Polygon proposal calls for hard fork to claw back $7M in frozen POL
In brief
- Polygon Improvement Proposal seeks hard fork to reclaim roughly 70.49 million POL, worth around $7 million.
- Five addresses tied to the Binance and Polymarket incidents hold the frozen funds.
- Victim recovery accounts would receive the balances; total POL supply wouldn't change.
- USDT and other non-POL tokens fall outside the proposal's scope.
- Governance call set for November 5 at 14:30 UTC; nothing approved yet.
What the PIP would change
Parvez03, a member of the Polygon Labs validator support team, introduced the PIP on November 4, 2026. The stolen funds trace back to two incidents on October 29 and 30. About 23.86 million POL ended up across four addresses connected to the Polymarket breach, while roughly 46.63 million POL sits in a single address linked to the Binance incident.
The split is uneven. The single address linked to the Binance incident holds nearly twice what the four Polymarket-linked addresses do.
Under the proposal, all five addresses would have their balances set to zero, with matching amounts credited to verified recovery accounts for each victim. Total POL supply wouldn't change (no new tokens get minted, and none get burned). The proposal describes this as an exceptional state change to the ledger, not a routine upgrade.
Why backers say it's needed
Polygon block producers have already added the five addresses to a transaction denylist. That hasn't ended the attempts. According to the proposal's backers, the attackers keep trying to push the assets out through high-fee transactions and alleged bribery of validators.
Developer teams have stressed that the measure is extraordinary and isn't meant to set a precedent for future incidents. It's also narrow in scope: the recovery covers only native POL still locked on Polygon PoS, so other tokens involved in the incidents (including USDT) fall outside it. Polymarket and Binance have already reimbursed most affected users on their own, Crypto Briefing reported.
What happens next
It's still a proposal.
The community is set to discuss the PIP at the Protocol Governance Call on November 5, 2026, at 14:30 UTC. If it gets the green light, client development and validation on the Amoy testnet are expected to take around two weeks before any possible mainnet deployment, according to the proposal as reported by Crypto Briefing.
Frequently asked questions
Would the proposed Polygon hard fork change POL's total supply?
No. Under the proposal, as reported by Crypto Briefing, the five attacker-controlled addresses would have their balances set to zero and matching amounts would be credited to verified recovery accounts for each victim. No new tokens would be minted and none would be burned.
Does the Polygon proposal recover USDT taken in the Binance and Polymarket incidents?
No. The recovery covers only native POL still locked on Polygon PoS. Other tokens involved in the incidents, including USDT, fall outside the proposal. Binance and Polymarket have already reimbursed most affected users on their own, according to Crypto Briefing.
When could the Polygon hard fork take place?
The PIP is a proposal under discussion, set for the Protocol Governance Call on November 5, 2026, at 14:30 UTC. If approved, client development and validation on the Amoy testnet are expected to take around two weeks before a possible mainnet deployment.
