Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwal confirmed that the network completed the permanent removal of 100 million POL tokens from circulation on September 23. According to reports from AMBCrypto, the on-chain transaction destroyed tokens worth approximately $10.22 million at the time of the burn. The burn represents about 1% of POL's total supply, with the destroyed tokens coming from network fees that had accumulated inside Polygon's fee-collection system. The burn also introduces a community-triggered process that allows future fee-funded burns, connecting the amount removed from circulation more closely to Polygon network activity.
Polygon recently publicized tests of an agent payment system built on pay channels anchored to the Polygon chain, demonstrating exceptional technical capabilities. In these tests, a fleet of 25 independently scaling hubs processed over 11 million verified payment updates per second, with final settlement batched back to Polygon. Payments used the x402 protocol, which is explicitly framed as a way for AI agents to pay for tokens, API calls, and other services as they are consumed. This development significantly strengthens Polygon's position in the "AI + payments" narrative and positions the network as a key infrastructure component for AI-driven financial applications.
POL token has gained nearly 6% over the last day, significantly outperforming the broader cryptocurrency market. According to market data, while the total crypto market cap rose about 0.4% and altcoin market cap increased around 0.6% over 24 hours, POL gained a little over 6% versus roughly flat Bitcoin and low single-digit gains for Ethereum and other scaling tokens. This relative outperformance makes it very plausible that the renewed burn narrative, rather than just market beta, helped draw incremental demand toward POL, particularly when the token was already in an uptrend.
If POL successfully moves above the $0.115 price area, it could approach the $0.12 price level, though the $0.12–$0.125 region may prove more challenging due to a sharp rejection there earlier in September. According to AMBCrypto analysis, if POL stays above the $0.11 price level, it provides encouragement for the recovery and puts the token above several price averages that previously held it back. If the price drops, the first area to watch is between the $0.107 and $0.110 price areas, with a fall below this range potentially bringing POL back towards the $0.102 price area, close to where the latest post-burn advance began.
The combination of the 100M token burn and the newly highlighted agent payment system with 11M payment updates per second provides Polygon with a stronger supply-reduction story and infrastructure narrative. The permanent removal of tokens from circulation is designed to make remaining tokens more scarce if demand remains steady or increases, though this effect depends on sustained market conditions and network activity levels. The quarterly and community-triggered burn mechanism explicitly ties deflationary periods to real usage, while the growing share of base fees being routed into a recurring burn pipeline attracts traders seeking "improving tokenomics" stories even when the long-term model is not strictly hard capped.
