- Polygon proposed a hard fork to recover 70.49 million POL, worth approx. $6.5 million, from five blocked addresses.
- The funds would be transferred to recovery wallets designated by Binance and Polymarket, pending governance approval and a network upgrade.
Polygon is weighing a hard fork designed to move roughly 70.49 million POL—valued at about $6.5 million based on the reference price outlined in the proposal—from five restricted addresses directly into designated recovery wallets operated by Binance and Polymarket.
The Polygon Improvement Proposal (PIP) was brought to the network’s community forum on November 4 by Parvez03, a representative of the Polygon Labs Validator Support Team. Crafted in collaboration with the two impacted firms, the measure requests a one-time adjustment to the ledger of the Polygon PoS network.
These assets stem from separate security breaches experienced by Binance and Polymarket on October 29 and 30. Four addresses tied to the Polymarket security breach hold 23.86 million POL, while a fifth address connected to the Binance incident contains an additional 46.63 million POL.
Altogether, the balance equals 70,489,329.34 POL. By utilizing a POL market price of $0.0924 recorded on October 29, the plan values the total cache at approximately $6.5 million.
How the Polygon proposed recovery would work
Should the plan receive backing, the hard fork will zero out the POL balances across the five targeted addresses at a specific block height and credit the matching sums to verified recovery wallets managed by Polymarket and Binance. The overall circulating supply of POL will remain unaffected.
Polygon block producers have already blocked outgoing transactions from these specific addresses to halt movement of the tokens. Even so, current restrictions alone cannot return the funds to their rightful owners. Furthermore, the proposal notes that the attackers have attempted to circumvent these limitations by offering payments to validators.
The scope of this transfer is restricted strictly to native POL situated within the five designated addresses. Approximately 6.18 million USDT sent to the address linked to Binance is omitted because Tether has already frozen those particular assets. Other blocked addresses associated with Binance are likewise left out.
Discussion on the proposal is scheduled for Polygon’s Protocol Governance Call on November 5 at 14:30 UTC. If it wins approval, testing and development on the Amoy testnet are projected to take about two weeks prior to any potential mainnet deployment. As of now, the recovery has not been finalized or approved.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main goal of the proposed Polygon hard fork?
The proposed hard fork aims to recover approximately 70.49 million POL (valued at around $6.5 million) from five blocked addresses and transfer them to recovery wallets belonging to Binance and Polymarket.
Why are the funds currently stuck?
Polygon block producers have blocked transactions from the five targeted addresses to keep the funds from moving, but standard restrictions cannot route the assets back to their original owners.
Will this hard fork change the total supply of POL?
No, the total supply of POL will remain unchanged if the proposal is implemented.
Has the recovery proposal been officially approved?
No, the recovery has not yet been approved or completed. It is slated for discussion during the Polygon Protocol Governance Call on November 5.
