Polygon has permanently removed 100 million POL from circulation, moving tokens accumulated through the network's base-fee system to an unspendable Ethereum address in a transaction triggered by the community. Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwal confirmed the completed burn on September 23 in a post on X.

The burned tokens were worth approximately $10 million at current prices and represent about 1% of POL's original 10 billion supply, or roughly 0.93% of its current total supply. The onchain transaction transferred 100 million POL from Polygon's BurnTunnel to Ethereum's 0x000...dEaD address, and the Polygon-side fee collector decreased by the same amount. The transfer is recorded on Etherscan.

Network Fees Fund the Burn

Polygon's EIP-1559 system directs the base-fee portion of network transaction fees toward its burn infrastructure rather than paying it to validators, while priority fees follow a separate path. The mechanism takes its name from Ethereum's 2021 fee-market upgrade, which introduced base-fee burning on that network. The burn collector had accumulated roughly 121 million POL before the latest settlement. On September 18, Nailwal said the first 100 million POL was ready for permanent removal once the new contracts completed Security Council approval and moved from testnet to mainnet.

Polygon's fee routing changed again in March under PIP-82. Base fees now initially enter a routing address, where eligible fees generated through specified agentic-commerce activity can be used for rebates under a program capped at $1 million. Non-recycled POL continues to the existing burn collector.

Polygon has operated an EIP-1559 burn mechanism since 2022. PIP-24 later changed the designated collector used for base fees as the network prepared its infrastructure for the MATIC-to-POL transition.

Community Can Trigger Future Quarterly Burns

The new deployment removes the Polygon Foundation as the required executor for each burn. According to Nailwal, any community member can now initiate the burn process once eligible POL has accumulated, with further executions planned on a quarterly basis. How much POL reaches the dead address in each settlement will depend on how quickly the collector refills through ongoing base-fee accrual.

The September 23 settlement sent POL to an unspendable dead address rather than invoking the token contract's internal _burn() function. The 100 million POL therefore leaves circulating-supply accounting, although the POL contract's raw ERC-20 totalSupply() does not decline by the same amount — a distinction that means supply trackers relying on circulating-supply figures will register the reduction, while a direct read of the contract will not.

Nailwal also said POL has been net deflationary since January when fee accrual is measured against new issuance over that period. Polygon still issues POL for validator funding and its Community Treasury, so future net supply changes will depend on whether fee-directed burns exceed newly created tokens.

Polygon Activity Feeds the Burn Collector

Polygon has expanded its payments footprint during 2026, adding transaction activity capable of generating base fees. Visa added to its stablecoin settlement network in May, while Polygon Wallet introduced shielded stablecoin payments for USDC and USDT.

POL traded near $0.1005 early on September 24, down roughly 7% over 24 hours but still about 8% higher over seven days. Its intraday range was approximately $0.1002 to $0.1133.

Source: Crypto Adventure