Crypto DeFi

Polymarket and Binance propose Polygon hard fork to zero out hacker’s 70.49M POL

Nov 5, 2026 00:36 ET · Nov 5, 2026

TREE NEWS update: Polymarket and Binance have proposed a Polygon PoS mainnet hard fork that would zero out roughly 70.49 million POL, worth about $6.7 million, from hacker-controlled addresses and credit an equal balance to recovery addresses designated by the two firms. The proposal, dated Nov. 5, follows the Oct. 30 compromise of Polymarket’s front end and Binance’s hot wallet, after which Polygon validators froze four Polymarket hacker addresses holding 23.86 million POL and one Binance hacker address holding 46.63 million POL. The two teams are due to defend the plan at a Polygon protocol governance call at 22:30 Beijing time on Nov. 5.

Original source

AI take

This is a notable escalation in how the industry handles exploit recovery: rather than relying on frozen funds or legal channels, two major platforms are asking Polygon's validator set to rewrite balances at the protocol level. That sets a precedent with real weight for every PoS chain that has already used validator freezes as a stopgap, since a hard fork converts an operational measure into a permanent state change. The governance call is the immediate test of whether the validator community treats this as a legitimate recovery or an overreach; whether the precedent holds beyond this incident is the open question.

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