Polygon Labs Completes Coinme Acquisition to Challenge Visa and Stripe in Payments

Polygon Labs completes Coinme acquisition to challenge Visa and Stripe

Polygon Labs has completed its acquisition of Coinme, a U.S.-regulated crypto payments provider. The move signals Polygon's entry into the global payments processing industry, which is currently dominated by companies such as Visa and Stripe.

What Polygon expects from the deal

• Polygon expects its regulated payments business to become profitable in 2027.


• The Coinme acquisition allows Polygon to handle conversions between cryptocurrencies, stablecoins (cryptocurrencies pegged to stable assets like the US dollar), and traditional money using its own resources.


• Polygon will control customer relationships and collect payment fees that previously went to third-party intermediaries.


• The company's unified payments platform is currently in technical preview with a small group of early users.

CEO Marc Boiron explains the strategy

CEO Marc Boiron told CoinDesk that Polygon is shifting from a blockchain infrastructure company to a payments-focused one. "I have not considered us to compete with blockchains for a while now," he said. "It's very much that we're a payments-focused company that just uses blockchains to move money, and in particular, Polygon."

Boiron said the acquisition addresses a longstanding problem for blockchain networks: they provide the technology behind transactions but often lack control over the companies generating them. With Coinme, Polygon can now handle more of the payment process directly, rather than handing customers off to a third party when money needs to enter or leave a blockchain.

"We don't have that customer relationship; we don't get to decide what happens," Boiron said, adding that rival blockchains have offered financial incentives to payment companies to move their transactions away from Polygon. "Now, when we are the ones running the regulated business, we control the customer relationship."

Confirmed facts about the acquisition

The acquisition of Coinme is complete as of Wednesday, October 17, 2026. Polygon is a Cayman Islands-based company that develops the Polygon blockchain. Coinme is a U.S.-regulated crypto payments provider.

Visa's payments volume in fiscal year 2025 topped $12.3 trillion. Stripe's payments volume reached $1.9 trillion. These figures are provided by the source and highlight the scale of the incumbents Polygon is entering.

Unclear aspects of the deal

The financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed. The size of Polygon's payments business relative to Visa and Stripe remains tiny. The timeline for expanding the unified payments platform beyond technical preview is not specified.

Why Polygon's payments push matters

Polygon is moving beyond providing blockchain technology to also processing payments and collecting fees. This shift allows the company to capture revenue that previously went to payment intermediaries. It also gives Polygon direct control over customer relationships, which has been a weakness for many blockchain networks.

Source

• CoinDesk