Binance, Polymarket Seek Polygon Fork to Recover $6.8M

A Wednesday Polygon governance proposal from Binance and Polymarket seeks to recover about 70.49 million POL tokens, valued at roughly $6.8 million, from five attacker-controlled addresses.

The proposal divides that target into two allocations:

• 23.86 million POL, worth $2.31 million, across four addresses tied to the Polymarket hack.
• 46.63 million POL, worth about $4.51 million, in one address linked to the Binance hack.

Those balances total 70.49 million POL and $6.82 million at the proposal’s stated values.

What would the hard fork change?

The proposal places execution “at a predetermined block” and says POL’s total supply would not change. At that block, the fork would remove the stolen tokens from the five addresses and transfer them to verified recovery wallets designated by Binance and Polymarket.

In operational terms, the mechanism reallocates existing balances instead of issuing more tokens. It would preserve supply while moving the recoverable amounts into wallets designated by the affected platforms for subsequent return to their owners.

For account holders, the distinction matters. A transaction freeze can stop an address from spending, while the proposed fork specifies a destination for the balances. Recovery would therefore depend on network-wide execution, not only on the temporary restrictions now applied by block producers.

Why did Polygon block producers freeze the addresses?

Polygon block producers have already blocked transactions from the affected addresses, preventing the stolen funds from moving. That stopped transfers, but it did not determine custody or complete restitution.

The proposal says the restrictions are “temporary measures that cannot return the funds to their owners.” The fork would redirect those balances to recovery wallets, extending the existing freeze into a recovery process.

What must happen before mainnet activation?

The plan requires governance approval and testing on Polygon’s Amoy testnet before activation. The proposal is scheduled for discussion on Nov. 5, and no confirmed mainnet hard-fork date exists.

That leaves two procedural gates before the five-address transfer can occur: a governance decision and testnet testing. The proposal also requires a predetermined execution block, but the Nov. 5 discussion is not a confirmed activation date.

Without those steps, the proposal provides no scheduled path for transferring the tokens to recovery wallets.

Which security incidents prompted the proposal?

The measure follows Binance’s record $6.3 billion hack on Oct. 29. It also follows a separate Polymarket incident in which the platform temporarily suspended trading after reporting that a third-party provider had been compromised.

A related report attributed the $6.3 billion attack to fake job interviews and a compromised AI tool. The hard-fork proposal sets out a narrower remedy: 70.49 million POL across five addresses, not a stated resolution of the full $6.3 billion incident.

At the proposal’s stated values, the one Binance-linked address carries nearly twice the value of the four Polymarket-linked addresses. The recovery mechanism must therefore touch five addresses: four linked to Polymarket and one linked to Binance.

Who receives the recovered tokens?

The proposal specifies verified recovery wallets designated by Binance and Polymarket rather than individual recipients. Owner-level reimbursement would occur after the chain-level redistribution, leaving both platforms involved in wallet designation and recovery.

The Nov. 5 governance discussion is the next scheduled checkpoint; approval and an Amoy testnet run must follow before a mainnet fork can redirect the $6.8 million to verified recovery wallets.