Polygon CEO Highlights Milestones as Network Prepares for 2026 Payments Push

• Polygon processed 1.4B stablecoin transactions and surpassed 14 million monthly users in 2025, CEO Sandeep Nailwal revealed.
• Through major upgrades and enterprise deals, including with Mastercard and Stripe, it also powered real-world crypto payments.

Polygon has reported record performance across all major onchain payment metrics in 2025, reaffirming its strategy to become the leading blockchain for payments. According to Sandeep Nailwal, CEO of the Polygon Foundation, the network saw explosive year-over-year growth in stablecoin transactions, user activity, and real-world enterprise integration.

In 2025, the network processed 452 million unique stablecoin transactions, representing a 140% increase from the previous year. Stablecoin transfers reached 1.4 billion, up 227% YoY, while stablecoin supply jumped 72% to $2.83 billion. Monthly active users climbed over 102% to surpass 14 million, while average monthly address count grew by 35%, now standing at over 5 million.

Transaction volume in December alone surpassed 182 million, a 24% increase from November, and over 79 million transactions were processed in the last month. Identified payment app volumes exceeded $1.27 billion annually, with USDC micropayments ($0.50 to $100) reaching $1.079 billion YTD.

Enterprise Adoption and Upgrades Position Polygon for Scale

As CNF explained, 2025 was also an aggressive year of infrastructure development in accordance with the Gigafas roadmap. Bhilai Hardfork, Heimdall V2, Rio Upgrade, and Madhugiri Hardfork are among the major upgrades that drove throughput, consensus speed, and developer tooling improvements.

The Bhilai upgrade increased throughput 50x with 1000 TPS and Ethereum EIP compatibility, such as EIP-7702. The 5-second finality and a better user and builder experience were introduced in Heimdall V2. The Rio upgrade made the network ready for 5,000 TPS and did away with reorgs. In December, the Madhugiri Hardfork increased the throughput by 33% and supported Ethereum Fusaka EIPs.

In the case of enterprise solutions, Polygon released the CDK Enterprise toolkit with Gateway. This enabled organizations to implement authorized EVM links with KYC applications, ACLs, and role-based access. When it is time, enterprises can also engage in Agglayer interoperability.

As CNF outlined, a notable launch came from Telcoin Digital Asset Bank, which issued the first U.S. bank-backed stablecoin on a public blockchain. The new eUSD token was deployed on Polygon and Ethereum, with $10 million minted in its first issuance.

Polygon’s growth in enterprise integration was also evident in 2025. As CNF reported, Mastercard partnered with the network to enable username-based transfers for self-custody wallets via Mercuryo for easier transfers and crypto payments globally.

Stripe surpassed $50 million in lifetime stablecoin volume using Paxos-issued assets on Polygon, making it the top choice among all EVM chains. Meanwhile, Revolut integrated Polygon for stablecoin payments and trading, registering over $690 million in volume.

POL trades at $0.1024, dropping 1.5% in the past day for a $1.08 billion market cap.