Sidechain · settles to Ethereum
Polygon PoS ticker POL
Summary
Proof-of-stake chain built from two client layers. Validators stake POL in contracts on Ethereum. The Heimdall-v2 layer (forks of Cosmos SDK and CometBFT) tracks that stake, selects block producers, finalizes Bor blocks through milestones that need agreement from 2/3 of voting power, and signs checkpoints (Merkle roots of Bor blocks) that are submitted to Ethereum. The Bor layer, a Geth fork, executes EVM transactions. Since the Rio hardfork (October 2025) each span of about 6,400 blocks has one elected producer that seals every block; Bor's sealing is adapted from Clique proof of authority. Ethereum stores checkpoints and stake but does not re-execute or prove Polygon transactions. 3456781018
Design
- System
- SidechainPolygon's docs home describes the network as a proof-of-stake sidechain for Ethereum, and its overview calls it an EVM-compatible blockchain anchored to Ethereum; 2026 docs and blog posts use the name Polygon Chain for the same network (chain ID 137). It has its own validator set and consensus, keeps staking and checkpoint contracts on Ethereum, and Ethereum does not verify its transactions, so it is classed as a sidechain rather than a standalone chain or a rollup. POL is the gas and staking token; it replaced MATIC in September 2024.
- Settles to
- EthereumStaking, validator-set changes, checkpoint storage and the canonical bridge live in contracts on Ethereum. Checkpoints are posted roughly every 15 to 30 minutes (Polygon's pages differ) and withdrawals to Ethereum wait for one. Ethereum records checkpoint roots but does not verify Polygon execution, so this is anchoring, not rollup settlement.
- Settlement family
- Ethereum / EVM
- Scarce resource
- Stake (proof of stake)
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Other
- Who makes blocks
- One producer per span, chosen by Heimdall from a small pool (currently up to four) elected through ranked, stake-weighted validator votes; a candidate must clear roughly two-thirds of the maximum possible weighted vote. The active validator set is capped at 105; new validators need an application and a free slot. Docs differ on stalls: the Rio post mentions designated backups, while the Bor docs say there is no backup or out-of-turn signing and a stalled producer is replaced only when Heimdall rotates to another pool member.
- Fork choice
- No open weight-based chain selection in practice: within a span a single producer extends the chain, and milestones agreed by validators holding 2/3 or more of voting power mark blocks final. Polygon documents that blocks covered by a milestone cannot be reorganized; blocks newer than the latest milestone are not yet final.
Qualifications
- Finality · Partial. Two stages: milestones agreed by 2/3 of voting power give deterministic finality, which Polygon's docs put at 2 to 5 seconds, and checkpoints on Ethereum follow later for bridge withdrawals. Polygon's April 2026 Giugliano post put the mainnet average at 6 to 7 seconds before that upgrade. This is neither probabilistic nor proven by Ethereum, and slashing for conflicting votes was not verified, so it does not fit the standard categories.
- Ethereum settlement · Contested. Polygon's docs call the chain both a sidechain and a blockchain anchored to Ethereum, and third parties often call it a layer 2. Ethereum holds stake and checkpoints but runs no fraud or validity proofs of Polygon execution.
- Producer failover · Contested. The Rio announcement says designated backups step in if an elected producer falters; current Bor docs say there are no backup producers or out-of-turn signing, and recovery waits for Heimdall to rotate to another producer in the elected pool or for a timeout.
- Validator minimum stake · Applies. The becoming-a-validator page says new validators need 100,000 POL of self-stake, enforced on chain by the staking contract's minimum deposit under PIP-70, and that an earlier 10,000 POL proposal (PIP-4) was never enforced. The docs overview still shows the outdated 10,000 POL figure.
- Polygon zkevm · Not applicable. Polygon zkEVM was a separate Ethereum rollup, not part of this chain; its sequencer was sunset on 3 July 2026.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Scalability and Security Contested
- Gives up
- Decentralized block production and open validator entry: one elected producer seals every block in a span, the validator set is capped at 105 with gated entry, and full nodes are listed at 32 GB or more of RAM, 4 TB or more of storage and a 1 Gbit/s link. Upgrades to the Ethereum staking contracts rest with a 5-of-9 multisig.The security reading refers to fast deterministic finality from a 2/3 stake supermajority and stake held on Ethereum. It is debatable: Ethereum does not check Polygon execution, bridge withdrawals trust validator-signed checkpoints, and slashing for conflicting votes was not verified in this review.
