Polygon is gearing up for some big changes this week with the launch of its new token POL.
On September 4 (Today) (8am ET), MATIC will officially be upgraded to POL, pending approval from the Polygon board. Three key proposals (PIPs) will be implemented:
- PIP-19: Update Polygon PoS native token from MATIC to POL.
- PIP-41: Allows POL emission directly to StakeManager.sol.
- PIP-42: Upgrade PoS staking system to use POL.
After the upgrade, POL will replace MATIC as the native token for gas and staking transactions on the Polygon PoS chain. POL will have an annual emission rate of 2%, of which half will be used as staking rewards for validators, and the other half will be transferred to the community fund to support ecosystem development.
Convert from MATIC to POL:
- Users can upgrade their MATIC to POL without any time limit.
- All staked MATIC will be automatically upgraded to POL on September 4.
According to Polygon Protocol Governance Call #24, this transition is not a hard fork, so it does not require coordination between validators to fork at a specific block. The change will be implemented across three different multisigs: governance, the PoS bridge, and the Protocol Counsel implementation.
The second major upgrade is the Ahmedabad Hard Fork (PIP-37), which is expected to begin in early September and complete mainnet deployment by the end of the month. This hard fork is separate from the MATIC to POL upgrade and includes the following key changes:
- PIP-30: Increase maximum code size in smart contracts from 24 kb to 32 kb.
- PIP-36: Change State Receiver and MRC-20 contract to replay failed state syncs.
- PIP-45: Stock code changed from MATIC to POL.
