Polygon Proposal Seeks Hard Fork to Recover 70.49 Million POL

Polygon is a proof-of-stake network that rebranded its token from MATIC to POL in 2024, and like other chains it has faced the question of whether a hard fork can reverse theft. Ethereum set the precedent in 2016 when it forked after the DAO hack, splitting the chain into ETH and Ethereum Classic. Binance and Polymarket were both separately exploited, and the stolen POL ended up sitting in five wallets that validators have since frozen.

If validators adopt the fork, they must upgrade their node software to enforce new rules that void the balances in the five frozen wallets and credit recovery wallets held by Binance and Polymarket instead. Exchanges, custodians and block explorers would need to recognize the new canonical chain and its transaction history. Holders of POL elsewhere see no change to total supply, but the attacker wallets lose their holdings entirely, by design rather than by exploit.

Reversing transactions by social and technical consensus cuts against the immutability that blockchains are supposed to guarantee, a trade-off the Ethereum Classic split never let the industry forget. Supporters will argue that returning funds to identifiable victims is different from protecting an anonymous thief's gains. Critics will note that if validators can rewrite history for a sympathetic victim, the precedent does not disappear once this case is resolved, and the next request for a fork gets easier to justify. (per crypto.news)

Polygon's governance talks on the proposal are scheduled for Nov. 5, where validators and token holders will weigh the hard fork against leaving the 70.49 million POL frozen but untouched. A vote to proceed would require coordinated client upgrades across the validator set before the recovery wallets receive the funds. Rejection would leave Binance and Polymarket's roughly 70.49 million POL locked in the attacker wallets indefinitely, with no alternative recovery mechanism on the table.

POL (ex-MATIC)POL it is the asset of the company or protocol in the event

The move was larger before the first headline than after. That is an observation, not an explanation: the market also moves on things nobody publishes.