Branding crisis? Polygon mulls returning to its former ‘MATIC’ name

Key Takeaways 

Why is Polygon facing an identity crisis? 

Per the CEO, nearly 95% of its users are outside social media and are wondering what happened to MATIC. 

How did the community respond? 

Mixed. Some want MATIC for its stronger brand, while others warned such a move would cause more confusion. 

Ethereum L2 Polygon appears to be in a branding crisis with its new ticker POL. The community is now split on the proposal to revert to the former, well-known ‘MATIC’ ticker. 

Some critics argue that ‘POL’ stands for the L2 evolution into a new scaling era, via AggLayer. Hence, switching back would signal a lack of consistency and drive extra confusion, one user noted, adding, 

“Yes, recognition matters, but IMO we solve that with better education and clearer messaging, not by rolling back the identity we just established.”

The reaction followed the Polygon CEO, Sandeep Nailwal’s feedback request earlier in the week. 

Nailwal stated that those against POL branding argued that over 95% of non-Crypto Twitter members were used to MATIC and don’t know where it went. 

Mapping the change from Matic to Polygon

Others even question the point of the rebranding if it sidelines the majority of the users. 

Source: X

The Ethereum [ETH] sidechain was formed in 2017 and hit mainnet as ‘Matic Network’ in 2020. The MATIC token was the heart of the L2, used as a gas token and securing it (since it’s a proof of stake, PoS) via staking.  

But in 2021, the chain rebranded to Polygon and only switched the token later in mid-2023, to POL.

What began as a single chain evolved to several related chains, including the interoperation layer (AggLayer), Polygon zkEVM and others. 

Hence, the new POL token was to capture the change, but it seems the rebranding hasn’t been felt across the board, according to the current divided opinions. 

Impact of the POL rebranding

According to Santiment, demand for Polygon [POL] rose steadily after the rebranding (gently rising red line) in late 2023 and early 2024.

However, it crashed sharply in H2 2024 (dip in red line) and remained negative until October 2025. 

Source: Santiment

Put differently, a slight accumulation followed after the rebranding but crashed afterwards.

A new re-accumulation trend only began early this year and turned positive last month. Now 631 million POL tokens are outside exchanges — A bullish sign. 

But active addresses eased and stagnated in H₂, as shown by the blue shaded area. POL’s price, on the other hand, dropped by 83% from the 2024 peak of $0.75 to $0.13 amid broader market weakness. 

Overall, POL has seen great traction in 2025, and brand awareness may be resolved by more education. But price remained muted due to broader market sentiment.