Polymarket overhauls smart contracts with new Protocol V2 rollout

Polymarket has started rolling out Protocol V2, an overhaul of its smart-contract architecture intended to power new market types and eventual cross-chain capability. The company said testing of the new system is live on a limited set of markets through Oct. 30, with a tentative Nov. 2 goal to begin creating new markets on V2. Existing user positions will remain on the current protocol and will not be automatically migrated.

A key change in the V2 design is consolidation: the protocol will use Polymarket USD (pUSD) as the sole collateral token and employ a single contract for position tokens along with one exchange contract that can support multiple market types. Polymarket introduced pUSD during an April 2026 exchange upgrade; the stable token is backed 1:1 by Circle’s USDC and is currently issued on Polygon, where Polymarket’s markets operate.

The new contract suite is upgradeable and governed through what Polymarket describes as a “secure governance process,” which the company says will reduce the need to deploy fresh contracts whenever it adds features. Protocol V2 also includes an OracleAggregator meant to connect to multiple oracle providers — Polymarket specifically cited UMA and Chainlink — to determine market outcomes. The protocol is built to allow transferring positions, collateral and outcome data across blockchains, though Polymarket has not announced launch timing or which networks it might support.

Polymarket said Protocol V2 underwent security assessments by Cantina, Quantstamp and Zellic and formal verification by Certora, and it opened a bug-bounty program offering up to $5 million for critical vulnerabilities. According to the project’s migration guide, users won’t need to take technical steps to move existing positions to V2, but they may be asked to approve new contracts when they trade on markets created under the new protocol.