First published 3 June 2020, the week Matic’s mainnet was coming online. Expanded in October 2026 for the rename to POL, which a wallet can still hide behind the old ticker. Polygon PoS is a proof-of-stake chain that posts checkpoints to Ethereum. POL is the coin you pay fees with, and the coin that is staked. Chain id 137 is Polygon PoS. Chain id 1 is Ethereum. Both use addresses that start with 0x. A transfer on the wrong one does not arrive. The wrong network is still the wrong city.
Ethereum without the jargon is the chain the checkpoints land on. A bridge is extra software, not a tunnel. This page is the token, and the migration that was automatic in one place only.
From Matic to POL
The token sale was in 2019, under the name Matic. The mainnet opened at the end of May 2020, first with the foundation’s validators, then more widely. In 2021 the project rebranded as Polygon. The ticker stayed MATIC until 4 September 2024, when POL replaced it as the gas and staking token on Polygon PoS. The ratio is one for one.
On Polygon PoS the native coin was rewritten for you. No signature was required. A wallet that still prints MATIC on that network may be showing a stale label for POL. Update the network name in the wallet, then read it again. On Ethereum, MATIC was an ERC-20 and it stayed MATIC until you sent it through the migration contract the project published. That contract holds the MATIC and pays out POL. It does not burn the old token. Governance can switch on a path back from POL to MATIC. Unmigrated MATIC on Ethereum is not POL. A site that says the upgrade must be done with a recovery phrase is not the migration contract.
MATIC that sat on some other Polygon chain was a third entry. The project told those holders to bridge to Ethereum and then migrate, or to swap on that chain. A bridge is extra software, not a tunnel. Three balances, one old ticker.
Ten billion was the start, not the permanent cap
MATIC’s supply was 10 billion, and POL started at the same number so the one-for-one swap would fit. The migration also turned on emission: about 2 percent a year, for as long as governance leaves the switch on, split between validator rewards and a community treasury. The project said that rate could be changed or stopped. A page that still says Polygon has a hard cap of 10 billion is describing MATIC. New POL, if the emission is still on, is a mint. It is not a dividend.
Staking POL points it at a validator. Rewards are part of the design. They are not a bank account. Staking is a lock and a queue, not a savings account. Withdrawing to Ethereum is a bridge, with the bridge’s wait and the bridge’s fee, paid in the coin that bridge asks for. Nothing here is an instruction to migrate, stake, bridge, or buy POL.