- Full node at home
- Demanding 101118Polygon lists mainnet full and sentry nodes at a minimum of 8 cores, 32 GB RAM and 4 TB storage (16 cores, 64 GB and 6 TB recommended) with 1 Gbit/s bandwidth, the same as validators; archive nodes need 64 GB RAM, 16 cores and 16 TB of high-IOPS RAID-0 storage. Validators also need an Ethereum RPC endpoint. The Rio post says stateless validation lowers hardware needs, but the requirements page still lists these figures.
- Throughput claims
- Unclassified: 3,800 tx/s 2Unclassified; do not compare.Stated on the docs overview next to finality and average cost with no measurement window, method, transaction mix or hardware. Does not say whether it is observed load, a benchmark or a capacity estimate; do not compare it with other chains. Ignores propagation to non-producing nodes and state growth.
- Theoretical peak: 5,000 tx/s 18Theoretical peak; not comparable across chains or with observed load.Presented as a capacity the Rio upgrade enables, with no published method, window or transaction mix. Relies on a single elected producer per span; it says nothing about how many independent nodes can keep up. Ignores state growth and propagation to full nodes; the full-node requirements page lists a 1 Gbit/s link.
- Lab benchmark: 11,000,000 19Controlled benchmark; not observed network behavior.Off-chain signed payment vouchers per second across channel hubs, not Polygon transactionsDevnet benchmark reported 2026-09-2425 hubs with 16 vCPUs each; a single hub on a 24-core server measured roughly 533,000 to 536,000 vouchers per secondMeasures an off-chain payment channel system on a devnet; only periodic Merkle roots are posted to the chain. Capacity is reported to grow with the number of hubs, so the figure reflects server count, not chain capacity. Not live on mainnet at review time; hub trust and dispute rules were not reviewed.
Scaling layers
- Polygon agent payment channels (x402 vouchers) · Payment channels, research 19
Payers fund a channel contract on Polygon, stream signed vouchers through hubs, and hubs post batched epoch Merkle roots on chain that providers claim against. Polygon describes a benchmark on a devnet and invites interested teams to contact it; no public testnet or mainnet deployment was documented. Who runs hubs, dispute windows, and what a misbehaving or offline hub can do were not described in the reviewed post.
Capabilities
| Capability | How it is provided | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Account abstraction | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Atomic swaps | Unknown | A protocol-level trust-minimized swap mechanism was not reviewed; EVM contracts could implement hash-locked swaps, but none was verified. |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
| Light clients | Built into the protocolLimited scope | Checkpoints: consensus produces what a light client checks, since Heimdall validators sign checkpoints (Merkle roots of Bor blocks) and the Ethereum bridge contracts check withdrawal proofs against those signed roots. Limited: this light verification serves the bridge only; an end-user light client for Polygon was not reviewed. 314 |
| 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 | Partial (layer not stated) Earlier definition | Polygon described x402 payment channels with hub batching settling to Polygon, benchmarked on a devnet in September 2026 and offered to teams that contact Polygon; no public testnet or mainnet deployment was documented at review time. 19 |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | Bor is a Geth fork running the EVM, so spend conditions are smart contracts; ERC-4337 smart accounts are a contract-level standard, not a protocol feature. 1217 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Unknown | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; Safe's deployment registry lists its version 1.4.1 smart-account contracts on Polygon PoS (chain ID 137). A Safe account needs a set number of owners to approve each spend, lets owners be replaced and can add modules, including one that restores access under set conditions, but no cited source shows a delay or recovery module deployed there, and an owner threshold alone meets neither part of this row. Whether Safe's app supports Polygon PoS was not checked. 3940 |
| Rollups | Unknown | No rollup settling to Polygon PoS was verified. Polygon zkEVM was a rollup on Ethereum, not on this chain, and stopped producing blocks in July 2026. 24 |
| 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 | Established in the ecosystemQuickSwap, Uniswap v3 | QuickSwap lists Polygon PoS first among its deployments and describes constant-product pools; Uniswap documents v3 contract deployments on Polygon. Liquidity depth was not measured and other venues were not reviewed. 252627 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | Established in the ecosystemUSDC (Circle), EURR (Revolut) | Circle lists natively issued USDC on Polygon PoS (0x3c499c542cEF5E3811e1192ce70d8cC03d5c3359). Polygon reported in August 2026 that Revolut's euro token EURR launched on Ethereum and Polygon. Tether's supported-protocols page does not list Polygon, so USDT there is not shown as Tether-issued. Native means issuer-issued on this chain, not a protocol asset. 232831 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | Algorithmic or hybrid stablecoins on Polygon PoS were not reviewed. |
