadline for MATIC holders on Ethereum and Polygon zkEVM to upgrade to POL. POL will have an initial supply of 10 billion and offer holders governance rights in the Polygon 2.0 ecosystem. Additionally, 2% of the entire POL supply will be set aside annually for validator rewards and the community treasury. This surge in POL’s implementation was observed despite the overall NFT sector experiencing a more than 70% drop in the total number of NFT buyers.