Original publication: November 7, 2026, at 14:51:51 (UTC+8). Research attributed to Alea Research; Chinese compilation by TechFlow.
Polygon’s growing stablecoin activity is changing the relationship between network usage, POL issuance and validator income, according to research published by TechFlow. The central question is whether payment-generated fees can sustainably offset token issuance—and how much of that activity translates into value for POL holders and stakers.
The report presents a substantial shift: base network fees amounted to just 5% of newly minted POL in 2025, compared with 86% during January–September 2026. It also reports five individual months in which base-fee burns exceeded new issuance. Those figures support a narrowing gap between fees and issuance, but do not establish sustained net deflation.
Stablecoin payments drive the fee base
The research identifies Polygon as the busiest stablecoin network by transfer count over January–September 2026. As of September, it reportedly processed an average of 17.6 million stablecoin transfers a day—approximately one-third of the combined count across the nine chains examined.
Transaction sizes suggest a different activity mix from networks handling larger transfers. In the third quarter, the reported average stablecoin transfer was:
| Network | Average transfer value, Q3 2026 |
|---|---|
| Polygon | $175 |
| Solana | $1,254 |
| Ethereum mainnet | $3,850 |
The report interprets Polygon’s smaller transfers as evidence of everyday, small-value payment activity. Transfer counts and average sizes alone, however, do not independently establish the purpose of every transaction.
Over the preceding 18 months, Polygon’s median transfer fee increased fivefold while transfer count rose 7.5-fold. The research treats that combination as evidence of resilient payment demand despite higher costs. In Q3, the median stablecoin transaction fee was still only 1.6 cents.
Stablecoin transfers generated 72% of Polygon’s total network fee revenue during the first nine months of 2026. On the report’s separate measure of fees captured per dollar of stablecoin transferred, Polygon ranked ahead of Solana, Ethereum and Base, but behind TRON.
These are distinct metrics: transfer count measures frequency, transfer value measures asset movement, and fees measure what the network captures from that activity.
How fees reach burns and stakers
Under the mechanism described in the research, Polygon transactions incur base fees denominated in POL. Base fees enter a burn-collection reserve, while priority fees go to validators and stakers.
The report says implementation of PIP-85 allows ordinary stakers to receive half of the validator pool’s priority fees after commission. This creates two separate channels through which network usage affects POL economics:
- Base fees: collected for burning, offsetting some newly minted supply.
- Priority fees: distributed through the validator and staking system.
The distinction between collected fees and executed burns matters. A growing burn reserve is not itself the same event as tokens being destroyed. The source describes both a reserve approaching the scale of new issuance and five months when burns exceeded issuance; these should not be treated as interchangeable measurements.
Extending the payment stack beyond the chain
The report states that Polygon Labs completed its acquisition of crypto-payments provider Coinme on October 14, 2026, bringing money-transmitter licences covering 48 US states into the business.
It frames the acquisition as connecting dollar entry and exit services with on-chain settlement. Around the acquisition’s completion, the team reportedly delivered five major updates within 30 days. The article names three: an institutional subscription service based on Polygon ID, a relay network supporting gas-free user experiences, and a dedicated matching channel for large transactions.
The research also describes the stack as open in design. Following TRON’s October 8 integration announcement, Polygon stated that it aimed to better serve the $94 billion of USDT already circulating on TRON. That figure describes the existing asset base on TRON, not funds shown to have moved to Polygon.
What the valuation comparison measures
The report compares POL and TRX using market-value multiples of network fees, although it labels them as price-to-earnings ratios. These are fee-based comparisons, not conventional corporate earnings multiples.
| Measurement date | POL multiple | TRX multiple |
|---|---|---|
| January 1, 2026 | 179.6× | 45.8× |
| September 30, 2026 | 41.2× | 87.5× |
By late October, the report put POL’s multiple near 30×, citing a market capitalisation of approximately $949 million and annualised fees of $31.6 million. It compared that with a TRON valuation above 40×.
The dates and denominators matter: the September figures are described as trailing-12-month fee multiples, while the late-October calculation cites annualised fees. They should not be read as a perfectly uniform time series without further methodological detail.
A stronger fee offset, not a settled valuation conclusion
Alea Research argues that POL’s lower fee multiple reflects a lag in market recognition of Polygon’s payment activity. It also anticipates that broader adoption of fixed-rate pricing by payment companies and institutions could expose a net-deflationary window.
Those are interpretations and expectations, rather than demonstrated outcomes. The supplied article does not name the underlying datasets or provide enough calculation detail to independently reproduce its transfer classifications, burn accounting or valuation comparisons.
The narrower conclusion supported by its reported figures is that stablecoin activity became a major source of Polygon fees, substantially reducing the gap between base-fee collection and POL issuance during January–September 2026. Whether that relationship persists—and warrants a different valuation—remains unresolved.
Original article: TechFlow, with research attributed to Alea Research