Polygon proposal seeks to upgrade native token MATIC to POL

• Polygon’s technical upgrade could see MATIC renamed to POL.
• POL will operate on multiple chains including PoS, zkEVM and Supernets.
• The price of MATIC rose after the news, up 5% in 24 hours as daily volume jumped 21%.

Polygon has outlined a proposal for a technical upgrade of the native token MATIC. The details of this switch have been published in a white paper from a group of the blockchain platform’s founders and researchers.

The upgrade seeks to replace MATIC with a “next generation” protocol token dubbed POL, the protocol said in a blog post. The “rebranding” is part of the Polygon 2.0 roadmap, with POL designed to advance security and growth across the leading Ethereum scaling solution.

POL token’s utility

According to the technical upgrade’s whitepaper, POL is hyperproductive token – meaning holders can become validators and earn rewards. However, it offers more utility with validators able to operate across multiple chains. This would include the Polygon proof-of-stake (PoS), zkEVM and Supernets.

1/ Today, the next technical proposal of Polygon 2.0 is unveiled:

POL, the upgraded token of the Polygon protocol! 💫

POL is the next generation native token, designed to secure, align and grow the Polygon ecosystem.

Watch the video to get an idea how cool it is, then 🧵 pic.twitter.com/Gn7KcHpWEY

— Polygon (Labs) (@0xPolygonLabs) July 13, 2023

Upgrading from MATIC to POL will involve holders sending their MATIC tokens to the given upgrade smart contract. The system will automatically replace MATIC with POL in a 1:1 ratio and send the new token to the holder’s address. Polygon said in a blog post that the upgrade will result in only one native token – POL.

If the Polygon community adopts the proposal, the upgrade could begin in the next six months. Holders will thereafter have sufficient time to complete the switch, with a suggested timeline of four or more years.

MATIC price rose following the upgrade proposal, with the token’s value surging to its highest level since early June.

Data from CoinGecko showed Polygon’s native token traded nearly 5% in the past 24 hours. The altcoin’s daily trading volume was up 21.7% in the same period, with more than $306 million traded.