Polygon sees Coinme acquisition as entry to payments sector dominated by Visa, Stripe

Polygon Labs expects its regulated payments business to become profitable in 2027 as it moves beyond blockchain infrastructure to enter the payments processing industry dominated by companies such as Visa (V) and Stripe, CEO Marc Boiron told CoinDesk.

The company, the developer of the Polygon blockchain, said Wednesday that it completed the acquisition of Coinme, a U.S.-regulated crypto payments provider, giving the Cayman Islands-based company the ability to handle conversions between cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and traditional money using its own resources.

The deal is part of a shift in Polygon’s business that includes January's introduction of the Open Money Stack, a framework to support stablecoin-based payments and streamline cross-border transfers. Now, in addition to providing the technology for moving money around, it can also collect fees for converting and transferring that money, a source of revenue that previously went to other businesses, Boiron said in a video interview.

"I have not considered us to compete with blockchains for a while now, to be frank," Boiron said. "It's very much that we're a payments-focused company that just uses blockchains to move money, and in particular, Polygon."

Still, the company is a long way from providing serious competition to the incumbents. Visa’s payments volume in fiscal 2025 topped $12.3 trillion, while Stripe hit $1.9 trillion. Polygon is just starting its journey.

The Coinme acquisition addresses a longstanding problem for blockchain networks: They provide the technology behind transactions, but often have little control over the companies generating them. The addition of Coinme will allow Polygon to handle more of the payment process, rather than handing customers off to a third party whenever money needs to enter or leave a blockchain.

"We don't have that customer relationship; we don't get to decide what happens," said Boiron, who claimed rival blockchains have offered financial incentives to payment companies to move their transactions away from Polygon.

"Now, when we are the ones running the regulated business, nobody can cause us to move flows anywhere that we don't want to, because we actually have those customer relationships."

New source of revenue

Polygon Labs earns revenue from its payment services. Transaction fees on the Polygon blockchain are separate, with priority fees distributed to validators and stakers. Boiron said the transaction fees already offset its token emissions, and he assessed that millions of dollars in additional fees go to validators and token stakers.

Unlike blockchain transaction fees, which can be fractions of a cent, the payments business can earn fees based on the value of the money transferred.

Still, Polygon is likely to meet some competition from the opposite direction as traditional payment companies expand into blockchain-based money transfers.

Stripe has been building out stablecoin payments, while Swift, the global interbank messaging service, is developing blockchain infrastructure with major banks. Visa, meanwhile, has expanded its stablecoin settlement network to include the Polygon blockchain among others while launching a platform that lets banks and fintechs issue, manage and settle stablecoins.

For Polygon, the challenge is no longer simply persuading companies to use its blockchain. It is convincing them to use Polygon Labs to move their money.

The platform's early users include Tazapay, a cross-border payments provider; Mesh, a crypto payments network; Toku, a global payroll platform; and Kira, a payments infrastructure company. The platform’s unified integration remains in technical preview, meaning it is not yet generally available to customers.