A member of the Polygon Labs Validator Support Team has put forward a proposal to hard fork the Polygon PoS mainnet in order to recover approximately 70.49 million POL stolen in two recent security incidents involving Polymarket and Binance. Based on prices recorded on October 29, the affected assets were valued at an estimated $6.5 million. POL is the native token of the Polygon PoS network, and unlike recoveries that rely on third-party freezes or negotiation with the attackers, this plan would change the chain's rules so the balances can be reassigned directly.

Under the proposed intervention, the stolen balances would be moved from the attackers' addresses to recovery addresses designated and verified by Polymarket and Binance. According to Wu Blockchain's report on the proposal, the funds are currently restricted from being transferred by the network's block-producing nodes. For such a fork to take effect, those node operators would need to adopt upgraded client software and coordinate on the new rules, which is why the proposal's roadmap pairs client development with testnet rehearsals.

Breakdown of the Affected Balances

The recovery plan covers two separate amounts tied to the incidents. Approximately 23.86 million POL is linked to the Polymarket-related portion, while around 46.63 million POL is associated with Binance. Combined, the balances total roughly 70.49 million POL, with an estimated value of $6.5 million using October 29 prices.

Rather than leaving the assets in the attackers' wallets, the proposal seeks to redirect them to recovery addresses verified by the two institutions.

Hard Fork Would Not Change POL Supply

The measure is laid out in a Polygon Improvement Proposal (PIP), which identifies a hard fork as the mechanism for relocating the affected balances. Under the suggested approach, a change to the Polygon PoS mainnet would transfer the POL from the attackers' addresses to the designated recovery addresses.

The proposal explicitly states that the recovery would not alter the total POL token supply. Its stated objective is to change the destination of the identified balances while keeping the network's overall token supply unchanged. The current restriction on the funds' transferability, enforced by block-producing nodes, is also a relevant element of the plan, and the proposed hard fork would provide the mechanism needed to move the balances to addresses approved by Polymarket and Binance.

The most frequently cited precedent for protocol-level fund recovery dates to 2016, when Ethereum hard forked to redirect funds stolen in The DAO exploit; the disagreement over that move split the chain and created Ethereum Classic. Polygon's proposal relies on the same kind of validator-coordinated rule change, and its path runs through formal governance review.

Governance Review and Implementation Timeline

The proposal was scheduled to be submitted for discussion at the Polygon Protocol Governance Call on November 5. That discussion represents a governance step for the proposed intervention, rather than confirmation that the recovery has been approved or implemented.

Should the proposal receive approval, development work on the relevant clients and testnet rehearsals is expected to be completed in approximately two weeks. This timeline remains conditional on approval and does not establish that the hard fork or the fund transfers have already taken place.

For observers, the checkpoints are the outcome of the November 5 governance call and, if approval follows, the completion of client development and testnet rehearsals on the roughly two-week timeline ahead of any mainnet fork.

The proposal was reported by Wu Blockchain and was published as a Polygon Improvement Proposal by a member of the Polygon Labs Validator Support Team. Its stated scope is limited to the recovery of approximately 70.49 million POL associated with the Polymarket and Binance hacks, without changing the total token supply.

Source: Hokanews