Sandeep introduces POL, the next upgrade to MATIC

Sandeep Nailwal, the Founder of Polygon, has introduced POL by calling it the next massive technical upgrade to MATIC. It has been teased as a part of the Polygon 2.0 proposal with the core objective of facilitating interoperability and increased roles for validators. It additionally comes with the benefit of multi-chain staking but without the risk of restaking.

As the community waits to put their votes for or against the proposal, Snadeep has clarified that the proposal, if passed, will expand the Polygon ecosystem. Simply put, it will no longer be bounded by a single chain as it will stretch its operations on other chains as well. Polygon 2.0 will further accelerate the sharing of liquidity.

Polygon 2.0 brings to light the concept of enshrined restaking. This refers to first staking the upgraded token to the staking hub and then restaking it to validate any chain that is available on the network. Stakers participating in enshrined staking will have a chance to earn higher rewards as compared to those who decide not to engage with it.

POL plays a very crucial role here since a token design is precisely something that could have supported the innovation.

Sandeep Nailwal has highlighted that POL can be used by participants to stake on as many chains as possible to participate with more roles for them. Other roles that validators can touch upon are that of a sequencer to batch transactions, generate proofs to run prover and secure the hub. To reiterate, validators will see their rewards getting increased based on their participation.

There are, to say, two dimensions to POL. The first one is to avoid a trusted third party via enshrined staking. This will lead to the creation of fewer vectors of centralization. The second one is the utility of POL going beyond the idea of just securing chains. It enables security for DACs and Agg Layers, among others.

POL has been introduced as a third-generation token that’s all set to start a new trend as a hyperproductive token.

The first generation, denoted by Generation 1, was about BTC. It gave users the power to hold the token, but there was no space for participation in securing the network. This problem was resolved by ETH in the second generation, denoted by Generation 2. It finally enabled holders to have tokens in their wallets while contributing to the security aspect of a network.

POL is now the third generation token, that is, Generation 3, that has made its way into the crypto-economics. POL gives community members the power to hold the token and secure multiplier networks while playing more than a single role.

If BTC was a token that started a trend for digital assets, then ETH definitely carried it forward in the form of utility. Now, it is about POL helping holders secure multiple networks in addition to doing all that the previous generation tokens did.