Polygon is considering a coordinated hard fork to recover 70.49 million POL held in five blocked hack-linked wallets, following security incidents linked to Binance and Polymarket. This isn’t a new exploit response: the proposed fork would move specific balances into recovery wallets designated by the two platforms.
At a fixed block, it would set the five addresses’ POL balances to zero and credit the same amounts to those wallets. It wouldn’t mint tokens or reverse the chain’s broader history.
The Binance portion is 46.63 million POL. The remaining 23.86 million POL is tied to Polymarket and would be transferred from four addresses into a Polymarket-designated wallet.
The proposal calls direct reassignment the fastest route because the tokens are already blocked from moving. But the block list alone doesn’t give the affected platforms control of the funds.
The fork proposal addresses only this specific, frozen POL. Even if the transfer goes ahead, returning funds to customers would still depend on each platform’s own claims and reimbursement process.
The proposal is now under forum discussion, and a mainnet fork would still require governance backing, testing and validator coordination. The decision also sets a precedent question for token holders: whether this kind of direct balance change is acceptable as a one-off recovery measure, and what bar should apply to any future intervention.