Polygon Tokenomics Inflection Point: Base Fee Burn Nears New Token Issuance, POL Valuation Multiple Is Only Half That of TRX

Author: Alea Research

Compiled by: TechFlow

TechFlow Editor's Note:Polygon is undergoing a key tokenomics transition from a single scaling solution to a payment settlement base. Through its acquisition of Coinme, which secured money transfer licenses in 48 U.S. states, combined with an on-chain high-frequency stablecoin payment network, Polygon's base fee revenue has exceeded the current period's token inflation issuance for multiple months. Based on detailed on-chain micro data, this article provides an in-depth analysis of its fee capture model and staker distribution mechanism, revealing the significant valuation gap between Polygon and leading public blockchains.

Key Takeaways

In 2025, base network fees paid by Polygon on-chain users were equivalent to only 5% of the new POL tokens minted that year. From January to September 2026, this ratio rose directly to 86%. In five separate months of the year, the base fees burned even completely exceeded the new minted volume for that month.

Polygon Labs has now connected a complete payment loop from USD fiat on-ramps and off-ramps to final on-chain settlement. Its acquisition of Coinme directly brought the ecosystem money transfer licenses covering 48 U.S. states.

As of September 2026, the Polygon chain firmly holds the position of the busiest stablecoin settlement network across the entire network, processing 17.6 million stablecoin transfers per day on average, accounting for one-third of the total stablecoin payment transactions across the nine major public blockchains.

Over the past 18 months, Polygon's median transaction fee per transfer rose fivefold, while on-chain transfer transaction volume simultaneously surged 7.5 times, demonstrating strong inelastic payment demand and fee tolerance.

POL's current trading multiple is less than half that of TRX. On September 30, POL's valuation based on trailing 12-month on-chain fees was 41.2x, while TRX's valuation over the same period reached 87.5x.

The dedicated base fee reserve pool for burning is now almost equal in size to newly minted POL, and stakers directly receive half of the validator fund pool through the PIP-85 proposal.

Chart: Core Overview of Polygon On-Chain Stablecoin Transfers and Gas Fee Capture

Securing the Underlying Infrastructure for Nationwide Fiat On/Off-Ramps

Polygon Labs officially completed the full acquisition of crypto payment service provider Coinme on October 14. This major transaction directly injected the team with money transfer license assets covering 48 U.S. states.

Around this closing milestone, the development team launched five major iterations within just 30 days: an institutional-grade subscription service based on Polygon ID, a gasless experience relay network, and a dedicated matching channel for large transactions.

Chart: Year-to-Date Price Performance and Drawdown Comparison of Major Public Blockchain Assets

The entire technology stack adopts a fully open design architecture. When TRON announced integration on October 8, Polygon clearly stated that its goal was to more smoothly accommodate the $94 billion of USDT assets already circulating on the TRON network.

The Most Active Retail Stablecoin Payment Hub Across the Network

From January to September this year, no public blockchain could match Polygon's daily average stablecoin transaction frequency, with its daily average stablecoin transfer count remaining at the top of the entire network.

Chart: Polygon Staking Rewards and PIP-85 Implementation Roadmap

Most of these transfers are typical small-value everyday payments. In the third quarter, the average transfer amount on Polygon was $175, while the average transfer amount on Solana was as high as $1254, and on Ethereum mainnet it was as high as $3850.

Even though per-transaction fees rose from early lows alongside network activity, the median stablecoin transaction cost on Polygon in the third quarter remained only 1.6 cents, enabling global cross-border merchants and remittance applications to maintain extremely high settlement profit margins.

Chart: Trend of Daily Average Stablecoin Transfer Transactions Across Major Public Blockchains

Stablecoins Contribute 72% of Network-Wide Gas Consumption

On the Polygon chain, every interaction must pay base gas fees in POL. In the first nine months of 2026, gas fees driven solely by stablecoin transfers accounted for as much as 72% of total network revenue.

Chart: Comparison of Transaction Fees Consumed per 1,000 Stablecoin Transactions Across Public Blockchains

In terms of revenue efficiency per dollar of asset turnover, the on-chain fees Polygon captures per dollar of stablecoin flow have already substantially surpassed Solana, Ethereum, and Base, trailing only the Tron network.

Base fee burn mechanism approaches inflationary new issuance

Under Polygon's current design architecture, the base fee generated by each interaction is directly allocated to the burn collector reserve pool, while priority fees are fully directed to block validators and stakers.

Chart: On-chain fee contribution ratio between stablecoin and non-stablecoin transactions on Polygon

With the formal implementation of the PIP-85 proposal, ordinary stakers can directly receive exactly half of the priority fee share from the validator pool after commissions are deducted, effectively locking a large amount of native on-chain liquidity.

Chart: Five historical burn executions and reserve trends on Polygon

Relative valuation multiple severely lags behind Tron

On Jan. 1, POL's dynamic P/E multiple once reached 179.6x, while TRX was at 45.8x. However, as Polygon's actual on-chain settlement revenue and burn volume grew explosively, by the end of October, POL's P/E valuation based on actual on-chain fees over the trailing 12 months had compressed to around 30x, with a market cap of approximately $949 million and annualized fees of $31.6 million.

Chart: Fee multiple trends for POL and TRX over the past year

Compared with Tron network's valuation center above 40x, market capital's repricing of Polygon's payment fundamentals clearly remains in a severely lagging range. When payment companies and institutions fully adopt fixed fee rates, the true net token deflation window will fully emerge.

Source: TechFlow