Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwal on Friday detailed new mechanisms for the network’s native token, POL, including deflationary burns and staking rewards tied directly to network usage. Nailwal emphasized: “If Polygon Chain and Agglayer succeed, POL holders benefit. Full stop.”

POL dropped 6.7% over the past 24 hours, but analysts say this reflects normal market volatility rather than a rejection of Polygon’s long-term roadmap. Following Nailwal’s announcement, POL briefly hit a weekend high of $0.1842 before giving back most of its gains.

While Polygon’s daily revenue surged from around $13,000 in mid-December to roughly $200,000 last week, active addresses fell from 2.9 million to about 489,000. The token’s deflationary design burns 100% of base transaction fees on the Polygon chain. A single-day burn recently reached 3 million POL, and an average burn of 1.5 million per day could reduce total supply by roughly 5% annually, potentially making POL “the most deflationary token in the industry.”

Key benefits for POL holders include transaction fees, staking rewards, and future interoperability fees from Agglayer. Daily transactions recently hit 5.9 million, though still below Base’s 10.1 million.

Polygon is also expanding real-world utility through its partnership with Revolut, enabling stablecoin payments and remittances, with over $690 million in volume processed via Revolut since December 2025.

Nailwal and Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron also unveiled the Open Money Stack, a long-term initiative aiming to bring “all money on-chain,” integrating blockchain rails, stablecoin interoperability, compliance tools, and fiat on/off-ramps, with the goal of driving mainstream crypto adoption.

Analysts like Ryan Lee of Bitget expect POL to consolidate in the $0.15–0.25 range near term, providing a “healthy accumulation zone” ahead of ecosystem expansion. Longer-term investor sentiment remains bullish, though early-quarter “alt season” probability is estimated at just 19%.