Polygon Labs has announced the launch of Open Money Stack, a modular platform designed to revolutionize the global payments infrastructure.
The objective is clear: bring all money onchain, making value transfers faster, cheaper, and globally accessible. In a context where money still moves through fragmented systems, intermediaries, and delays, this initiative promises to redefine how businesses and individuals manage their payments.
The Context: Why Change is Needed
In recent years, stablecoins have established themselves as a key tool for cross-border payments. However, the global payment infrastructure remains anchored to regional systems, with high costs and unpredictable waiting times.
According to Citi’s projections, the global issuance of stablecoins could reach between 1.9 and 4 trillion dollars by 2030. To achieve these levels, a system is needed that combines regulated access to fiat, wallets, routing, compliance, and onchain settlement, without recreating closed networks.
Open Money Stack: What It Is and How It Works
A Modular and Interoperable Architecture
Open Money Stack represents Polygon Labs’ response to these challenges. It is an end-to-end infrastructure for the global movement of money, designed to be modular and chain-neutral. This means that fintech and institutions can adopt only the components they need, while still maintaining full interoperability between different networks.
The platform integrates into a single system:
- High-performance settlement
- Deep liquidity on stablecoins
- Orchestration of transactions between supported chains
- Integrated compliance
Applications can accept assets from any network, without the user having to worry about bridges, swaps, or gas fees. This drastically reduces operational complexity for businesses and ensures end users instant, low-cost, and borderless payments.
A Simplified User Experience
The underlying idea is that money should become invisible in everyday experience: sending and receiving funds should be as simple as a tap, without worrying about settlement mechanisms or delays. For instance, a company in São Paulo can pay a designer in Lagos in a matter of seconds, without having to go through correspondent banks or endure unpredictable delays and fees. Moreover, money can start generating yield until it is spent.
Polygon: An Ecosystem Ready for the Challenge
A Proven Network
By the end of 2025, the onchain supply of stablecoins on Polygon reached approximately $3.3 billion, the highest in the past three years. This figure attests to Polygon’s position as one of the most utilized networks for stablecoin payments, thanks to high volumes, low fees, and consistent reliability.
In the past six years, Polygon has facilitated over two trillion dollars in onchain value transfers, supporting millions of users and tens of thousands of applications. This real-world experience has enabled the design of the Open Money Stack on already operational infrastructures, avoiding theoretical models and focusing on concrete solutions.
Continuous Innovation and Long-Term Vision
Polygon has always had the mission of freeing money from the constraints of traditional financial infrastructure. With the Open Money Stack, this vision materializes into a platform that integrates:
- Blockchain rails and onchain/offchain orchestration
- Advanced and recoverable wallets
- Simplified onboarding from fiat to stablecoin and across different chains
- Comprehensive onchain financial experiences, including card programs and yield opportunities
The platform aims to make chains invisible to users, thanks to interoperability protocols like Agglayer and bridge systems that allow sending and receiving money as if everyone were on the same network.
Distinctive Features of the Open Money Stack
Programmable and Always-On Money
The Open Money Stack allows for programmable and seamless movement of money, both for consumers and businesses. The transfer can start offchain and conclude onchain, or occur entirely on the blockchain. All forms of onchain money are supported, from stablecoins to tokenized deposits, with the option to choose the preferred currency without restrictions for sender or recipient.
Yield and Onchain Identity
One of the key innovations is the ability to generate returns on idle money, providing access to global and open yield opportunities, even through the integration of onchain identity. This allows for unlocking competitive returns compared to traditional solutions, making onchain money even more advantageous.
Integration with the Traditional World
For the next decade, on-ramps and off-ramps will remain essential for connecting traditional financial systems to blockchains. However, the direction is clear: moving all money onchain, making payments more versatile, convenient, and integrable into existing financial applications.
Next Steps and Impact on the Future of Payments
In the coming weeks, Polygon Labs will announce new initiatives to expand the capabilities of the Open Money Stack in the areas of payments, orchestration, compliance, and onchain financial tools. The goal is simple yet ambitious: to move all money onchain, offer open services, and redefine the movement of money for the next thirty years.
With a solid foundation built over the past six years and a clear vision for the future, Polygon is poised to lead the greatest evolution of money in the last fifty years, making global payments finally simple, open, and accessible to everyone.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2026/01/08/polygon-labs-launches-open-money-stack-the-new-frontier-of-global-payments/
