Polygon invests $250 million to acquire payment and wallet providers! Fully entering the US compliant crypto payment market

Polygon acquires Coinme and Sequence for over $250 million to build Open Money Stack, integrating compliance, wallets, and payment channels, fully entering the global stablecoin payment market.

Polygon Builds the “Open Money Stack” Payment Empire

According to Fortune, Ethereum scaling giant Polygon Labs recently announced a landmark strategic acquisition, confirming the signing of an agreement to acquire US crypto payment leader Coinme and wallet infrastructure provider Sequence, with a total transaction value exceeding $250 million. This move is not only a major expansion in Polygon’s development history but also signifies a critical transformation from a technology infrastructure provider to a “regulated payment platform.”

According to Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron’s blueprint, these two acquisitions will serve as the foundation of the “Polygon Open Money Stack,” aiming to combine blockchain’s high-speed settlement capabilities with traditional financial compliance pathways, creating a vertically integrated system that allows stablecoins to flow globally like cash.

Image source: X/@0xPolygon Polygon Labs announces acquisition of US crypto payment leader Coinme and wallet infrastructure provider Sequence

This strategic shift is no coincidence but the result of Polygon’s continuous planning over the past 12 months. As the global crypto industry experiences a wave of transformation from general-purpose blockchains to profit-generating financial services,

Polygon has chosen a highly ambitious path: integrating stablecoin payments, custodial services, and compliance infrastructure into a platform similar to a “Neobank,” but operating on a decentralized blockchain.

Through this approach, Polygon aims to solve the long-standing fragmentation issues limiting the widespread adoption of stablecoins, enabling enterprises to manage identity verification, fiat on/off ramps, cross-chain fund transfers, and complex wallet logic through a single interface and API. This system is expected to be operational by the end of 2026, expanding its service scope to multiple blockchain networks beyond Polygon’s own ecosystem.

Two Pillars of the Acquisition: Coinme’s Physical Network and Sequence’s Seamless Experience

In this $250 million acquisition chessboard, Coinme and Sequence represent the ultimate reinforcement of hardware channels and software experience respectively.

First, Coinme, a veteran company regulated by FinCEN since 2014 and holding 48 state money transmitter licenses, brings Polygon highly scarce compliance resources and physical access points. Coinme operates over 50,000 retail cash-to-crypto kiosks and ATMs across the US, including more than 6,000 devices installed through partnerships with Coinstar in mainstream chains like Walmart. This extensive coverage is praised by Boiron as a “Trojan horse” for introducing new users, allowing the general public to buy crypto assets by simply scanning a barcode and paying cash at checkout in supermarkets.

On the other hand, Sequence focuses on solving the high barriers caused by blockchain complexity. Founded in 2017, this tech company offers leading embedded wallets and “Trails” cross-chain orchestration technology, with core functions in “technological abstraction”: enabling users to perform payments, transfers, or cross-chain fund dispatches without feeling the underlying blockchain operations. With Sequence’s support, all cumbersome cross-chain swaps, token exchanges, and gas fee management are handled automatically by the backend system.

Statistics show that the integration of these two companies with Polygon has processed over 1 billion in offline sales and up to $2 trillion in on-chain value transfers. In the future, although Coinme will operate as a fully owned subsidiary of Polygon Labs to maintain licenses, both will be packaged as a unified “Open Money Stack” payment solution.

Intensified Competition: Competing in the Stablecoin Payment Race Against Traditional Giants

Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal has described its development strategy as a “Reverse Stripe” model.

This means that unlike Stripe, which extends from Web2 software services to Web3, Polygon is starting from an existing blockchain ecosystem and integrating compliance pathways and payment infrastructure upward. Although CEO Boiron downplays direct competition with Stripe in interviews, emphasizing that Polygon’s focus is on co-evolving with existing payment giants, industry consensus suggests this is undoubtedly a fight for the future multi-trillion-dollar stablecoin settlement market.

Currently, the payment landscape is being reshuffled:

• In 2024, Stripe acquired stablecoin startup Bridge for $1.1 billion, then launched the “Open Issuance” platform in September 2025, allowing any enterprise to issue its own stablecoin with just a few lines of code, and partnered with Paradigm to develop the Tempo blockchain.
• Meanwhile, PayPal’s $PYUSD has successfully expanded from Ethereum to Solana, even enabling creator payouts on YouTube.
• Visa and Mastercard are also active, with Visa launching $USDC settlement services in the US and introducing “Stablecoin Advisory Services,” expected to roll out nationwide by late 2026.

Amidst this fierce competition, Polygon leverages its $3.3 billion in on-chain stablecoin liquidity by the end of 2025 and strategic partnerships with giants like Visa and Mastercard to aim for dominance in compliant payments.

Wealth Effect and Future Outlook: The 2026 Transformation Culmination

This $250 million acquisition is not only strategic but also financially attractive. Polygon Labs expects that by integrating Coinme and Sequence services, it can generate over $100 million in annual revenue.

More importantly, the profits from this deal will flow into the “Open Money Stack” system, providing additional yield subsidies to $POL token stakers, thereby enhancing the token’s intrinsic value. Following the announcement, Polygon’s native token $POL (formerly $MATIC) immediately rose about 6%, reflecting strong investor confidence in Polygon’s successful entry into the payment profit zone. As of press time, $POL is priced at $0.1577, up 4.24% in the past 24 hours.

Image source: CoinMarketCap $POL price is $0.1577, up 4.24% in the past 24 hours

According to the current schedule, the Sequence acquisition is expected to be completed within this month, while the Coinme acquisition is projected to close in Q2 2026, after all regulatory filings are finalized. Polygon is transforming from a simple technology provider into a comprehensive payment giant with physical channels (50,000 terminals), compliance licenses (48 states), and top-tier software technology (embedded wallets).

• For developers, this means future payment development will no longer require dealing with complex smart contract details;
• For general users, future digital currency payments will be as natural as using a credit card.

When the Open Money Stack officially launches in 2026, it is highly likely to become an indispensable underlying layer in the global digital payment system, enabling stablecoins to truly realize their potential as “internet-native currencies.”