Polygon burns 100 million POL from fees, 22 million more queued

In short

• Polygon burned 100 million POL, about 1% of supply, using network fees, founder Sandeep Nailwal said on 11 October 2026.
• Another 22 million POL, roughly 0.2% of supply, is lined up for the next burn, with no date set.
• POL traded near $0.10 on 12 October, down from about $0.12 in late September, according to Crypto News.
• Polygon's 2% annual issuance partly offsets the burn, with a net supply increase of about 4.22 million POL in 30 days.

The Polygon protocol burned 100 million POL about two weeks before 11 October 2026, according to a post that day on X by Polygon Foundation founder Sandeep Nailwal. The tokens were destroyed using fees the network generated, not coins taken from the foundation's treasury, and they amount to roughly 1% of the original supply. Nailwal added that a further 22 million tokens, about 0.2% of supply, are already lined up for the next burn.

Polygon is a blockchain network built to make Ethereum cheaper and faster to use, and POL is the token that pays for transactions and backs staking on it. Burning means sending tokens to an address nobody can spend from, which removes them from circulation for good. Nailwal's post is the source for both figures, and no independent on-chain confirmation of the 100 million burn has been reported.

Polygon burns 100 million POL from fees

The burn is smaller than it sounds once you count what Polygon keeps issuing. Under the network's original tokenomics, POL was designed with a 2% annual emission rate, split evenly between validator rewards and the community treasury, which works out at about 200 million tokens a year on the original 10 billion supply. Data from POLTRACK's supply and value capture dashboard showed Polygon added roughly 17.45 million POL in protocol emissions in the 30 days to 11 October, against 13.23 million in base fees set aside for burning. That left a net supply increase of about 4.22 million for the period, before the timing of separately executed burns is counted.

Why the burn hasn't lifted POL's price

So why hasn't the burn lifted the price? POL traded near $0.10 on 12 October, down from about $0.12 in late September, according to Crypto News. The same report notes that removing tokens through accumulated fees doesn't create matching buying on exchanges at the moment of the burn, and that wider crypto market conditions can move a price on their own. It also says the recent decline doesn't prove the burn had no market effect. Polygon's burn rate has lined up with stronger prices before: in January, POL rallied as network activity and burns accelerated, though it later gave back much of those gains.

What the burn means for POL holders

For ordinary holders, the practical question is what the burn does for them. It cuts supply, but it doesn't put money in anyone's pocket or force anyone to buy. Traders watching the supply story have the issuance numbers to weigh against it, and the two only make sense together. Companies building on Polygon are watching something else: the Open Money Stack, its payment infrastructure, which Nailwal said processed more than $1 billion in annualised volume for two consecutive weeks. He said more detail on how that stack affects POL would come later.

Payment volume isn't the same as revenue for the network. Stablecoin transfers measure the value moving through payment rails, while the burn depends on fees collected from transactions executed on Polygon. Services that run across several blockchains can generate activity without routing every transaction through Polygon or needing an equivalent amount of POL to settle. Nailwal's $1 billion figure therefore doesn't show how much extra POL demand or fee revenue the infrastructure will produce.

Holders on X ask where the value is

Holders on X were blunt. Crypto Fundi (@cryptofundix) said on X that it was "bit disappointed" about the burn and argued value should come from utility, not burning, asking why so much supply was minted if it was going to be burned. Mahanthi Kas (@KasMahanthi) said on X that the token's price hadn't changed despite the burn and asked why. ReZero (@melody_mek91160) said on X that POL holders had suffered more than the project over three years as the token fell from $2.9 to $0.06. KobahnCatSnoro (@TrueJustice010) said on X that talk is cheap after more than three years of losses, and Sam Shaikh (ModikaParivar) (@SamShaikh69), describing himself as a small holder, said on X that he wanted to know how long burning 90% of the supply would take, and whether it was possible at all.

The 22 million POL burn has no date

The next measurable step is the queued burn. Nailwal didn't give a date for it, and no on-chain confirmation has been published. The details of how the Open Money Stack feeds into POL's economics are also still undisclosed.

Questions readers ask

How much POL did Polygon burn and when?

Polygon burned 100 million POL, about 1% of the original supply, roughly two weeks before 11 October 2026, according to a post that day on X by Polygon Foundation founder Sandeep Nailwal. The tokens came from network fees, not the foundation's treasury. No independent on-chain confirmation has been reported.

Why hasn't the POL burn raised the price?

Polygon keeps issuing new POL under a 2% annual emission rate, which partly offsets what it burns. POLTRACK data cited by Crypto News showed about 17.45 million tokens in emissions in the 30 days to 11 October against 13.23 million in fees set aside for burning. POL traded near $0.10 on 12 October.

When will Polygon burn the next 22 million POL?

There is no date. Sandeep Nailwal said 22 million POL, about 0.2% of supply, is lined up for the next burn, but he did not give an execution date and no on-chain confirmation has been published. The next measurable development is that burn.

Our view

Burning tokens is not the same as creating demand for them. Polygon has destroyed 100 million POL, about 1% of supply, and has 22 million more queued, yet the network's own 2% annual issuance keeps adding tokens at a faster pace than the burn removes them. POLTRACK data cited by Crypto News put emissions at 17.45 million tokens in the 30 days to 11 October against 13.23 million in fees set aside for burning, a net increase of about 4.22 million. That is why POL sat near $0.10 on 12 October, below the roughly $0.12 of late September, and why holders on X asked what the burn had actually done for them. The figure that would change this view is the Open Money Stack's fee contribution to POL, which Nailwal has said will be disclosed soon.

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— Keshav Aggarwal

What to watch: The 22 million POL burn is queued but has no execution date, and Nailwal has promised more detail on how the Open Money Stack affects POL.