Polygon Surges as Soaring Fees & Polymarket Frenzy Ignite On-Chain Revival
Transaction costs are spiking—and for Polygon, that's suddenly a bullish signal.
The network's fee market, long dormant, is heating up. A sustained surge in gas prices points to one thing: real, paying demand is flooding back onto the chain. This isn't just testnet noise; it's users voting with their wallets, prioritizing speed and settlement on Polygon's scaling infrastructure.
Polymarket Leads the Charge
Driving a significant chunk of this activity is Polymarket, the prediction market platform. Its volume has exploded, turning the platform into a major gas guzzler on the network. Every bet placed, every market resolved, pours fuel on Polygon's fee furnace. It's a classic case of a killer app bootstrapping ecosystem economics—even if that app lets you gamble on political scandals and meme stock rallies.
Reviving the On-Chain Economy
For months, 'low fees' were Polygon's main marketing pitch. Now, rising fees are its best validation. They signal a network transitioning from a quiet highway to a congested, valuable metropolis. Developers are taking notice, with deployment activity picking up pace to capture this renewed user attention and capital flow.
The cynical take? In crypto, nothing rallies a token like users being forced to pay more to use it. A beautiful, perverse logic that would give a traditional finance quant an aneurysm. Polygon's rally isn't just about technology; it's a bet that people will pay for blockspace again. So far, that bet is paying off.
Polygon fees rise to 14-month peak
Chain revenue on Polygon rose to the highest level since November 2024, reaching $1.1M for the past week. The chain revenue reflects raw transactions and their fees, mostly of POL and USDC for utility and placing predictions.
Transactions on Polygon reached 5.3M daily, up from 2.8M at the start of 2025. The chain also recently marked a spike to 1.4M daily active users, based on TokenTerminal data. The recent spike was the highest since the summer of 2025.
The increased activity has caused only small spikes in gas fees, with most types of transactions requiring less than $0.01 to be completed. Polymarket activity often uses bots and automation, demonstrating that Polygon was capable of carrying the bot-driven traffic.
The chain carries $3.35B in secured value, remaining the most widely used platform as a legacy ethereum L2 chain.
Polygon sets to become rails for money movements
Polygon’s initial L2 chain has carried several major crypto trends, including NFT, Web3 games, DeFi, and stablecoin transfers.
Polymarket turned into the topmost liquid app on Polygon, with an estimated $258M in value locked. Polygon also set its own records for activity and fees produced in the past weeks.
However, the Polygon team aims to go beyond a single app. The chain has ambitious plans to become one of the major payment rails. Recently, the team introduced the Polygon Open Money Stack, catching the trend of on-chain payment infrastructure.
The next three years will define how money moves over the next thirty years.
The Polygon Open Money Stack will change everything.
• one vertically integrated stack to MOVE all money onchain
• seamless global money movement enabled for anyone, anywhere.
• open, interoperable,… https://t.co/O8oCZKSWVh
— Polygon | POL (@0xPolygon) January 8, 2026
Polygon already carries over $2.9B in stablecoins, offering minimal transfer fees. The Polygon version of stablecoins is widely distributed on exchanges. Despite the chain’s slow periods, Polygon saw $365.8M in netflows for the past three months. Polygon receives most of its liquidity from Ethereum, while serving as a hub for other LAYER 2s. The chain remains one of the production-ready networks to attract apps from different narratives and trends.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.
