Polygon’s native cryptocurrency has undergone a major technical upgrade to enhance its usability and introduce Polygon 2.0.
According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the Polygon (MATIC) token will be upgraded to the new Polygon Ecosystem Token (POL) token on a 1:1 basis starting September 4, becoming the network’s native gas and staking token.
According to Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, the upgrade will allow the community to better participate in the network’s growth. Boiron told Cointelegraph exclusively:
“With this upgrade, the introduction of the 2% emissions cap will provide an opportunity for communities to participate. (…) Even if technically the full migration did not happen (Season 1 of the Community Grant Program), there will be some emissions cap that the community can use.”
Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron Interviewed by Cointelegraph’s Zoltan Vardai. Source: YouTube
Polygon’s token is the 21st largest cryptocurrency in the world with a market cap of $3.7 billion. This upgrade follows a year of in-depth community discussion and consensus and is part of Boiron’s broader plan for Polygon 2.0.
relevant: Telegram Games and Hamster Kombat Will Drive Web3 Adoption: Animoca’s Yat Siu
POL is becoming a “super productive” token.
According to Boiron, the second biggest reason for the technical upgrade was to make POL a highly productive token.
Polygon Labs CEO explained:
“POL goes one step further and becomes very productive in the sense that it can actually earn fees from a number of different sources by being built into different things on the Polygon Network.”
While MATIC only earned fees from gas and staking, the new POL token can also earn fees through additional activities such as staking to ensure data availability or decentralizing sequencers, with more fee-generating options coming in the future.
Boylon called this highly productive token the next generation of Ether (ETH), which only earns gas fees on transactions.
relevant: Cryptocurrency Phishing Up 215% in August, $55 Million Lost in a Single Attack
Migrating from MATIC to POL: What You Need to Know
The migration was completed on September 4th, but there is no firm deadline for MATIC holders to upgrade their tokens. All staked MATIC will be automatically converted to POL without any further action.
Upgrade from Matic to Pol. Source: polygon
The testnet upgrade was successfully executed on July 17th.
The new POL token will also be built into Polygon’s AggLayer (short for Aggregation Layer), a cross-chain interoperability protocol that aims to connect siloed blockchains.
Technical migration is a key part of the Polygon 2.0 vision, which is the final evolution of Polygon CDK and AggLayer, and aims to provide “infinite scalability” to integrate with all blockchains, including Layer 1s like Ethereum and Bitcoin.
magazine: ‘Rookie’ $12.1M fraud suspect arrested, cryptocurrency fraud boiler room exposed: Asia Express