Polygon Labs says Coinme acquisition opens payments push against Visa and Stripe
Polygon Labs has completed its purchase of the US-regulated crypto payments provider Coinme, and its CEO says the regulated payments business should turn profitable in 2027.
Why it matters: Polygon is betting that owning a regulated payments business, rather than only the blockchain, lets it keep fees and customer relationships in a market where Visa and Stripe handle trillions.
Key points
- Polygon Labs completed the acquisition of Coinme, a US-regulated crypto payments provider, it said on Wednesday.
- CEO Marc Boiron expects the regulated payments business to become profitable in 2027.
- Visa's fiscal 2025 payments volume topped $12.3tn and Stripe's reached $1.9tn, dwarfing Polygon's early effort.
Polygon Labs has completed its acquisition of Coinme, a US-regulated crypto payments provider, in a move the company casts as its entry into payments processing, an industry led by Visa and Stripe. CEO Marc Boiron told CoinDesk that the regulated payments business should become profitable in 2027. The deal gives the Cayman Islands-based developer of the Polygon blockchain the ability to convert between cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and traditional money in-house.
The purchase follows January's launch of the Open Money Stack, a framework for stablecoin payments and cross-border transfers. Boiron said Polygon can now collect fees for converting and moving money, revenue that previously went to intermediaries. He described the company as payments-focused, using blockchains, and particularly Polygon, to move money.
Scale of the incumbents
Coinme addresses a familiar problem for blockchain networks, which supply the technology but often lack control over the firms generating transactions. Boiron said rival chains have offered payment companies financial incentives to divert flows, and that owning the regulated business protects Polygon's customer relationships.
The incumbents remain far larger: Visa's payments volume in fiscal 2025 topped $12.3tn and Stripe's reached $1.9tn. Traditional players are also moving into blockchain payments, with Stripe building stablecoin payments and Visa extending stablecoin settlement to Polygon among other chains. Polygon's unified platform is still in technical preview with early users including Tazapay, Mesh, Toku and Kira.
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