PIP-19: Update Polygon PoS Native Token to POL

Polygon Improvement Proposals Canonical PIPs
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PIP-19: Update Polygon PoS Native Token to POL

Authors: Will Schwab, Daniel Gretzke, Dhairya Sethi, Zero Ekkusu

Type: Contracts

Table of Contents:

  • Abstract
  • Motivation
  • Definitions
  • Specification
  • Backward Compatibility
  • Security Considerations
  • Copyright

Abstract

This proposal calls for upgrading the native token of the Polygon PoS network from MATIC (0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0) to POL (address) in a method that ensures maximum backward compatibility. The authors recommend this by upgrading the PoS Plasma Bridge Contract (0x401f6c983ea34274ec46f84d70b31c151321188b) to a new implementation that:

  • Converts all the MATIC in the bridge to POL
  • Fulfills all withdrawal requests for the native asset of Polygon PoS Chain with POL
  • Credits all deposits in POL or MATIC with the native asset of the Polygon PoS chain.

This proposed upgrade will not change any contracts on the Polygon PoS Network. Likewise, the native token’s properties will remain unchanged. All contracts will function as designed. The native asset of the Polygon PoS chain will change from being a claim on the Plasma Bridge’s MATIC, to a claim on the Plasma Bridge’s POL.

MATIC will still be an operational ERC20 token on Ethereum throughout this phase. Similarly, staking rewards for validators will remain denominated in MATIC until further technical upgrades are proposed and, if welcomed by the community, then implemented.

Motivation

The native token is the token used by users of the Polygon PoS network to pay gas fees in order to transact. The present native token is redeemable for MATIC which was set as the native token upon genesis of the Polygon PoS network. Now that POL (address), the updated successor of MATIC, has been proposed, the authors propose setting it as the native token of the network via an upgrade of the Plasma Bridge in a maximally backward compatible manner.

Definitions

Plasma Bridge: Polygon Plasma is the official bridge used to bridge MATIC tokens from Ethereum to Polygon chain.

Specification

Upgrade the Plasma Bridge contract to a new implementation at < address to be determined >.

Backward Compatibility

Contracts that expect to receive MATIC from the Plasma bridge on Ethereum may be affected.

Security Considerations

This upgrade adjusts a core contract of the Polygon Ecosystem, all proper security procedures including necessary audits will be taken, and should be carefully reviewed prior to activation.

References

Copyright

All copyrights and related rights in this work are waived under CC0 1.0 Universal.

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Good development, hopefully this will be the beginning of many things to go

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may I ask is the migration is done via the POS plasma bridge according to PIP-19? To migrate MATIC on Ethereum, users will need to deposit MATIC to the bridge to get POL?

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there is a separate migration contract where you can swap your MATIC for POL. No bridge is required to migrate your tokens

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POL as described is just efficient ! The whole plan and proposal is just genius. I’m 100% in for that!

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How will this impact users who have been staking their MATIC on validators? At some point validators will need to upgrade, will I have to unstake and covert via the bridge upon doing so?

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If you have been delegating to a certain validator, you will need to undelegate your tokens and convert them to POL using the migration contract.

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Will the native token name on the PoS Chain be updated as “POL” when the contract change is done on the bridge?

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A name change is not planned in this set of upgrades, as the PoS network will be entirely unaffected by them.

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This looks great! I really appreciate the maximally backward compatible manner of this upgrade :clap:

  • It sounds like the answer is no, but will there be any changes made to the FxRoot contract or the CheckpointManager on L1?
  • Will the existing checkpoint system for PoS messages continue to work the same?
  • Will there be any downtime with any part of the chain/ecosystem during the upgrade?
  • Is there a rough date when this is expected to take place?
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FX root is not upgradeable, so no changes could ever be made to that contract. But MATIC is only transferred using the plasma bridge, so there will be no changes to FX Portal at this point in time. the checkpoint manager is also not affected by these upgrades.

This upgrade does not modify the consensus of the PoS chain so all messages continue to work the same as before

There should be no downtime, the PoS chain will continue to operate as usual.

Not that I’m aware of

But generally speaking, this is just the first set of upgrades. Future PIPs will outline changes and upgrades that might affect bridges or the PoS network so keep an eye out for those if you would be affected by them.

2 Likes