| Bridges | Native to the protocolPolygon PoS bridge via Polygon Portal (Ethereum), Circle CCTP (USDC) | Deposits and withdrawals with Ethereum use protocol contracts; a withdrawal burns on Polygon, waits for a checkpoint on Ethereum, then exits through the root chain manager. Circle lists Polygon PoS as a CCTP chain (domain 7). Other third-party bridges and Agglayer connectivity were not reviewed. Risk: Withdrawals are accepted on the strength of checkpoints signed by the Polygon validator set, not proofs of execution. Polygon lists a 5-of-9 multisig that can upgrade the Ethereum staking contracts, a 5-of-8 multisig that can update custom child tokens on Polygon and a 4-of-8 multisig for token mapping, with no timelock mentioned; the page says a move to timelocked governance is planned. The August 2026 Austin fork capped state-sync gas after a denial-of-service path in bridge deposits was found. CCTP transfers depend on Circle attestations. 141516222930 |
| Block explorers | Established in the ecosystemPolygonscan, Blockscout (polygon.blockscout.com) | Polygon's network reference lists Polygonscan for mainnet, and Polygonscan describes itself as an explorer for the Polygon PoS chain; Blockscout runs a Polygon Mainnet instance. Explorer data is provider-indexed, not consensus. 133233 |
| Hardware wallets | Established in the ecosystemLedger, Trezor | See custody rows: Ledger lists Polygon in Ledger Wallet and offers POL staking there; Trezor's POL page lists Polygon PoS as a supported network in Trezor Suite, with staking only through third-party apps. 34353637 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | Native supportSame as native: Yes | Can: Buy, manage and swap Polygon in the Ledger Wallet app Can: Stake POL from the Earn section of Ledger Wallet through a Meria-operated validator integrated via Yield.xyzLedger's Polygon coin page still shows the pre-2024 MATIC ticker, while its staking page refers to POL. Which on-device app signs Polygon transactions was not confirmed because the support article did not load. 3435 |
| Trezor | Native supportSame as native: Yes | Can: Receive, send and buy POL on Polygon PoS in Trezor Suite Can: Stake POL by connecting the Trezor to a third-party app such as MetaMask Cannot: Stake POL inside Trezor Suite Cannot: Use Polygon zkEVM from Trezor SuiteTrezor's POL page lists Polygon PoS and Ethereum as supported networks and shows the Safe 3, Safe 5 and Safe 7; older models were not checked. Trezor's separate page for the retired MATIC listing says MATIC itself is no longer supported because it migrated to POL. 363738 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Polygon PoS 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
-
Polygon disclosed denial-of-service fixes shipped in the Austin and Kyoto hardforks
Polygon disclosed vulnerabilities fixed by two mandatory hardforks. Austin (Bor v2.10.0, mainnet block 91,949,700) capped gas used by bridge state-sync events and removed an unbounded network field that could crash peers. Kyoto (Heimdall v0.11.0, mainnet height 51,533,000) added eight consensus-hardening fixes; the most severe let one cheap transaction force costly decoding on every validator.
- Implementation:fixed in Bor v2.10.0 and Heimdall v0.11.0
- Release:mandatory releases published
- Activation:active on mainnet per the disclosure
Sources: Polygon Community Forum — Security releases review: Bor v2.10.0 (Austin HF) and Heimdall v0.11.0 (Kyoto HF) (external site) · Polygon Community Forum — Bor v2.10.0 release (external site) · Polygon Labs (GitHub) — Bor v2.10.0 - Austin hardfork (external site) · Polygon Community Forum — Heimdall v0.11.0 (external site)
-
Revolut launched the EURR euro stablecoin on Ethereum and Polygon
Polygon announced that Revolut's EURR, a euro token meant to be redeemable one for one through its regulated issuer under the EU's MiCA rules, launched on Ethereum and Polygon, with a first rollout to customers in Denmark, Poland and Portugal.
- Implementation:announced as launched
- Release:initial customer rollout
- Activation:rollout limited to named countries at announcement
Source: Polygon Labs — Revolut Launches EURR, a Euro-Backed Stablecoin, on Polygon (external site)
-
Giugliano hardfork shortened confirmations and published fee parameters on chain
Giugliano activated at mainnet block 85,268,500. Producers now announce blocks earlier, which Polygon said brought test-network confirmations about two seconds below the mainnet average of 6 to 7 seconds, and each block header now carries the gas target and base-fee change rate, readable through a new RPC method.
- Implementation:shipped in client releases
- Release:mainnet activation announced
- Activation:announced as live at block 85,268,500
-
Rio hardfork moved Polygon PoS to elected block producers
The Rio hardfork, scheduled for mainnet block 77,414,656 on 8 October 2025, replaced rotating block production with one validator-elected producer per span and added stateless block validation. Polygon said the combination practically ends chain reorganizations.
