Key Takeaways:

• Layer-2 Polygon’s daily revenue climbs 18% higher than its underlying network, Ethereum.
• Polygon has also become USDC stablecoin’s biggest chain, processing $28 million in a week.
• The network developers are working on a seamless fiat-to-crypto-to-fiat retail payment rail where service providers will handle the conversions, freeing users from the complexity of blockchain use.

Layer-2 network Polygon’s daily fee crossed $300,000 on 15 February 2026. This is a significant milestone as the layer-2 network’s daily fee exceeded that of Ethereum, the foundational blockchain for Polygon.

Polygon’s active user base is well below Ethereum’s, with the layer-2 network having 5.9 million active users in contrast to Ethereum’s 14.7 million. Even with a smaller number, Polygon taking the lead reflects users preferring it over the much larger Ethereum, which is grounded in the faster transaction speed and lower costs of using Polygon.

Layer-2 (L2) networks help blockchain users transact their funds and interact with services on an alternate, but faster and cheaper chain. L2s, in essence, aid users of a blockchain and are not a direct competitor.

Polymarket is fueling Polygon’s demand

While the Ethereum mainnet managed to collect $264,906 on 15 February, Polygon’s fee collection hit $313,822, 18.4% more than its main layer.

The L2 network hosts around 60 decentralized finance (DeFi) services, including decentralized exchanges (DEXs) like Uniswap, market-leading lending protocol Aave, and the prediction marketplace Polymarket.

Polymarket is a major driver of Polygon’s fee collection. The prediction market witnessed a 65% increase in fees during the previous week, mainly fueled by Oscar’s forecasts.

However, the rising activity is also reflecting higher gas costs. While the 30-day average fee per user on Polygon stands at $0.3644, Ethereum’s 30-day average is $0.4763. As more users flock to Polygon and network activity increases, the average fee may continue to rise.

In that case, Polygon may lose one of its edges over Ethereum: its economic transactions.

This may not be a one-time incident

The rise in Polymarket activity may be considered an outlier, as Oscars’ surge will subside once the award ceremony concludes. However, Polygon’s speed and lower costs are a major factor in its adoption. Compared to its foundational network, Ethereum, Polygon processes 1,000 transactions per second (TPS) at an average cost of a fraction of a cent.

In contrast, Ethereum does around 25-30 TPS, and its gas costs are significantly higher.

Circle’s USDC (a stablecoin that retains its value against the US Dollar) adoption has increased on Polygon, processing over $28 million USDC in a week. This has made Polygon the biggest USDC chain, surpassing even Solana.

Polymarket’s move to support native USDC instead of a wrapped version (where the original USDC is locked on Ethereum, and a layer-2 issues equivalent copies) is also a key driver of the stablecoin’s adoption.

Polygon is also aiming to become a global money rail with its Open Money Stack, an ambitious venture where transacting parties can use fiat, but not rely on banks for the transfer. Onboarding and offboarding systems will work in the background, making blockchain use invisible. This will free users from learning how to convert fiat to crypto, send it to the right wallet, and then convert it back into the receiver’s preferred fiat.

The network has already offered winter Olympic visitors the opportunity to receive their tax refunds in USDC directly.

These steps clearly show a dedicated move to facilitating retail money handling, be it fiat or crypto.

Polygon is winning with a low margin, but a high volume game

Polygon proves that a network’s true value lies in its utility, not just its price tag. Even with its gas fee higher than normal, Polygon still has transaction speed on its side. Trading tokens, NFTs, and using other services would still take less time than Ethereum, thanks to its higher TPS (transactions per second).

Even if the Polygon gas fees are higher, these are due to the recent surge, not the norm. By making blockchain practical for everyday use rather than a luxury, Polygon is winning the race through volume and speed, not market size.

Glossary of Terms: 

• Gas: A fee paid to the blockchain maintainers to process your transactions.
• Fiat: A government-issued money that is accepted as a legal tender.
• On/Offramp: In the context of crypto, this is the process of converting traditional money to crypto and vice versa.