Other system · settles to Ethereum
Polygon zkEVM ticker ETH
Historical network. Its profile describes the design as history. The evidence is in the system note below.
Summary
Sunset layer 2 on Ethereum. From March 2023 one trusted sequencer run by Polygon ordered transactions into batches and posted the batch data to Ethereum; a trusted aggregator then submitted zero-knowledge proofs that an Ethereum contract verified before a batch counted as final. On 3 December 2025 Polygon replaced these full execution proofs with pessimistic proofs, which only check that withdrawals through the shared bridge never exceed deposits, so from then on the chain's own state was not proven on Ethereum. Polygon's sunset page lists 3 July 2026 as the date the sequencer was sunset, two days after the 1 July date it had announced. Leftover wallet balances are now claimed on Ethereum through a Polygon Labs interface. Block production never used stake or work of its own. 145791112
Design
- System
- Other systemSunset Ethereum layer 2 (chain ID 1101), launched as a zero-knowledge rollup in March 2023. On 3 December 2025 it moved to bridge-accounting (pessimistic) proofs only, so its state was no longer proven on Ethereum and, per L2BEAT, its data stayed off Ethereum; L2BEAT lists it as neither rollup nor validium. Polygon's sunset page dates the sequencer shutdown to 3 July 2026, and no blocks are produced. ETH, bridged one-to-one from Ethereum, was the gas asset, not Polygon's POL token; this chain is separate from Polygon PoS.
- Settles to
- EthereumUntil 3 December 2025, batch data went to Ethereum. Bridge withdrawals could be claimed on Ethereum once the batch's validity proof was verified there, so there was no fraud-proof challenge window; a typical proof delay was not found. From December 2025 until the shutdown, Ethereum checked only bridge-accounting proofs. The bridge no longer processes withdrawals from this chain. Balances held in ordinary wallets at the sunset snapshot are claimed on Ethereum through Polygon's claims interface until 31 December 2027. Assets inside smart contracts cannot be claimed there.
- Settlement family
- Ethereum / EVM
- Scarce resource
- Other
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Other
- Who makes blocks
- One trusted sequencer operated by Polygon (its address was rotated on 2 December 2025, per L2BEAT). The trusted aggregator role that posted proofs and state roots is managed by the Polygon admin multisig. Since July 2026 nobody produces blocks.
- Fork choice
- No open fork choice. Nodes served blocks from the trusted sequencer as the latest chain state as soon as it issued them, on the sequencer's word alone. Their order became binding when the batch was sequenced on Ethereum, and final when its proof was verified there. After the December 2025 migration, Ethereum no longer checked the chain's state, so the ordering of the last seven months rests on Polygon's own records.
Qualifications
- Network operation · Not applicable. The sequencer was switched off in July 2026 and the network no longer produces blocks; Polygon's page says so as of 3 July 2026. Live-network measures such as fees, throughput, finality times and node operation no longer apply. This profile describes how the chain ran and how users exit.
- Scarce resource · Not applicable. Block production used no stake or work of its own; an operator-assigned sequencer produced blocks and security came from Ethereum plus the proofs verified there.
- Finality · Partial. The chain had three stages. Trusted meant issued by the sequencer. Virtual meant the batch data was sequenced on Ethereum. Consolidated meant the validity proof was verified on Ethereum. Only the last was backed by Ethereum, and after December 2025 no batch reached it.
- Forced exit guarantee · Contested. Polygon's June 2025 sunset post promised that forced transactions would stay enabled permanently and that users would always be able to withdraw bridged assets. L2BEAT reports forced inclusion as disabled. Polygon's July 2026 page says the bridge can no longer process withdrawals from the chain and that assets held in smart contracts cannot be recovered through the claims interface.
- Upgrade authority · Applies. Per L2BEAT, a 5-of-9 Polygon admin multisig upgrades the shared contracts behind a 3-day timelock. A 6-of-8 Polygon Security Council can declare an emergency state that pauses the shared bridge and allows instant upgrades. L2BEAT also reports that the Agglayer manager role can upgrade the chain's own contract with no delay, and it gives users no exit window against an unwanted upgrade because contracts are instantly upgradable.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Security and Scalability
- Gives up
- Decentralized operation and continuity. One Polygon-run sequencer and a Polygon-managed aggregator did all ordering and proving. The contracts could be upgraded instantly in an emergency, and the operator was able to first remove the rollup proof system and then shut the chain down entirely.The security emphasis describes the zero-knowledge rollup period, March 2023 to December 2025, when Ethereum verified a proof for every batch. From December 2025 to the July 2026 shutdown, Ethereum only checked bridge accounting. Polygon also said in June 2025 that the proving system's resource limits (its ZK counters) made some DeFi transactions impractical.
