Polygon’s native asset, POL (previously MATIC), has completed one of the most significant infrastructure overhauls in Layer-2 history — yet its price tells a very different story. The migration from MATIC to POL officially happened on September 4, 2024, and by early 2025, 99% of MATIC on the Polygon network had successfully migrated to POL, with every transaction on Polygon PoS now fueled by the new token. The upgrade was widely celebrated as a technical triumph. The market, however, has not celebrated alongside it.
The Migration: What Changed and Why It Mattered
Post-upgrade, POL replaced MATIC as the primary token for gas fees and staking within the network during the initial phase, while maintaining MATIC’s existing tokenomics, distribution, and total supply. The transition went further than a simple rebrand. The upgrade introduced new tokenomics, directing half of a 2% annual emission to staking rewards and half to a community treasury, supporting builders through a grant program overseen by an independent board.
The broader vision is ambitious. The community-led upgrade opened the door to future utility powering the unified, cross-chain ecosystem of Polygon Labs’ interoperability solution, AggLayer. Technically, Polygon has been delivering. In July 2025, Polygon activated the Bhilai Hardfork, boosting throughput by over 50% to more than 1,000 TPS, and by October 2025, the network pushed toward 5,000 TPS via the Rio Upgrade.
So why hasn’t the price moved?
POL replaced MATIC
A Price in Freefall Despite Fundamentals
POL hit its all-time low under the new ticker of $0.1533 on April 7, 2025. The decline was driven by weak altcoin sentiment, heavy competition from rival L2s, and broader macroeconomic pressure. From its 2024 peak, the damage has been severe: POL’s price dropped 91% from its 2024 all-time high of $1.24 to $0.111 as of March 2026.
This collapse happened not because Polygon stopped building, but because the market stopped caring about its narrative — at least for now. POL remained under sustained selling pressure throughout 2025, reflecting weak speculative demand, dilution concerns, and intensifying competition among Ethereum Layer-2 networks. Rather than establishing higher lows, price action continued to compress toward multi-year lows, signaling that ecosystem progress alone was insufficient to drive renewed capital inflows.
POL 24H price chart (Source: CoinMarketCap)
Three Reasons the Recovery Has Stalled
- The Layer-2 arms race is brutal. Polygon was once the dominant Ethereum scaling solution, but the competitive landscape has transformed. From its early days as the number-one Layer-2 on Ethereum with billions in TVL, Polygon now sits as the 13th largest chain, with just $969 million in TVL, per DefiLlama. Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base have all captured significant market share, while Solana’s rise has drawn users and developers away from the Ethereum ecosystem entirely.
- Inflation pressure from tokenomics. While the 2% annual emission model was designed to fund validators and the community treasury, it creates constant sell pressure in a bear market. Polygon’s annual inflation rate of 2% could limit the deflationary impact of token burns, especially if adoption does not outpace supply growth.
- Leadership uncertainty. The project has experienced significant co-founder departures. In June 2025, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal assumed the role of CEO of the Polygon Foundation, narrowing the focus toward making the Polygon PoS chain and AggLayer operationally successful rather than expanding narratives. While this restructuring may prove strategically sound, it contributed to a period of market uncertainty.
Polygon upgrade
What Could Spark a Recovery?
The bull case for POL rests on infrastructure payoffs finally reaching the price. Polygon’s Gigagas roadmap aims to scale throughput to 100,000 transactions per second by 2026, which would significantly expand the network’s appeal for real-world payments and settlements. Additionally, Visa integrated the Polygon blockchain into its global stablecoin settlement program, allowing Visa’s partners to settle transactions using stablecoins like USDC directly over Polygon’s infrastructure.
On the tokenomics side, deflationary mechanisms are gaining steam. Long-term holders point to aggressive token burns and Polygon’s growing role as a payment settlement layer, with over a third of all POL already locked up in staking.
The Outlook
Analysts remain divided. Realistic price targets suggest a potential range of $0.15–$0.80 in 2026 and $0.25–$7.00 by 2035, depending on AggLayer adoption and network performance. The more cautious view is that without a clear pickup in network fees, on-chain activity, and developer traction, upside scenarios remain conditional.
The bottom line is that Polygon has successfully completed its token migration and continues to ship major technical upgrades. But in crypto, fundamentals and price action are often disconnected — sometimes for years. POL’s recovery, when it comes, will likely be driven not by what Polygon has already built, but by whether the market finally assigns value to it.
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