Key Points
- Today, Polygon completes a migration from MATIC token to POL.
- The transition is an internal part of the Polygon 2.0 roadmap.
Polygon Labs is making important moves for the network’s future. Today, September 4, the Ethereum scaling solution completes a migration from its token MATIC to POL. Following this transition, POL will become the native token of the network.
1:1 Technical Upgrade of MATIC to POL
In an official announcement, Polygon revealed that the technical upgrade from MATIC to POL marks a critical point, enhancing utility and aligning with the vision of Polygon as an aggregated network of blockchains.
According to the team at Polygon, in the initial phase, POL will succeed MATIC as the native gas and staking token for the Polygon PoS network. During the upcoming phases, POL will have a crucial role in the AggLayer.
Today’s upgrade from MATIC to POL is anticipated to be seamless, especially considering that the testnet upgrade of MATIC to POL has been already successfully executed on July 17th, 2024.
In an X announcement, the team behind Polygon bounced that the upgrade includes the following:
- all WMATIC
- MATIC in Smart Contracts
- MATIC being used in DeFi
- MATIC in liquidity pools
- all MATIC on Polygon PoS
MATIC Holders on Polygon PoS
The native gas token of the Polygon PoS network will be upgraded to POL automatically.
However, according to the official announcement, users could still see the token listed as MATIC in their wallets. Regardless, after today’s upgrade, the native token of the Polygon PoS will be POL.
Why “MATIC” May Still Linger?
Wallets may still show “MATIC” due to the RPC – a remote Procedure Call, which is a software communication protocol that enables a program to facilitate to execution of a specific procedure on a different blockchain network.
Basically, RPCs act as interfaces between the client (a program on one computer) and the server (another program), built on a different blockchain network.
The team at Polygon said that users can manually change MATIC to POL in their wallet to reflect the upgrade, in case the RPC settings are not updated.
MATIC Holders on Ethereum or CEXes
Regarding MATIC holders on Ethereum or CEXes, there might be some actions required if they desire to upgrade MATIC to POL.
The team at Polygon notes that some dApps have independently integrated the migration contract, providing a UI to perform the migration. When holders are ready to upgrade, the Polygon Portal will show a UI for MATIC to POL migration.
DEX aggregators such as KyberSwap and CoW Swap integrated the migration contract into their dApps.
As an important note, more advanced technical users may interact with a migration contract that is already deployed to upgrade MATIC to POL on Ethereum permissionlessly.
Loss of Funds Danger
Here are the following triggers of potential fund loss:
- Incorrectly calling the migration contract
- Directly sending funds to the migration contract
MATIC Stakers on Ethereum
MATIC stakers on Ethereum will have an automatic conversion – all their staked MATIC will be upgraded to POL today, with no additional actions needed.
Why This Upgrade Takes Place
Here are the main reasons for MATIC transitioning to POL:
- POL will serve as a hyperproductive token, becoming the native gas and staking token on Polygon PoS
- POL will support the network’s future expansion and security as an aggregated network
As the team behind Polygon noted in the official announcement, the upgrade today is expected to take place seamlessly.