- Full node at home
- Not applicable 17910The network stopped producing blocks on 3 July 2026, so there is no live chain to follow. While it ran, Polygon's cdk-erigon node, which replaced the zkevm-node software archived in February 2025, asked for at least 32 GB of RAM, a 4-core CPU and an Ethereum RPC endpoint; disk size was not stated. After December 2025 transaction data was not posted to Ethereum, per L2BEAT, so recent state could not be rebuilt from Ethereum alone.
- Throughput claims
- No classified figure recorded
Scaling layers
No scaling layer recorded in this profile.
Capabilities
| Capability | How it is provided | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Account abstraction | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Atomic swaps | Not present | No swap can settle on the chain: no transaction has executed since the July 2026 shutdown, per Polygon's sunset page. While the chain ran, no protocol-level swap mechanism on it was reviewed. 1 |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
| Light clients | Not present | No light verification of the chain's current state is possible: after December 2025 no new state root was proven on Ethereum, and the chain has since halted. Until then, state roots verified on Ethereum allowed proofs against the chain's Sparse Merkle Tree; no dedicated light client was found. 714 |
| Native staking or delegation | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| On-chain governance | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Parallel execution | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Payment or state channels | Unknown | No source was cited for absence, so the rule that absence needs a source makes this cell unknown. Earlier finding: no payment or state channel layer anchored to this chain was found, and none can operate on a halted chain; absence before the shutdown was not exhaustively verified. |
| Programmable spending | None found Earlier definition | Nothing can be executed since the July 2026 shutdown. While it ran, the chain executed Ethereum smart contracts, and Polygon described it as running the same bytecode as Ethereum. The proving system's resource counters could reject transactions that would run on Ethereum. 1213 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Not present | No transfer can be cancelled or delayed and no account recovered on the chain: nothing has executed since the July 2026 shutdown, and no protocol feature for either was found before it. The post-sunset claims interface is a one-off exit path to Ethereum, not a recovery path an owner sets up in advance. 1 |
| Rollups | Unknown | No source was cited for absence, so the rule that absence needs a source makes this cell unknown. Earlier finding: no rollups anchored to Polygon zkEVM were found. The chain itself was a rollup on Ethereum until December 2025; that is covered in the mechanism and Ethereum dependency notes. |
| Shielded transfers | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Signed partial offers | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
Reading these values
- How this feature is provided
- Built into the protocol, core-team software or independent software says where a feature lives and who can change it. These are implementation layers, not quality: core-team software is not closer to the protocol than independent software.
- Structured assessment pending
- The shared review has not assessed this feature for any chain yet (Account abstraction, Native staking or delegation, On-chain governance, Parallel execution, Protocol-verified messaging and Shielded transfers). That does not mean it is absent, and a chain’s profile may already describe it.
- Unknown
- The review has not established this for this chain under the current definition; the note beside it says why. Unknown is not absent and not a low score. A feature reads “Not present” only when a source shows it is absent.
- Earlier definition
- Payment or state channels, Programmable spending and Rollups keep the earlier definition until the next fact-check. There, “Native” does not separate the protocol from core-team software, “Ecosystem software” does not say who publishes it, and “Partial” does not say which layer.
- Reading across rows
- The list of capabilities is incomplete. Do not read these rows as a chain leading or lagging overall.
