Polygon Labs has completed its acquisition of Coinme, a licensed crypto exchange and cash-to-crypto platform it agreed to buy in January, giving the blockchain company a regulated way to move money between US dollars and digital assets. The Ethereum scaling network announced the closing on Wednesday, Oct. 14, in an official blog post that describes the Open Money Stack as a US-regulated payments platform.

With the deal finished, Polygon's US payments business now holds regulatory coverage across 48 states. That footprint rests on 37 state money transmitter licenses and 11 state exemptions, and the business is also registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, as a money services business. FinCEN, a bureau of the US Treasury Department, places registered money services businesses under federal anti-money-laundering oversight. State money transmitter licenses, meanwhile, authorize a company to receive and transmit money on behalf of customers within a given state. For a crypto company, that approval layer is the gate determining where dollar-to-crypto services can legally operate, which is why an existing 48-state footprint carries weight.

What Polygon Gets From Coinme

Coinme lets users buy and sell digital assets using cash, debit cards and bank transfers. When the deal was first announced, the company had more than one million users, and its retail network covered about 50,000 locations, according to Polygon.

Polygon first revealed plans to buy Coinme in January. At the same time, it agreed to acquire Sequence, a wallet infrastructure provider, with the two deals worth more than $250 million combined. Polygon Labs also cut some roles around that period. CEO Marc Boiron said at the time that the company needed its team to become a "leading payments-focused blockchain company."

The Coinme licenses now support Polygon's payments platform, called the Open Money Stack.

How the Open Money Stack Works

The Open Money Stack combines digital wallets, payment routing, blockchain settlement and banking connections. Because blockchains no native link to bank accounts, cards or cash, those banking connections act as the bridge between conventional finance and on-chain settlement. Polygon says businesses can use it to handle the full life of a payment, from the first dollar in to the final payout.

The process can start with a business accepting dollars through bank transfers, cards or cash deposits. The payment can then settle on the blockchain and be paid out in local currencies. According to Polygon, companies can manage this entire flow through a single connection, replacing the need to integrate with several separate infrastructure providers.

First Companies on the Platform

Four companies are among the first to use the platform: Tazapay, Mesh, Toku and Kira. Their use cases converge on stablecoins — cryptocurrencies designed to hold a steady value, typically pegged to the US dollar — and the ramps that connect them to everyday money.

Tazapay, a cross-border payments company, serves more than 1,000 businesses and fintech firms in over 30 countries and is adding Polygon's wallet and currency conversion tools. Rahul Shinghal, the company's co-founder and CEO, said the Open Money Stack gives businesses "a more direct route between stablecoins and local currency."

Mesh, a crypto payments network, links more than 300 wallets, exchanges and financial services. It is adopting Polygon's tools that let users fund crypto transactions with regular money.

Toku, a global payroll provider, is using the wallet and payout tools so that workers can receive stablecoin pay and convert it into local currency.

Kira, an AI-powered financial services platform, is building on the Open Money Stack to offer stablecoins alongside US banking services, including ACH, Fedwire and FedNow payments, so users can move between stablecoins and traditional US payment rails. With the Coinme closing complete, the near-term test for the Open Money Stack is whether these announced integrations move from launch commitments into day-to-day payment flows across payroll, cross-border transfers and US banking rails.