In late 2026 the case for Polygon's POL token is mostly a payments story. On 14 October 2026 Polygon Labs completed its acquisition of a US payments business that holds 37 state money transmitter licences. On 29 September 2026 the company reported that more than $3 trillion in stablecoins had moved across Polygon Chain since 2020. In September a 100 million POL burn took about 1% of the supply out of circulation. Against that, POL still has about 2% in new tokens issued each year. Polygon also shut down one of its own flagship products, zkEVM Mainnet Beta, in 2026. And Polygon has not yet shown that more payments activity raises demand for the token. Most of the figures below come from Polygon itself.
The newest developments (September–October 2026)
A licensed US payments business, completed 14 October 2026
Polygon Labs first announced in January 2026 that it would buy two companies. One was Sequence, a wallet-infrastructure firm. The other was a US crypto payments company. Both deals feed the Open Money Stack (OMS), Polygon's stablecoin payments product. On 14 October 2026 Polygon said the second deal had closed. That gives OMS a US payments business with:
- coverage in 48 US states
- 37 state money transmitter licences plus 11 applicable exemptions
- registration with FinCEN as a money services business
OMS offers payins (local currency to stablecoins), payouts (stablecoins to local currency), virtual accounts that settle in stablecoins, and payment routing across chains. In the weeks around the closing, Polygon added several features: crypto checkout on 30 September, support for the TRON network on 8 October and automated payout runs on 12 October.
$3 trillion in stablecoin transfers, reported 29 September 2026
Polygon says more than $3 trillion in stablecoins has moved on Polygon Chain since September 2020. By its own figures, $933 billion of that moved in 2025, up from $276 billion in 2024, and $741 billion in 2026 to date. Volume from June to September 2026 came to $409 billion, up 32% from $310 billion in the same months of 2025. Polygon does not name a data source or method for these numbers.
A 100 million POL burn, September 2026
Polygon's 29 September post says the community completed a burn of 100 million POL in September. The tokens came from base fees the network had already collected. That is about 1% of the 10 billion initial supply, or roughly half of one year's issuance. Polygon has not announced a schedule for further burns.
CDK Besu for institutions, 19 October 2026
Polygon's chain-building kit, CDK, now supports Hyperledger Besu. A bank can run a private, permissioned chain that is connected to Agglayer from its first block. Its transaction data stays on its own infrastructure and is not posted to Ethereum.
What POL is and what it does
POL replaced MATIC through a 1:1 migration. Polygon reported that 99% of the migration was complete by September 2025. According to Polygon's documentation:
- POL is the gas token and the staking token on Polygon Chain (the network formerly called Polygon PoS).
- The initial supply was 10 billion POL.
- New issuance works out to about 2% a year from June 2025 onward, under the schedule set by PIP-26. Roughly half goes to validators and half to a community treasury.
Because issuance is ongoing, staking rewards are paid partly in new tokens. Holders who do not stake are diluted by about 2% a year, less whatever is burned.
The technical case, with dates
Rio upgrade (8 October 2025)
A hard fork that introduced a new way of producing blocks (VEBloP) and stateless validation. Polygon says it "enables 5k TPS", with near-instant finality and the risk of chain reorganisations "essentially eliminated". The 5,000 TPS number is Polygon's target for the near term, not an independently measured rate. Polygon says earlier upgrades (Bhilai and Heimdall) had taken mainnet to about 1,000 TPS. Its stated long-term goal is "tens of thousands of TPS", with no date.
"11 million payments per second" (24 September 2026)
This was a benchmark of off-chain payment channels on a test network (devnet). It used 25 hubs and settled to the chain in batches. It does not measure how many transactions the chain itself can process.
Agglayer
A shared bridge layer that connects many chains. It uses "pessimistic proofs" to stop any chain from withdrawing more than was deposited into it. Polygon says "a compromised chain can lose only what was deposited into it."
EVM compatibility
Polygon Chain runs standard Ethereum smart contracts and wallets. To add it to a wallet, use chain ID 137.
How much does POL issuance dilute you?
Enter the yearly issuance rate and the share of supply burned in a year to see the net change in supply. If you hold POL and do not stake, your share of the supply shrinks by about that much.
| New POL issued per year, as a share of supply | POL burned in the same year, as a share of supply | Net change in POL supply over the year |
|---|---|---|
| 2 % | 1 % | 1 % |
| 2 % | 0 % | 2 % |
| 2 % | 2 % | 0 % |
- The burn value is your own input. The article reports only one burn, in September 2026, and does not confirm that more will follow.
- A positive result means new issuance outpaced burns and a holder who does not stake was diluted by about that share. Zero means burns offset issuance.
This is simple arithmetic on your inputs. It ignores staking rewards, including the unverified PIP-92 rate, and token price. It cannot tell you whether more burns will happen or whether POL is worth buying.
The risks
- Value reaching the token: CDK chains, Agglayer and the payments business can all grow without needing much POL. The September burn is the clearest link between activity and the token so far, and it is recent.
- Dilution: issuance of about 2% a year is larger than the one-off burn of about 1%.
- Strategy changes: on 11 June 2025 Polygon Labs announced it would shut down zkEVM Mainnet Beta in 2026. It cited delays in supporting EIP-4844, technical limits that made some DeFi transactions impractical, and a lack of differentiation. One infrastructure provider ended support on 1 July 2026. Polygon has dropped products before.
- Company-reported data: the volume, throughput and licence figures all come from Polygon.
- Volatility and regulation: POL is a volatile crypto asset. Money transmitter licences also bring compliance obligations to the business that holds them.
Staking POL: practical details
Delegation is done through the official dashboard at staking.polygon.technology. Staking happens on Ethereum mainnet, so you need POL and ETH in an Ethereum address. Rewards are paid each time a checkpoint is submitted, roughly every 30 minutes. If you unstake, your POL stays locked for 80 checkpoints. That is about 40 hours, longer if Ethereum is congested. Rewards per checkpoint fall as a larger share of the supply is staked.
Background: the 2022 funding round
On 7 February 2022 Polygon raised $450 million in a private token sale led by Sequoia Capital India. SoftBank, Tiger Global and others took part. That was more than four years ago. It shows who backed the project then, not what it is worth now.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.
