POL (prev. MATIC) — officially the "Polygon Ecosystem Token" — is the native gas and staking token of Polygon PoS, a proof-of-stake Layer-2/aggregated-blockchain ecosystem built around Ethereum scaling. It also exists as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum mainnet, used for validator staking and bridging between chains.
The token was renamed from MATIC to POL in a 2024 migration, and Polygon positions it as the settlement and utility asset for a network focused on payments and stablecoin infrastructure.
Polygon differentiates itself through AggLayer, a cross-chain liquidity aggregation layer, positioning POL as the settlement asset for a network geared toward payments and stablecoin infrastructure. Ecosystem-wide TVL was approximately $1.83 billion.
Thirty-day protocol fees were approximately $2.17 million, with protocol revenue near $1.29 million, and chain-level monthly active addresses reached approximately 3.96 million, all as of late August 2026. Polygon has also expanded stablecoin-payment integrations, including with payments company Shift4, reinforcing a positioning around real-world payments usage rather than purely speculative activity.
POL functions as both a utility and governance-oriented token: it pays gas fees on Polygon PoS and is staked by validators to secure the network. Delegators can also stake POL toward validators to earn staking rewards.
On Ethereum mainnet, the ERC-20 version of POL is used for staking Polygon's validators and for bridging assets between chains. Polygon describes POL as the ecosystem's "governance and utility" token; holders participate in decisions on how the Polygon Community Treasury allocates grant funding, though the token carries no equity or profit claim on Polygon Labs.
Net emission is inflationary by design, though burns partially offset new issuance and day-to-day supply growth is currently modest.
POL originated as Matic Network, which raised funds via a seed round, an Early Supporters Sale, and a 2019 Binance Launchpad IEO. The seed round raised $165,000 for 2.09% of supply; the Early Supporters Sale raised $450,000 for 1.71%.
The IEO, held April 24, 2019, raised approximately $5,000,000 in BNB at about $0.00263 per token for 19% of total supply, via a lottery-based allocation. The MATIC-to-POL migration completed on September 4, 2024, converting holders 1:1 with an initial POL supply of approximately 10 billion tokens; the canonical Ethereum POL contract was deployed on October 25, 2023, ahead of the migration.
POL is the native gas and staking token of Polygon PoS, a proof-of-stake Layer-2/aggregated-blockchain ecosystem built around Ethereum scaling. It also exists as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum mainnet, used for staking and bridging.
On Polygon PoS, validators stake POL to secure the network and produce blocks. Polygon's architecture also includes AggLayer, a cross-chain liquidity aggregation layer connecting Polygon PoS with other chains in its ecosystem.
Matic Network was founded in 2017 by four co-founders: Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, Anurag Arjun, and Mihailo Bjelic. By 2025, three of the four had departed the project.
Kanani and Arjun stepped away around 2023, and Bjelic exited in May 2025. Sandeep Nailwal is the sole remaining original founder and became the first CEO of the Polygon Foundation in 2025, taking direct operational control of the ecosystem.
The Polygon ecosystem is maintained by two entities: the Polygon Foundation and Polygon Labs. The Foundation oversees governance and treasury functions, while Polygon Labs is the core development organization.
Sandeep Nailwal has served as CEO of the Polygon Foundation since 2025. Official channels include the website polygon.technology, the GitHub organization behind the project's contracts, and the @0xPolygon account on X, with some community channels (such as the r/maticnetwork subreddit) retaining legacy "Matic" branding.
POL is framed by Polygon as the ecosystem's "governance and utility" token, though it confers no equity, profit rights, or formal claim on Polygon Labs. Its main governance mechanism is the Polygon Community Treasury.
The Treasury is funded by 1% of POL's 2% annual emission and allocated through the Polygon Community Grants Program (CGP), overseen by a five-member Community Treasury Board plus independent Grant Allocators. CGP "Season 2" (launched January 2025) allocated 35 million POL across themes including AI, DePIN, gaming, and memecoins. Some holders have publicly criticized the absence of equity-like rights despite network revenue growth.
Polygon's "Rio" upgrade went live on mainnet around October 2025, lifting network throughput toward 5,000 transactions per second. In June 2025, Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwal published a "Gigagas" roadmap targeting 100,000 TPS by early 2026 via further Rio and AggLayer upgrades.
Polygon has publicly framed 2026 as a "year of rebirth," emphasizing payments infrastructure, AggLayer cross-chain liquidity aggregation, and institutional/stablecoin-payments positioning, including expanded stablecoin-payment integration with payments company Shift4 announced in late July 2026. A network hard fork in August 2026 prompted temporary deposit and withdrawal halts on some exchanges during the upgrade.
POL's token contracts have been audited by ChainSecurity and SigmaPrime, and Polygon runs an active Immunefi bug bounty program. The audits covered the token's emission schedule and MATIC-to-POL migration logic; Polygon's separate PoS Portal smart contracts were also audited by ChainSecurity.
The Immunefi bounty pays rewards in USDC and POL. A structural risk factor: on the Ethereum POL contract, the top 10 holders control approximately 80% of supply, a concentration that likely includes bridge, staking, and exchange wallets rather than only individual holders. POL's decentralized-exchange liquidity is also thin relative to its market capitalization, a risk factor for price slippage.
