Nobody can reliably predict the price of POL, the token that replaced MATIC. Here is what the data shows. On 25 October 2026 POL traded at about $0.088. That is roughly 55% lower than a year earlier and about 97% below MATIC's all-time high of $2.92, set on 26 December 2021 (CoinGecko). Three recent events matter most. Polygon burned 100 million POL in September. Staking rewards were raised for a limited time on 1 October. Polygon Labs closed its purchase of Coinme on 14 October. None of these has stopped the decline yet. The rest of this article covers the confirmed facts, what a recovery would take in numbers, and what to watch next.
Where POL stands on 25 October 2026
CoinGecko data, last updated 25 October 2026, 11:23 UTC:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Price | $0.088 |
| Market capitalisation | about $936 million (rank 76) |
| Circulating and total supply | about 10.64 billion POL |
| 1-year change | about -54.5% |
| POL all-time low | $0.0677 on 1 July 2026 |
| POL all-time high | $1.29 on 13 March 2024 |
| Legacy MATIC all-time high | $2.92 on 26 December 2021 |
POL is trading about 30% above the all-time low it set in July 2026. The 2024 POL high came before most holders had migrated from MATIC, so the 2021 MATIC high is the more familiar reference point.
MATIC and POL: the same asset, upgraded
MATIC was upgraded to POL at a 1:1 ratio. CoinGecko dates the upgrade to 4 September 2024. Polygon says POL has been the gas token on Polygon PoS since September 2024. By 3 September 2025, Polygon reported that about 99% of MATIC on the network had migrated. If you still hold MATIC on Ethereum, Polygon directs you to its official portal at portal.polygon.technology/pol-upgrade.
The original MATIC supply was 10 billion tokens, according to Polygon's documentation. Polygon's migration FAQ says the POL design "earmarks 2% of emissions over a decade". Half goes to validators through the staking contract. The other half goes to a community treasury that funds builders. The FAQ notes this remains subject to community consensus. Today's supply of about 10.64 billion is the result of that emission, before the September burn removed part of it.
What would your POL price target imply?
Enter a POL price to see the market capitalisation it implies at today's supply of about 10.64 billion POL.
| POL price you want to test | Implied market capitalisation |
|---|---|
| 0.088 USD | 0.94 billion USD |
| 0.25 USD | 2.66 billion USD |
| 0.5 USD | 5.32 billion USD |
| 1 USD | 10.64 billion USD |
- The price is your own input, not a forecast from any source.
- Supply is held fixed at about 10.64 billion POL, as in the article's table; emissions and burns will keep changing it.
This is arithmetic on one input only: it does not forecast whether POL will reach any price, and it ignores future changes to supply from emissions and burns.
The newest developments, by date
14 October 2026: Coinme acquisition completed
Polygon Labs completed its acquisition of Coinme, a Seattle company that began with cash-to-crypto kiosks (The Block, 14 October 2026; Polygon blog). Coinme brings 37 state money transmitter licences, 11 exemptions and FinCEN registration as a money services business. Together these give Polygon's Open Money Stack regulated payments coverage across 48 US states. The deal was first announced in January 2026, together with the purchase of wallet firm Sequence, at a combined value reported at about $250 million. In July 2026 The Block reported a second round of layoffs at Polygon Labs, tied to finishing the integration.
Why it matters for price: the acquisition moves Polygon further into stablecoin payments. The direct link to POL demand is mainly gas fees and staking, so payments volume helps the token only to the extent those transactions pay gas in POL or draw new stake.
1 October 2026: PIP-92 raises staking rewards for 61 days
PIP-92 was filed on 23 September 2026. It distributes 27,334,955.85 POL of accumulated priority fees, collected under the earlier PIP-85, to stakers. It does this by temporarily raising the per-checkpoint reward from 25,212.79 POL to 64,500 POL. The reward window runs from 1 October 2026, 03:00 UTC, to 1 December 2026, 03:00 UTC. The proposal estimates the gross annualised staking rate rises from about 3.01% to about 7.71% during the window, then returns to baseline. No new POL is minted. News outlets report that the Polygon Foundation announced activation on 1 October, while the proposal file in Polygon's GitHub repository is still marked "Draft". Validator commissions reduce what individual stakers receive.
Time left until 1 December 2026, 03:00 UTC
The boost ends on 1 December. Any demand for staking that depends on the higher rate could fade after that date.
September 2026: 100 million POL burned
On 18 September 2026, Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwal said base fees collect in a contract that then held about 121 million POL. He said that once the contracts were approved, any user could trigger a one-time burn of 100 million POL, with further community burns possible every quarter (Yellow, 18 September 2026). Crypto news reports citing Foresight News say Nailwal posted the burn transaction on Polygonscan on 23 September. That is roughly 1% of supply.
The burn is smaller than a single year of the 2% emission described above. Whether POL supply shrinks or grows each year depends on how many fees the network burns from here on.
Network roadmap
Polygon's "Gigagas" roadmap lists three stages. Bhilai targeted more than 1,000 TPS and about 5-second finality by July 2025. Rio, which went live on mainnet in October 2025, targeted 5,000 TPS and changed how blocks are produced (VEBloP). A 100,000 TPS goal is set for "2026 and beyond" with no date. Polygon says POL "will remain the gas token". Higher capacity does not raise token demand unless people actually use the network more.
What different price levels would require
A price target is a market-capitalisation claim. Taking the current supply of about 10.64 billion POL as fixed:
| POL price | Implied market cap | Multiple of 25 Oct 2026 value |
|---|---|---|
| $0.088 (now) | about $0.94 billion | 1x |
| $0.25 | about $2.7 billion | about 2.8x |
| $0.50 | about $5.3 billion | about 5.7x |
| $1.00 | about $10.6 billion | about 11x |
Supply will keep changing with emissions and burns, so these numbers are approximate. The table shows the scale of the question. POL returning to $1 would mean the market valuing Polygon at about eleven times today's figure.
What to watch
- Net supply. Compare quarterly burns from the base-fee collector with yearly emissions.
- Staking after 1 December 2026. Watch whether the amount of POL staked holds once PIP-92's higher rate ends.
- Payments usage that pays fees in POL. Look for gas paid in POL. Stablecoin transfer counts alone do not show this.
- Governance changes to tokenomics. Follow new proposals in Polygon's PIP repository and forum.
- The broader crypto market. POL has lost value through 2025 and 2026 despite these upgrades.
For background on the network, see our Polygon (MATIC) overview, and for position sizing in general, our crypto risk management guide.
This article is not investment advice. Crypto assets can lose all of their value.
