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View ChartThe Ethereum blockchain supports a wide variety of economic activities, including NFT markets, gaming and the growing DeFi ecosystem. It is well suited to this activity because it is compatible with smart contracts, which can be used to develop a wide variety of applications.
However, the growing popularity of these applications adds to the number of transactions on the Ethereum blockchain, and as a result, transaction fees (also known as 'gas') can sometimes rise to the point where making small or frequent investments becomes uneconomical.
Enter Polygon: a Proof-of-Stake scaling solution for Ethereum. It acts as a speedy parallel blockchain running alongside the main Ethereum blockchain. POL can be acquired on a range of major exchanges and self-custodial wallets; MetaMask supports buying POL directly and holding it in a self-custodial wallet.
Polygon uses a proof-of-stake system. Participants must stake, or hold, their POL tokens in order to validate network transactions, and successful validators earn POL as a reward. In addition to staking rewards, stakers may also become eligible for Agglayer ecosystem airdrops.
As a scaling solution, the Polygon network aims to address the limitations of the Ethereum platform, namely high transaction fees and slow processing speeds. Polygon (formerly Matic Network) is a blockchain platform which aims to create a multi-chain blockchain system compatible with Ethereum. Further details are available in the developer documentation at https://docs.polygon.technology/pos/concepts/tokens/pol.
POL is the proposed native token of Polygon, designed to secure, coordinate and align the Polygon ecosystem and supercharge its growth. It acts as the primary token for fees and staking (Proof-of-Stake), and securing the network. POL is the upgraded, next-generation version of the former MATIC token. POL is designed to support a vast ecosystem of interconnected blockchains and enhance interoperability. It empowers users to earn rewards for securing data, and stakers can earn rewards and may become eligible for Agglayer ecosystem airdrops.
MATIC was upgraded to POL across the Polygon network on September 4, 2024. Every transaction that takes place on Polygon PoS, starting that day, uses POL as the native gas token. As of September 3, 2025, almost a year following the MATIC to POL upgrade, 99% of the MATIC on the Polygon network had successfully migrated to POL.
The POL contract address is 0x455e...ffc3f6 (shown in truncated form on CoinMarketCap), and it can be checked on etherscan.io.
POL has a total supply of approximately 10.62 billion (CoinMarketCap lists 10.62B, while Yahoo Finance, MetaMask and Coinpedia list 10.63B), and the circulating supply is broadly in line with that figure. No maximum supply has been set (CoinMarketCap shows --, Coinpedia shows N/A).
POL's emission and governance mechanisms are documented in the Polygon developer docs (https://docs.polygon.technology/pos/concepts/tokens/pol). According to an announcement by Polygon on its official X account (@0xPolygon) on September 27, 2025, 100 million POL has been permanently burned.
POL carries risk. Its price can be volatile, regulatory policy may change, and technical risks may affect the network. The points above should not be read as guarantees of future performance.
POL can be bought on a range of major centralised exchanges and self-custodial wallets. MetaMask supports buying POL directly with a debit card, credit card, bank transfer, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and other regional options, with no exchange account needed, and POL goes straight into a self-custodial wallet. The minimum purchase depends on the onramp provider and payment method, and many providers support purchases starting around $1–$5. Support is available 24/7 at support.metamask.io.
Once you hold POL, you can buy, sell, swap, use it in prediction markets, trade perpetuals with leverage, or stake it to earn passive income.
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Trade| Feature | POL (Polygon) | OP (Optimism) | ARB (Arbitrum) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scaling Architecture | AggLayer + ZK-Rollups + PoS | OP Stack (Superchain Optimistic) | Arbitrum One (Optimistic) + Orbit |
| Token Utility | Multi-Chain Gas + Hyper-Staking + Governance | Superchain Governance (No Gas Function) | Arbitrum DAO Governance (No Gas Function) |
| Cross-Chain Liquidity | Instant ZK liquidity aggregation via AggLayer | Relies on standard bridges & shared security | Isolated Rollup chains with fragmented liquidity |
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