Ecosystem & custody
| Product type | Status | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Automated market makers | None foundPancakeSwap (wound down 2025), Balancer (deprecation proposed January 2026) | No exchange can operate because the chain no longer processes transactions. PancakeSwap began phasing out in July 2025 and removed zkEVM swaps and withdrawals from its main interface on 30 September 2025, leaving a legacy page. A Balancer proposal of January 2026 set full removal at the network's end of life. Liquidity still inside these contracts at the sunset cannot be claimed through Polygon's interface. 11516 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | None found | Circle's list of native USDC deployments names Polygon PoS but not Polygon zkEVM, and no stablecoin can move on the halted chain. Bridged stablecoins that existed there were not reviewed. 17 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | No source was cited for absence, so the rule that absence needs a source makes this entry unknown. Earlier finding: no stablecoin of any design can operate on the halted chain; algorithmic stablecoin use before the shutdown was not reviewed. |
| Bridges | First-partyPolygon zkEVM Claims interface (exit to Ethereum until 31 December 2027), Agglayer unified bridge (no longer processes zkEVM withdrawals) | Polygon's sunset page says the bridge can no longer process withdrawals from the chain. Wallet balances not bridged out before the sunset were snapshotted, and holders claim them on Ethereum through a Polygon Labs web app. It uses exit certificates and a read-only RPC, and users sign their own Ethereum transactions. The claim window was announced to open no earlier than 13 July 2026 and runs to 31 December 2027; Polygon's page says the interface is now live. Before the sunset, users were told to bridge to Ethereum through the Agglayer bridge interface. Risk: The snapshot covers the last seven months of chain history, which Ethereum never checked, so its correctness rests on Polygon's operator records. Only bridge accounting was proven. Assets inside DeFi contracts, multisigs or third-party bridges cannot be claimed through the interface. The interface retires after 2027; Polygon says unclaimed balances stay recorded on Ethereum but warns that recovery by other means may not be practicable. Per L2BEAT, a Polygon multisig and Security Council can upgrade the shared bridge contracts, instantly in an emergency. 134678 |
| Block explorers | Unknown | No source was cited for absence, so the rule that absence needs a source makes this entry unknown. Earlier finding: no working explorer was found at review time. The chain's former Etherscan-run explorer hostname no longer resolves, Blockscout returns not found for the addresses tried, and public RPC endpoints still answered historical queries; absence was not exhaustively verified. |
| Hardware wallets | ThinTrezor (through MetaMask or Rabby; network halted), Ledger Wallet (default-off feature switch) | See custody rows. Trezor's Ethereum page still lists Polygon zkEVM for use through third-party wallet apps, and Ledger Wallet's code still has it behind a feature switch that is off by default, but the network no longer processes transactions. The remaining exit step is an ordinary Ethereum transaction. 12224 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | PartialSame as native: Unknown | Cannot: Send or receive on Polygon zkEVM itself: the network stopped producing blocks in July 2026, so no transaction there can be confirmedCounted as limited first-party support under the shared custody rule: Ledger Wallet's current code still includes Polygon zkEVM as an Ethereum-family network, but behind a feature switch that is off by default, and no readable Ledger page confirms it was switched on for users (the coin page returned not found). The remaining exit step, a claim on Ethereum, is an ordinary Ethereum transaction. 1212223 |
| Trezor | Through an intermediaryMetaMask or Rabby (third-party wallet apps named on Trezor's Ethereum page)Same as native: Unknown | Can: Keep ETH claimed back from Polygon zkEVM on Ethereum mainnet, which Trezor lists for Trezor Suite, MetaMask and Rabby Cannot: Send or receive on Polygon zkEVM itself: the network stopped producing blocks in July 2026, so no transaction there can be confirmed Cannot: Add a Polygon zkEVM account in Trezor Suite: Suite's network configuration does not include itTrezor's Ethereum page still lists Polygon zkEVM among the networks a Trezor can use, and Suite does not include it, so under the shared custody rule a Trezor reaches it only through third-party wallets, even though the network has halted. Trezor's per-network page for Polygon zkEVM returned not found, and whether Polygon's claims interface connects to a Trezor was not verified. 1182425 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Polygon zkEVM yet. This is a limit of the service, not a statement about the network.
| Lookup | Status | What it covers and its limits |
|---|---|---|
| Address or account | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Tokens and assets | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| NFTs | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Transactions | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
Sourced developments
Developments: Review overdue Reviewed Sep 27, 2026; next review was due Oct 7, 2026, 12:00 UTC.
Publication date · newest first
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Polygon zkEVM sequencer switched off; claims move to Ethereum
Polygon's sunset page says that as of 3 July 2026 the Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta sequencer has been sunset, the network no longer produces blocks, and the bridge can no longer process withdrawals from it. Wallet balances are recoverable on Ethereum through a claims interface opening no earlier than 13 July 2026 and available through 31 December 2027. Assets held in smart contracts are not recoverable through it.
- Implementation:sequencer switched off
- Release:claims interface live, per Polygon's sunset page
- Activation:chain halted; claims open until 31 December 2027
Sources: Polygon Labs — Polygon zkEVM: Mainnet Beta Sunset and Fund Claims (external site) · Polygon Community Forum — Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta Sunset: Claim Your Funds (external site) · Polygon Labs — zkEVM Exit Claim (external site) · Alchemy — Polygon zkEVM Deprecation Notice (external site)
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Polygon set 1 July 2026 as the Polygon zkEVM sunset date and announced a claims process
Polygon's final reminder said the sequencer would be switched off on 1 July 2026 and urged users to bridge to Ethereum first. Balances left in ordinary wallets would be snapshotted and made claimable on Ethereum, and funds locked in DeFi protocols could not be migrated automatically. Assets not claimed would be considered abandoned after 31 December 2027.
