Polygon weighs hard fork to recover 70.49 million stolen POL

Binance and Polymarket are seeking approval for a Polygon hard fork intended to recover 70.49 million POL stolen in separate incidents affecting the two platforms. Polygon block producers have already frozen the implicated tokens, according to Cointelegraph, creating a fixed pool of assets that the proposed network change could redirect back to their rightful owners. The initiative puts the recovery mechanism before Polygon governance rather than relying solely on cooperation from the attackers. Under the proposal described by Cryptopolitan, a fork would move the frozen POL from attacker addresses into the wallets of the affected users. Crypto.news reports that governance talks are set for Nov. 5, making the community vote and the technical terms of the fork the next observable steps. The proposal concerns 70.49 million POL, with Crypto.news and Cryptopolitan placing the amount at approximately $6.5 million; the supplied Cointelegraph headline uses a broader $6.8 million figure for the stolen crypto.

The three outlets agree on the central mechanism and the amount of POL involved, but they emphasize different parts of the recovery process. Cointelegraph highlights the prior freezing action by Polygon block producers, Crypto.news focuses on the Nov. 5 governance timetable, and Cryptopolitan explains the proposed movement of tokens between attacker and user wallets. No outlet covered here contradicts the others on the 70.49 million POL figure or the hard-fork approach, while the reported dollar valuation ranges from $6.5 million to $6.8 million.

The larger data picture is comparatively stable. Polygon’s total value locked stands at $2.78 billion, up 2.1% over seven days, according to DeFiLlama. Polymarket’s TVL is $303.81 million, down 14.1% over the same period. POL trades at $0.096915, up 3.81% over 24 hours and 6.92% over seven days, with a $1.03 billion market capitalization. The broader crypto market is broadly higher, with a $2.75 trillion total capitalization; Bitcoin is up 2.84% over 24 hours, while the Fear & Greed index reads 50, or Neutral.

What matters is whether the community can translate the asset freeze into a technically and politically accepted mechanism for restoring user balances. The Nov. 5 governance discussions, the terms of the fork and the treatment of the attacker-controlled addresses will determine how the recovery proceeds. The proposal also gives affected users a concrete route beyond the frozen balances, while the differing dollar estimates reflect valuation differences around the same reported 70.49 million-token amount.