Author: Alea Research

Compiled by Deep潮 TechFlow

DeepChaohao Summary: Polygon is undergoing a pivotal tokenomic shift from a single scaling solution to a payment settlement infrastructure. By acquiring Coinme to obtain money transmission licenses in 48 U.S. states, combined with its high-frequency on-chain stablecoin payment network, Polygon’s base fee revenue has exceeded its current token inflationary minting volume for multiple months. Based on detailed on-chain micro-data, this article provides an in-depth analysis of its fee capture model and staker revenue-sharing mechanism, revealing the significant valuation discount it currently holds compared to leading public blockchains.

Key Points Summary

In 2025, the base network fees paid by users on the Polygon chain amounted to only 5% of the newly minted POL tokens for that year. However, between January and September 2026, this proportion surged to 86%. In five separate months throughout the year, the burned base fees entirely exceeded the amount of new tokens minted that month.

Polygon Labs has now established a complete payment cycle, from fiat USD deposits and withdrawals to final on-chain settlement. Its acquisition of Coinme has directly granted the ecosystem money transmission licenses covering 48 U.S. states.

As of September 2026, the Polygon chain remains the busiest stablecoin settlement network globally, processing an average of 17.6 million stablecoin transactions daily, accounting for one-third of all stablecoin payments across the nine major public blockchains.

Over the past 18 months, Polygon’s median transaction fee has increased fivefold, while the number of on-chain transactions has surged 7.5-fold, demonstrating strong payment demand and fee resilience.

The current trading multiple for POL is less than half that of TRX. On September 30, POL’s price-to-earnings ratio based on on-chain fees over the past 12 months was 41.2x, while TRX’s valuation during the same period was as high as 87.5x.

The base fee reserve pool dedicated to burning is now nearly equal to the amount of newly minted POL, and stakers directly receive half of the validator pool’s rewards through PIP-85.

Chart: Core Overview of Stablecoin Transfers and Gas Fee Capture on the Polygon Chain

Secure the underlying infrastructure for fiat on-ramp and off-ramp services across the United States

Polygon Labs officially completed the full acquisition of cryptocurrency payment service provider Coinme on October 14. This significant transaction directly granted the team asset ownership of money transmission licenses covering 48 U.S. states.

Around this closing milestone, the development team rolled out five major updates within just 30 days: an institutional-grade subscription service powered by Polygon ID, a gas-free experience relay network, and dedicated matching channels for large-volume trades.

Chart: Year-to-date price performance and drawdown comparison of major blockchain assets

The entire tech stack is built on a fully open architecture. When TRON announced its integration on October 8, Polygon explicitly stated that its goal was to seamlessly accommodate the $94 billion in USDT already in circulation on the TRON network.

The most active retail stablecoin payment hub on the network

From January to September this year, no other public blockchain matched Polygon’s daily average number of stablecoin transactions, which consistently ranked among the highest on the network.

Chart: Polygon Staking Rewards and PIP-85 Implementation Roadmap

The vast majority of these transfers are typical small-scale daily payments. In the third quarter, the average transaction amount on the Polygon chain was $175, compared to $1,254 on the Solana chain and $3,850 on the Ethereum mainnet during the same period.

Even though individual transaction fees rose slightly from early lows due to increased network activity, the median stablecoin transaction cost on the Polygon chain in Q3 remained just $0.016, enabling global cross-border merchants and remittance apps to maintain extremely high settlement profit margins.

Chart: Daily Number of Stablecoin Transfers on Major Public Blockchains

Stablecoins account for 72% of the network's total gas consumption.

On the Polygon chain, every interaction requires a base gas fee paid in POL. In the first nine months of 2026, gas fees generated solely by stablecoin transfers accounted for 72% of the chain's total revenue.

Chart: Comparison of transaction fees consumed per thousand stablecoin transactions across various blockchains

In terms of revenue generation efficiency per dollar of asset turnover, Polygon captures more on-chain fees per dollar of stablecoin transferred than Solana, Ethereum, and Base, ranking second only to Tron.

The base fee burn mechanism is approaching the inflationary new minting.

Under Polygon's current design architecture, the base fee generated from each transaction is directly sent to the burn collector reserve pool, while the priority fee is entirely allocated to block validators and stakers.

Chart: Contribution ratio of transaction fees between stablecoins and non-stablecoins on the Polygon chain

With the official implementation of PIP-85, ordinary stakers can now directly receive half of the priority fees from the validator pool, after deducting commissions, effectively locking in a significant amount of on-chain native liquidity.

Chart: Historical Five-Period Burn Execution and Reserve Trends for Polygon

The relative valuation multiples are significantly lagging behind TRON.

On January 1, POL’s dynamic P/E ratio reached as high as 179.6x, while TRX stood at 45.8x. However, as on-chain settlement revenue and token burn volume on the Polygon chain surged, POL’s P/E ratio based on actual on-chain fees over the past 12 months had dropped to around 30x by the end of October, with a market cap of approximately $949 million and an annualized fee volume of $31.6 million.

Chart: Historical fee multiplier trends for POL and TRX over the past year

Compared to TRON’s valuation center, which is over 40 times higher, market capital has clearly remained significantly lagging in repricing Polygon’s fundamentals. When payment companies and institutions fully adopt fixed-rate models, the true token net deflationary window will fully emerge.