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Binance, Polymarket seek Polygon hard fork to recover $6.8M in stolen crypto
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- DeepHorus
Binance and Polymarket have proposed a Polygon network hard fork to recover about 70.49 million POL tokens, valued at roughly $6.8 million, stolen in separate security incidents. The Wednesday governance proposal would remove the tokens from five attacker-controlled addresses and transfer them to recovery wallets designated by the two platforms. The process would occur at a predetermined block without changing POL's total supply.
The recovery covers 23.86 million POL worth $2.31 million across four addresses tied to the Polymarket hack. It also includes 46.63 million POL worth about $4.51 million held in one address linked to the Binance hack. Polygon block producers have already blocked transactions from the affected addresses, preventing the stolen funds from moving.
However, the proposal said those restrictions are temporary measures that cannot return the funds to their owners. The plan requires governance approval and testing on Polygon's Amoy testnet before activation. It is scheduled for discussion on Nov. 5, with no confirmed date for the mainnet hard fork.
A successful hard fork would set a precedent for recovering stolen crypto through protocol-level intervention. It would also raise questions about the centralization of blockchain governance and the role of major exchanges in shaping network decisions. The proposal emphasized that POL's total supply would remain unchanged.
The proposal follows Binance's record $6.3 billion hack on Oct. 29. Polymarket separately suspended trading after reporting that a third-party provider had been compromised. Binance has traced its hack to fake job interviews and a compromised AI tool, according to a related report.
The Polygon community will discuss the proposal on Nov. 5. If approved, testing on the Amoy testnet would precede any mainnet activation. No timeline has been set for the hard fork, leaving the recovery process uncertain.
