One hundred million chips gone up in smoke. Polygon destroyed 100 million POL on September 23, approximately 1% of its total supply. And 25 million more are already waiting their turn. The network is not at its first burn: since the adoption of EIP-1559, it has already destroyed part of the fees paid in MATIC for each transaction.
What is a cryptocurrency burn?
A burn consists of sending tokens to a dead address, for which no one has the private key.
Once gone, they never come back into circulation. The total supply thus falls by the same amount and each holder owns a slightly larger share of the remaining stock.
Where do the 100 million POL burned come from?
Not from the foundation's treasury. In reality, Polygon's on-chain fee collector took these tokens from a portion of the revenue produced by network activity (the “Chain Revenue”). Co-founder Sandeep Nailwal then announced the end of the operation on September 23 (“BURN COMPLETE”). The transaction can be viewed on Polygonscan.
Compared to a total supply of around 10 billion POL, these 100 million represent almost 1% of the stock.
A POL burn that becomes recurring
The operation of September 23 does not close anything. On September 26, Sandeep Nailwal indicated on X that around 25 million POLs were already awaiting destruction. On the other hand, Polygon has not set any date.
This reserve grows every day, supplied by the same collection mechanism. In other words, the more transactions Polygon processes, the more the pile of tokens to burn increases. The network then goes from a one-off operation to destruction based on its use.
“POL […] the most undervalued and the most underestimated. The POL community has just burned 100 million POL (around 1% of the supply) […] thanks to the channel's revenue. Around 25 million more POL, ready for burn, accumulates every day. […] Blockstreaming (confirmations in 1 ms) is on the horizon. […] The WHO […] one million additional transactions per day.”
Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, on X on September 26, 2026
Does burn increase the price of POL?
POL has gained approximately 12% since September 23, reaching the area of $0.11 to $0.115 according to AMBCrypto. Sandeep Nailwal describes the token as “most undervalued and underrated”, an opinion of the co-founder which is his own.
A burn reduces supply but creates no demand. Therefore, if network activity slows down, fee collection slows down with it, and so does the next batch to be destroyed.
What Polygon announces next to burn
Polygon aims for confirmations in 1 millisecond thanks to “blockstreaming”, a technology still in development.
The next developments of the Open Money Stack (OMS), Polygon's stablecoin payments infrastructure, are expected to add around one million transactions per day.
Polymarket has launched perpetual contracts on Polygon.
If the next batch of 25 million leaves in turn, Polygon will have withdrawn approximately 125 million POL from circulation, almost 1.25% of its total supply. The timing of this burn depends on the volume of fees collected, with no decision from the foundation to wait. Each additional transaction targeted by the Open Money Stack will therefore increase the next pile of destroyed tokens.
