Polygon Labs, the developer team behind the Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Polygon, published Thursday a proposal to replace its current native token MATIC with the POL token. The new cryptocurrency is designed to come with added features.
Polygon to Roll Out POL
According to an official blog post, MATIC holders can engage in the token upgrade by sending their entire MATIC holdings to an upgrade smart contract in return for an equivalent amount of POL tokens. Polygon Labs noted that MATIC and POL cannot co-exist.
If the proposal is approved during the governance voting, MATIC holders can swap their tokens within four years or more.
The POL token, which Polygon Labs touts as “a hyperproductive token,” will serve as a universal asset for all of Polygon’s networks, which includes the Polygon mainnet, the Polygon zkEVM network, and the several supernets (application-specific blockchains that run on the Polygon network).
If the new plan comes to fruition, validators will be able to validate transactions across all the listed Polygon-featured chains and earn rewards from them. These validators are also entitled to protocol benefits and other added rewards within the Polygon ecosystem.
Polygon Labs added in its blog post that token holders for each Polygon chain can decide whether the POL token will be used to settle gas fees within the network.
Since the proposal announcement, the MATIC token has seen an 18% price jump, bringing its trading price to $0.85 at press time.
Polygon 2.0 Roadmap
During its launch in 2017, Polygon Labs called its layer-2 network the Matic blockchain. In February 2021, the Matic network was rebranded to its current name, the Polygon network.
Polygon Labs said in its announcement that the POL token initiative is part of the restructuring process for Polygon 2.0.
“Ever since Matic Network expanded its vision and got rebranded to Polygon, it has been publicly discussed and understood that the native token should eventually be upgraded as well. This specific proposal has been worked on for almost a year,” the company wrote.
