Polygon news

Circle's x402 Facilitator Service has gone live, processing USDC payments on its Arc blockchain, Coinbase's Base, and Polygon PoS. The service simplifies USDC payments for API providers, data services, and AI agents by handling relayers, gas wallets, and sanctions screenings, requiring only a Circle API key. It launched on September 16, 2026, the same day as Arc's mainnet. Arc, an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain, uses USDC as its gas token and is secured by founding validators including BlackRock, DTCC, and Visa. Over 100 partners were operational at launch, and the testnet processed 500-700 million transactions. Circle minted 10 billion ARC tokens but has not committed to a public token launch. Circle's Agent Stack data shows USDC accounted for 98.8% of agent-to-agent x402 payment volume. The expansion to Base and Polygon PoS allows sellers across ecosystems to use the same payment flow. Concerns about concentration of critical infrastructure under Circle remain, as it controls the facilitator service, the primary blockchain, and the stablecoin.

Monthly USDT0 transfers have surged 438.2% over three years, with Polygon and Arbitrum One accounting for 78.8% of all transfers, according to new data. Polygon processed 1.4 billion transfers in 2025 (up 227% year-over-year) and reached $2.83B in stablecoin supply, while Arbitrum's daily transfers grew 25x from 80,000 to over 2 million, with daily volumes exceeding $5B. USDT0 has crossed $100B in cumulative cross-chain volume since its 2025 launch, with 6.5 million active wallets. Layer-2 networks are winning stablecoin flows due to lower fees compared to Ethereum mainnet, and USDT0 uses LayerZero for cross-chain messaging. Traditional finance integrations, such as Revolut and Stripe on Polygon, are fueling demand. However, competition is emerging from Base, Optimism, and zero-knowledge rollups, challenging the current dominance.

Polygon Labs patched multiple security vulnerabilities in its proof-of-stake network through the Austin and Kyoto hard forks, disclosing the fixes after deployment. The Austin fork closed two denial-of-service paths in Bor, including one that could let a malicious block producer crash peer nodes, while the Kyoto fork fixed a critical flaw in Heimdall that could force validators to perform costly processing from a single crafted transaction. No exploits were found on mainnet. Both upgrades are mandatory for node operators, and older nodes have already fallen out of consensus. The fixes were binary upgrades, requiring no state migration. Polygon previously used hard forks in 2025 to address finality delays and introduced the Rio upgrade. The token POL traded near $0.09983, down 2.3% in 24 hours, following the disclosure.

Polygon Labs disclosed that it patched several security vulnerabilities through two hard forks, Austin on its Bor client and Kyoto on its Heimdall client, which were rolled out privately and tested on the Amoy testnet before mainnet activation. The Austin fork fixed two denial-of-service issues in block processing, including one where a malicious block producer could crash peer nodes with an oversized data field. The Kyoto fork addressed consensus-hardening flaws, the most severe allowing an attacker to force costly coordinated work across the validator set via a single crafted transaction. Polygon stated no exploits were observed on mainnet and the upgrades are now mandatory and active, requiring no state migration. The disclosure came as POL traded around $0.09983, down 2.3% on the day and 6.8% on the week, with a market cap near $1.07 billion.

Polygon Labs has disclosed two security vulnerabilities that were patched via the Austin and Kyoto hard forks on the Polygon proof-of-stake mainnet on August 29. The Austin fork fixed un-metered L1-to-L2 state-sync events and unbounded TxDependency data in the Bor execution client, which could cause denial-of-service attacks. The Kyoto fork addressed byte-level protobuf nesting and signature validation flaws in the Heimdall consensus client that could disrupt validator messaging. The upgrades required only binary updates, with no state migration. Nodes running pre-fork binaries are now off canonical consensus and must upgrade to Bor v2.10.0 and Heimdall v0.11.0 or higher. Polygon reported no mainnet disruption, and the disclosure followed successful testnet validation and mainnet activation. These upgrades follow the July 2026 Ithaca hard fork as part of Polygon's ongoing technical and economic transition, including the shift to POL and the upcoming sPOL token.

Polygon disclosed previously private security vulnerabilities in its proof-of-stake network that were fixed through two recent hard forks. The flaws, affecting the Bor and Heimdall clients, included denial-of-service risks, validator resource exhaustion, and issues with checkpoint and milestone processing. The most severe issue in Heimdall could have forced validators to perform excessive processing, potentially disrupting the network. Polygon said none of the vulnerabilities were exploited on mainnet, and the fixes were deployed proactively. Nodes running older client versions have fallen out of consensus and must upgrade to Bor v2.10.0 and Heimdall v0.11.0 to rejoin the network. POL was trading around $0.10 at the time of writing, down 4% over the past week but up 44% over the past month.

Polygon Labs has issued an urgent client upgrade notice for Polygon PoS validators and full nodes after the Austin and Kyoto hardforks activated in August. Nodes running pre-hardfork Bor or Heimdall binaries have already fallen out of canonical consensus and must upgrade and resync to rejoin the network. Austin, which activated at mainnet block 91,949,700, requires Bor v2.10.0 or later. It fixed two resource-exhaustion risks: state-sync events could exceed block gas limits and stall block processing, and an oversized TxDependency field could crash peers. Kyoto, activated at height 51,533,000, requires Heimdall v0.11.0. It hardened against nested-message abuse, fee-coin scan issues, and checkpoint edge cases. Both hardforks are binary upgrades with no state migration, so non-diverged nodes do not need a resync. Polygon reported no mainnet disruption from the hardforks and framed the changes as proactive fixes.

Polygon Labs has joined Phase 2 of the Bank of England's Digital Pound Lab, announced on August 12, to explore onchain use cases for a potential digital pound. Working with NOBO Finance and Dun & Bradstreet, the consortium will test simulated stablecoin settlement and a central bank digital currency for SME trade finance, including credit profiles and cross-border invoice factoring, from November 2025 to July 2026. Polygon will contribute its Open Money Stack for stablecoin settlement and smart contracts. The Bank of England is emphasizing participant-defined applications, allowing firms to propose scenarios. Polygon CEO Marc Boiron stressed the need for public and private currencies to work seamlessly together, highlighting the experiment's focus on interoperability between stablecoins and a simulated digital pound.

The integration of loyalty points into stablecoins could accelerate mainstream crypto adoption, highlighting Japan's progressive regulatory stance. Polygon enables Kansai Electric loyalty points conversion to JPYC stablecoin.

Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron announced additional layoffs as the company finalizes its $250 million acquisition of cryptocurrency exchange Coinme and wallet infrastructure platform Sequence. The job cuts are part of a broader transition from a blockchain foundation to a blockchain-enabled payments company. Boiron stated that the reorganization requires different talent and structure, not reflecting on the departing employees' quality. Polygon has laid off over 200 people in previous rounds over the last three years.