Polygon Labs completes Coinme deal as it pushes into U.S. payments

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Polygon Labs acquires Coinme

Highlights

Polygon Labs completed the acquisition of U.S.-regulated Coinme, enabling direct crypto, stablecoin, and fiat conversions for customer payments operations.
Polygon Labs expects its payments business to become profitable in 2027, collecting fee revenue previously captured by third-party providers.
Polygon Labs enters a stablecoin payments market competing with Visa and Stripe, with its unified platform still in technical preview for early users like Tazapay and Toku.

Coinme acquisition expands payments reach

As first reported by CoinDesk, Polygon Labs says its regulated payments business is expected to become profitable in 2027 after the company completed its acquisition of U.S.-regulated crypto payments provider Coinme.

The deal gives the Cayman Islands-based developer of the Polygon blockchain the ability to handle conversions among cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and traditional money using its own resources. That allows Polygon Labs to keep customer relationships and collect fees from conversion and transfer activity that previously flowed to third parties.

Chief Executive Marc Boiron says the acquisition forms part of a wider strategic shift that includes the January launch of Open Money Stack, a framework designed to support stablecoin-based payments and simplify cross-border transfers. He says the company now sees itself as a payments-focused business that uses blockchains, especially Polygon, to move money.

Competition grows in stablecoin payments

Polygon Labs is entering a market led by major incumbents including Visa and Stripe, and it remains at an early stage of development. Its unified payments platform is still in technical preview with a small group of early users and is not yet generally available.

Boiron says owning the regulated business helps solve a longstanding weakness for blockchain networks, which often provide transaction infrastructure without controlling the customer-facing companies that generate payment flows. With Coinme, Polygon Labs can manage more of the payments process directly instead of sending customers to outside providers when money moves on or off a blockchain.

The company earns revenue from payment services separately from transaction fees on the Polygon blockchain, where priority fees go to validators and stakers. Boiron says blockchain transaction fees already offset token emissions, while the payments business offers a larger revenue opportunity because fees can be based on the value of money transferred rather than fractions of a cent per transaction.

Polygon Labs is also facing pressure from traditional payments groups expanding into blockchain-based transfers. Stripe is building stablecoin payment services, Swift is developing blockchain infrastructure with major banks, and Visa has expanded its stablecoin settlement network to include the Polygon blockchain while also launching tools for banks and fintechs to issue, manage and settle stablecoins.

Early users of Polygon's platform include cross-border payments provider Tazapay, crypto payments network Mesh, global payroll platform Toku and payments infrastructure company Kira. The next challenge for Polygon Labs is not only persuading companies to use its blockchain, but also convincing them to rely on the company itself to move their money.

In our earlier report on Philippine e-commerce payment trends, we noted that cash-on-delivery still makes up a sizable share of online purchases even as QR codes and bank transfers are growing quickly. We also highlighted that limited payment choice can directly hurt conversion, with many shoppers abandoning carts if their preferred method isn’t available—adding pressure on merchants to support more options while managing rising fraud concerns.

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