- Proposal:PIP-64 referenced in the release notice
- Implementation:released in Bor v2.3.0 and Heimdall v0.4.0
- Release:mainnet release announced
- Activation:announced as live by Polygon; block-level activation not independently checked
Sources: Polygon Labs — Polygon Launches Major Payments Upgrade with Rio (external site) · Polygon Community Forum — Bor v2.3.0 and Heimdall v0.4.0 release (Rio Hard Fork for VEBloP upgrade) (external site) · Polygon Labs — Heimdall Bor module: spans and producer selection (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Polygon PoS through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- The current number of active validators and how concentrated producer votes are were not measured; only the cap of 105 is sourced.
- Whether validators can be slashed for signing conflicting milestones or checkpoints, and the unbonding period, were not verified.
- Polygon's docs overview still shows a 10,000 POL minimum validator stake; the validator page explains that figure was never enforced and gives 100,000 POL under PIP-70. The on-chain value itself was not read.
- Polygon's docs put milestone finality at 2 to 5 seconds, while its April 2026 Giugliano post gave a mainnet average of 6 to 7 seconds before that upgrade; no independent mainnet measurement was reviewed.
- A September 2026 governance call agenda lists security releases for a Lugano hardfork and PIP-92 on sharing priority fees with stakers; their content and status were not reviewed.
- Polygon's docs disagree on producer failover: the Rio post mentions backup producers, the Bor docs say recovery waits for a span rotation.
- The checkpoint interval is given as roughly 15 to 20 minutes on the validator page and about 30 minutes on the bridging page; the live governance value was not read.
- Whether the multisigs that can upgrade staking and bridge contracts are behind a timelock, and whether a planned move to on-chain governance has happened, was not verified.
- The name change from Polygon PoS to Polygon Chain appears across Polygon's 2026 docs and blog, but no formal rename announcement was found.
- Current chain size and whether the published node requirements reflect stateless validation after Rio were not verified.
- Whether Polygon PoS is connected to Agglayer, and which third-party bridges carry most volume, were not reviewed.
- No rollup settling to Polygon PoS was verified, and atomic swaps, end-user light clients and algorithmic stablecoins were not reviewed.
- The agent payment channel system was described only on a devnet; its dispute rules and hub trust model were not documented in the reviewed post.
- The Ledger on-device signing app for Polygon was not confirmed, and Trezor support for models other than the Safe 3, Safe 5 and Safe 7 was not checked.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 27, 2026 Next check due Oct 27, 2026.
- Polygon PoS documentation home (external site)
- Polygon Chain overview (external site)
- Architecture overview (external site)
- Heimdall-v2 introduction (external site)
- Bor introduction (external site)
- Heimdall Bor module: spans and producer selection (external site)
- Milestones (external site)
- Finality (external site)
- Checkpoints (external site)
- Becoming a validator (external site)
- Node prerequisites and system requirements (external site)
- ERC-4337 account abstraction (external site)
- RPC endpoints and network details (external site)
- Polygon to Ethereum transfers (external site)
- Polygon Portal (external site)
- Commit chain multisigs (external site)
- 0xPolygon/bor (external site)
- Polygon Launches Major Payments Upgrade with Rio (external site)
- Polygon Chain now supports 11 million payments per second (external site)
- Giugliano Hard Fork: Faster Finality, Onchain Fee Transparency, Higher Throughput on Polygon Chain (external site)
- PPGC-46 agenda, September 24th 2026 (external site)
- Security releases review: Bor v2.10.0 (Austin HF) and Heimdall v0.11.0 (Kyoto HF) (external site)
- Revolut Launches EURR, a Euro-Backed Stablecoin, on Polygon (external site)
- Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta sunset and fund claims (external site)
- What is Quickswap? (external site)
- Quickswap AMM (external site)
- Uniswap v3 Polygon deployments (external site)
- USDC contract addresses (external site)
- Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol overview (external site)
- CCTP supported blockchains (external site)
- Supported protocols (external site)
- Polygon Mainnet explorer (external site)
- PolygonScan (external site)
- Polygon wallet (external site)
- Ledger by Meria Polygon validator in Ledger Wallet (external site)
- Polygon: what it is and how it works with Trezor (external site)
- POL (ex-MATIC) wallet page (external site)
- Polygon (MATIC) legacy wallet page (external site)
- SafeL2 v1.4.1 deployments by chain ID (safe-deployments registry) (external site)
- How Safe Smart Accounts work (external site)
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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