Polygon Moves $80 Billion in Stablecoins in May, Passing Solana and BNB

Polygon processed roughly $80 billion in stablecoin transfer volume in May, marking its second-highest month on record. The network handled about 198 million stablecoin transactions during the month, ranking first among all blockchains by transaction count, according to data highlighted by Polygon. The network claimed it surpassed both Solana and BNB Chain in transaction count over the period.

Stablecoins have become the busiest sector of the crypto economy as users and businesses increasingly adopt them for payments and settlement. Polygon’s low fees—average transaction costs of about $0.002—and settlement times of roughly two seconds have made it an attractive platform for stablecoin transfers. The network’s cumulative stablecoin transfer volume has now exceeded $2.4 trillion.

Polygon has aggressively repositioned itself around payments, with its team stating that the network has processed more than seven billion total transactions over its lifetime with 99.99% uptime. The network’s backers believe that AI agents will eventually execute more onchain transactions than humans, potentially within five years. To prepare, Polygon Labs has been building out dedicated payments infrastructure, including a new stablecoin payment framework and acquisitions of payment-focused companies.

In emerging markets, Polygon processed roughly $309 million in Latin American stablecoin volume in May, positioning itself as an on-ramp for regions where dollar-denominated tokens are used to hedge against weak local currencies. In a separate comparison of USD Coin (USDC) activity, Polygon recently overtook Solana in weekly transaction volume, recording around 28 million USDC transactions in a week.

Despite this onchain momentum, Polygon’s native token POL has not seen corresponding price gains. The network’s non-peer-to-peer stablecoin volume surged 66% over a recent stretch, yet the token has continued to drift, reflecting a broader market trend where network usage and token valuations have decoupled. This disconnect is not unique to Polygon; several high-throughput networks have posted record transaction counts this year without matching gains in their token prices.

Polygon faces entrenched competition from Tron and Ethereum, which still host the largest balances of dollar-pegged stablecoins, as well as a growing number of purpose-built payment chains.

Source: https://news.bitcoin.com/polygon-80-billion-stablecoin-volume-may/