- Implementation:sunset plan and claims process announced
- Release:claims interface to be published after the sunset
- Activation:carried out two days later than announced: Polygon's sunset page gives 3 July 2026 as the sequencer sunset date
Sources: Polygon Community Forum — Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta Sunset: Claim Your Funds (external site) · Polygon Community Forum — Sunsetting Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta in 2026 (external site)
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Polygon zkEVM switched from full execution proofs to pessimistic proofs
Polygon announced it would migrate Polygon zkEVM mainnet from full execution proofs to pessimistic proofs on 3 December 2025, with the bridge paused for about six hours. After the change, Ethereum checked only the chain's bridge accounting, not its state. L2BEAT records the change between 3 and 5 December 2025 and now lists the chain as neither a rollup nor a validium.
- Proposal:announced by Polygon; no governance vote described
- Implementation:contract changes recorded by L2BEAT on 3 to 5 December 2025
- Release:pessimistic proof system from Polygon's shared bridge stack
- Activation:active from December 2025 until the July 2026 shutdown
Sources: Polygon Community Forum — Announcement - zkEVM Migration Update (external site) · L2BEAT — Polygon zkEVM (external site) · Polygon Developer Docs — Pessimistic Proof: Architecture (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Polygon zkEVM through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- No typical time from a transaction to proof-verified finality on Ethereum was found for the rollup period; Polygon's zkEVM documentation pages now redirect to unrelated development-kit docs.
- Whether forced transactions were ever usable for exits after the June 2025 promise could not be settled: L2BEAT reports the mechanism disabled, and Polygon's own pages do not mention it.
- The claims process was not tested. How exit certificates are produced and checked, the snapshot block, and the list of claimable tokens and NFTs were not found in readable form; the claims app is a script-only page.
- Why the sequencer stopped two days after the announced date is not explained: Polygon's April 2026 post named 1 July 2026, while its sunset page lists 3 July 2026 as the sequencer sunset date, and the last block read from a public endpoint is timestamped 3 July 2026. The time of the exit snapshot was not found.
- Ledger Wallet's code still has Polygon zkEVM behind a feature switch that is off by default; whether Ledger ever switched it on for users was not confirmed.
- Whether Polygon's claims interface works with Ledger or Trezor devices was not verified.
- No working block explorer was found; historical data is reachable only through RPC endpoints, whose future availability is unknown.
- The outcome of Balancer's January 2026 deprecation vote was not checked, and QuickSwap's wind-down was seen only in a social post, which is not cited.
- Bridged stablecoins, algorithmic stablecoins, atomic swaps, reversible-transfer or recovery tools and channel layers on the chain before shutdown were not reviewed.
- Whether the Cardona testnet was also shut down by Polygon was not confirmed from a Polygon source; Alchemy's notice says it ended support for both networks on 1 July 2026.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 27, 2026 Next check due Oct 27, 2026.
- Polygon zkEVM: Mainnet Beta Sunset and Fund Claims (external site)
- Sunsetting Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta in 2026 (external site)
- Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta Sunset: Claim Your Funds (external site)
- Announcement - zkEVM Migration Update (external site)
- Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta is Live (external site)
- zkEVM Exit Claim (external site)
- Polygon zkEVM (external site)
- Pessimistic Proof: Architecture (external site)
- zkevm-node (archived) (external site)
- cdk-erigon (external site)
- Knowledge Layer, Architecture: Sequencing Batches (v1.0) (external site)
- Knowledge Layer, Architecture: Interacting with the zkEVM Network (v1.0) (external site)
- Knowledge Layer, Architecture: Economics - Users Fees (v1.0) (external site)
- Knowledge Layer, Architecture: L2 State Tree Concept (v1.0) (external site)
- Action Required: PancakeSwap Sunsetting Support on Polygon zkEVM (external site)
- [BIP-906] Deprecation of Polygon zkEVM, Fraxtal, and Mode (external site)
- USDC Contract Addresses (external site)
- Supported coins and tokens (external site)
- Supported crypto assets (external site)
- Polygon zkEVM Deprecation Notice (external site)
- Ledger Wallet coin-module loaders (loaders.ts, develop branch) (external site)
- Ledger Wallet feature switch currencyPolygonZkEvm (develop branch) (external site)
- Ledger feature-flag definitions (define.ts): a switch declared with no value is off by default (external site)
- Ethereum wallet (external site)
- Trezor Suite Ethereum network configuration (networkConfig.ts, develop branch) (external site)
Report an error
Found something wrong or out of date? Reporting is free, and every chain goes through the same process. Published corrections appear in the public log.
Funding disclosure
Funding disclosures appear here when an upkeep arrangement exists, in the form “Upkeep funded by [name]; verdicts unaffected.” The funder ledger has not been published yet. Neutrality & funding