Polygon's Open Money Stack: The Next-Generation Infrastructure for Global Payments

The onchain money revolution is no longer a distant vision-it's a reality taking shape today. As global payments systems grapple with inefficiencies, regulatory complexity, and the rise of digital assets, blockchain infrastructure is emerging as the backbone of a new financial paradigm. At the forefront of this shift is Polygon's Open Money Stack, a comprehensive solution designed to unify onchain and offchain money movement. For investors, this represents a unique opportunity to position for a future where programmable, interoperable, and regulated digital money becomes the norm.

Bridging the Gap Between Onchain and Offchain Systems

Polygon's Open Money Stack, announced in January 2026, is a bold attempt to solve one of the most persistent challenges in the crypto space: the friction between traditional financial systems and decentralized networks according to Polygon Labs. By integrating liquidity, orchestration, and regulatory controls into a single infrastructure layer, the stack enables businesses to offer end-to-end onchain financial services-from stablecoin payments and yield generation to card programs-while complying with global regulations. This is critical for mainstream adoption, as institutions and enterprises demand both innovation and compliance.

The stack's design mirrors the internet's role in democratizing information. Just as the web standardized data transfer, the Open Money Stack aims to standardize value transfer, enabling real-time, cross-chain transactions with minimal intermediaries. This is particularly relevant as stablecoin adoption surges, with over $3.3 billion in stablecoin supply already on Polygon. The platform's ability to handle both onchain settlement and offchain compliance makes it a compelling choice for financial institutions seeking to tokenize assets or launch digital payment solutions.

Strategic Partnerships Validate Polygon's Vision

Polygon's ecosystem has attracted high-profile partners in 2025, underscoring its growing influence in global finance. Revolut, a leading fintech, integrated Polygon for payments, trading, and staking, processing up to $690 million on the network. Flutterwave, a key player in African cross-border payments, selected Polygon as its default blockchain, leveraging its low costs and scalability to serve underbanked regions. Meanwhile, Calastone launched a tokenized fund distribution solution on Polygon, demonstrating the platform's appeal to institutional investors.

Perhaps most notably, Mastercard partnered with Polygon to enable verified username transfers for self-custody wallets. This collaboration highlights Polygon's ability to bridge traditional identity systems with decentralized infrastructure-a critical step toward mass adoption. Additionally, R25 introduced an institutional-grade real-world asset (RWA) protocol on Polygon, further expanding the network's utility for tokenizing physical assets like real estate and commodities.

Technical Upgrades Fuel Scalability and Enterprise Readiness

Polygon's technical roadmap has been a key driver of its adoption. The Rio upgrade in October 2025 boosted throughput to 5,000 transactions per second while reducing node costs, making the network more accessible to developers and enterprises. The Heimdall v2 upgrade slashed transaction finality to approximately 5 seconds, addressing a major pain point for users accustomed to slow blockchain confirmations.

Looking ahead, Polygon aims to scale to 100,000 TPS, with milestones like the Bhilai hardfork in June 2025 already pushing performance to 1,000 TPS. These upgrades position Polygon as a viable alternative to legacy payment systems, particularly for institutions requiring high throughput and low latency.

Competitive Positioning in the Stablecoin Ecosystem

To understand Polygon's potential, it's essential to compare it with competitors like Solana and Ethereum. In 2025, Solana dominated high-throughput stablecoin payments, with over $16 billion in stablecoin supply and $500 billion in 30-day transfer volume, driven by its sub-second finality. Ethereum, meanwhile, maintained its dominance in stablecoin market cap, with $161 billion in supply and $2.09 trillion in trailing-30-day volume.

Polygon, however, carved out a niche as the preferred network for institutional pilots and tokenized assets. With $2.7 billion in stablecoin supply and $45–46 billion in 30-day transfer volume, Polygon's strength lies in its balance of scalability, regulatory readiness, and EVM compatibility. While Solana excels in speed and Ethereum in breadth, Polygon's focus on institutional-grade infrastructure makes it uniquely positioned to capture the next wave of onchain money adoption.

Why Investors Should Care

The onchain money revolution is not a zero-sum game. Instead, it's a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity where different blockchains serve distinct roles. Polygon's Open Money Stack is a critical piece of this puzzle, addressing the infrastructure gap between traditional finance and Web3. For investors, this means:
1. First-mover advantage in institutional-grade blockchain adoption.
2. Scalability that can support global payment volumes.
3. Regulatory alignment, reducing friction for enterprise adoption.

As stablecoin usage continues to grow-projected to surpass $1 trillion in total value locked-Polygon's ability to bridge fiat and onchain systems will become increasingly valuable. The partnerships, technical upgrades, and market positioning outlined above suggest that Polygon is not just participating in the onchain money revolution-it's building the rails for it.