Polygon Burns 100 Million POL Tokens as Price Lags Near $0.10

Polygon permanently burned 100 million POL tokens, representing approximately 1% of its original supply, through its network fee-burning mechanism, according to network co-founder Sandeep Nailwal. Despite the reduction, the token continued to trade near $0.103 on October 12, down from roughly $0.12 in late September, according to CoinGecko data reported by CryptoNews.

Nailwal stated on social media platform X on October 11 that the burn took place roughly two weeks earlier and was funded entirely through accumulated network fees rather than the Polygon Foundation treasury. Another 22 million POL tokens—about 0.2% of the initial supply—are lined up for a future burn.

Issuance Partially Offsets Supply Reduction

The price of POL has remained under pressure as ongoing protocol emissions offset fee burns. Under Polygon's tokenomics framework, the network maintains a 2% annual emission rate split evenly between validator rewards and the community treasury. Based on the 10 billion initial supply, annual issuance totals approximately 200 million POL before compounding.

Data from the POLTRACK dashboard showed that Polygon generated approximately 17.45 million POL in emissions during the 30 days ending October 11. Over that same window, the network accumulated 13.23 million POL in base fees toward burning, resulting in a net supply increase of roughly 4.22 million POL before accounting for the timing of separately executed burns.

Payments Infrastructure Growth

Alongside the token burn updates, Nailwal reported that Polygon's Open Money Stack (OMS) payment infrastructure recorded more than $1 billion in annualized processing volume across two consecutive weeks. Polygon recently integrated TRON into the system, enabling businesses to process USDT deposits, cross-chain transfers, and fiat payouts through a single integration.

However, stablecoin processing volume does not directly translate into network burn revenue. Burns depend strictly on fees from transactions settled on Polygon, and multi-chain operations do not necessarily route every settlement through the network.

Key facts

• Polygon permanently burned 100 million POL, or roughly 1% of its initial 10 billion token supply.
• Another 22 million POL are queued for destruction in an upcoming burn.
• POL traded near $0.103 on October 12, down from approximately $0.12 in late September.
• Net supply increased by 4.22 million POL over the 30 days ending October 11 due to 17.45 million tokens in emissions against 13.23 million in burn fees.
• Polygon's Open Money Stack generated over $1 billion in annualized volume for two straight weeks.