Polygon Labs launches sPOL to mobilize $3.6B staked POL

Polygon Labs launched sPOL, a native liquid staking token, and committed $100 million from its treasury to seed liquidity and support adoption. The company said the move is meant to mobilize more than 3.6 billion POL tokens that are currently staked on the network.

sPOL is issued at a 1:1 exchange rate when users stake POL through Polygon’s new staking standard. The token accrues value as staking rewards are earned. Holders can trade sPOL, use it as collateral, deposit it into liquidity pools or layer it into other yield strategies.

Existing stakers can migrate their positions through Polygon’s staking portal without a waiting period or interruption to rewards. Uniswap V4 automated market maker pools for sPOL were live at launch to provide immediate liquidity, Polygon said.

Polygon provided context for the launch by noting that roughly 3.6 billion POL tokens are staked on the network but only about 4% to 5% of that capital is liquid. By comparison, around 30% of staked ETH on Ethereum sits in liquid staking tokens, Polygon said. Third-party liquid staking services on Polygon have charged fees in the range of 5% to 16% and have seen limited uptake.

The treasury commitment will deploy $10 million at launch, with the remaining $90 million to be added progressively to support liquidity and integrations across the ecosystem, Polygon said.

Polygon is also advancing governance proposals to change how fee revenue flows to validators and delegators. Co-founder Sandeep Nailwal wrote on X: “Priority fees on Polygon have surged 1000% since PIP-65 and with PIP-85, a larger portion of those fees will be shared directly with stakers and delegators. Now we’re unlocking liquid staking too.”

Polygon’s decentralized finance ecosystem has grown in the past year. Total value locked on Polygon exceeded $1.27 billion after roughly 40% year-on-year growth. One protocol, Polymarket, accounted for about $438 million of TVL, roughly one quarter of the network total.

Polygon Labs has said it is diversifying efforts beyond Polymarket by developing payments infrastructure for businesses. The company is in talks to raise up to $100 million for a stablecoin payments initiative and has acquired payments firm Coinme and wallet provider Sequence.

Market reaction to the sPOL launch was muted for POL. The token traded around $0.083 and was down slightly in the 24 hours surrounding the announcement.

Polygon said its treasury-backed liquidity support and the proposed fee-routing changes are intended to increase the share of staked POL that can be deployed in DeFi and to give stakers more flexible options for using their staking exposure.