Polygon’s co-founder said even small merchants and drivers recognized MATIC, but many struggle to locate POL since the token’s rebrand.
Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal spurred public discussion about the project’s token branding, asking the community if the network should consider reverting its ticker from POL to MATIC.
On Wednesday, Nailwal said that while he personally thinks that they should stick to POL, he continues to hear feedback that the original MATIC ticker had stronger recognition, especially among retail users who are now confused about the asset’s whereabouts.
“The counter-argument I keep getting is: the guy in the Philippines running a sari-sari store, or an Uber driver in Dubai, knew MATIC… and now he has no idea where it went,” he wrote.
Because of this, he asked his followers on X if they think they should change the token back to MATIC. “I’m genuinely curious what the broader community thinks, because this feedback keeps coming up,” he said.
Cointelegraph reached out to Polygon for comments, but had not received a response by publication.
On Sept. 4, 2024, Polygon migrated its MATIC tokens into POL and framed the change as an upgrade. At the time, Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron told Cointelegraph that POL “goes one step further” than its predecessor.
While MATIC only earned fees from gas and staking, the POL token will also earn fees from additional actions, such as securing data availability or decentralizing a sequencer.
CoinGecko data shows that the Polygon token reached an all-time high of $1.29 on March 13, 2024. According to the data aggregator, the token is now trading at $0.13, which is about 89% below its all-time high.
Related: Polygon boss says he’s been ‘questioning his loyalty’ toward Ethereum
Community responses to Nailwal’s post reflected a split between users who viewed the ticker as a non-issue and those who expressed that brand recognition was important.
An X user with the handle martijnde_boer said Polygon should keep on building because fundamentals matter more than tickers.
This was echoed by another X user, who said that POL had already gained acceptance. “I believe POL has already overcome the hardest part, which is initial acceptance. Stick with POL,” the user wrote.
On the other hand, several community members pushed back, noting that early adopters associate the project with MATIC and that retail familiarity remains a powerful factor.
“We haven’t really seen a new wave of retail entrants into the markets, so going back to Matic might actually be the play here,” Mo Ezeldin wrote.
While some argued for and against the ticker change, another user suggested going in a different direction, like making the ticker PGON.
“MATIC was the version most OGs remembered it by, but it probably feels less intuitive for new market participants to find it under that ticker. Maybe ‘PGON’ or something would’ve done the trick?” a user wrote.
