Polygon schedules network upgrade to support growing demand for stablecoins

Polygon developers plan to increase transaction capacity by 33% in the coming months to tap into increased demand for stablecoin usage. Polygon is one of the legacy L2 chains to see a significant surge in 2025 traffic. 

Polygon developers have announced plans to increase the network transaction capacity by 33% in the last quarter of 2025. Polygon is a legacy network that has carried multiple Web3 apps, games, and DeFi platforms. 

Based on a recent proposal, Polygon will allow more transactions in each block, boosting overall capacity. The protocol change will affect all validators and will not require additional coordination or consensus. 

The increased block size may lead to challenges with block propagation, as reflected in the proposal. This is not a new occurrence with Polygon, which recently had an outage, as Cryptopolitan reported. 

Polygon tapped growing activity during the 2025 bull market

Polygon noted increased gas usage in 2025, reflecting its central role in prediction markets and general stablecoin transfers. 

To boost usage, the Polygon team aims to increase throughput by 33% by increasing the maximum gas limit. Polygon has already shown a jump in transactions in 2025, coinciding with the recent bull market. 

Currently, Polygon is still a highly accessible network, with transactions costing under $0.01. Even during periods of congestion, transactions only reach $0.10 at the highest. As of September 16, the Origin:Turbine smart contract is the busiest, followed by the QuickSwap V2 router. 

In the past six months, Polygon transactions have increased gradually, as L2 chains drew in more activity. Around 13.6% of the Ethereum ecosystem activity happens on L2 chains. 

Polygon gets a boost from active stablecoin transfers

Polygon is among the top networks for stablecoin transfers. The chain only carries around $2.9B in total stablecoin supply, based on native or bridged tokens. 

Despite this, Polygon is among the top chains for USDT, USDC, and USDS transfers, based on Dune Analytics data. The chain is closely linked to the Ethereum ecosystem and has been used for DeFi and gaming in previous bull markets. 

USDC is one of the most widely used tokens, tied to activity on Polymarket. QuickSwap is also driving activity, as the most active native DEX on the chain. The chain also carries one of the still-active on-chain games, Sunflower Land, which also uses USDC for in-game items. 

Polygon was seen as one of the more reliable chains, with the ability to challenge Ethereum. The expansion of L2 chains displaced the network, and briefly, the chain turned into a degen hotspot, an NFT trading chain, and a multi-purpose arena for degen trading and risky projects. 

The newly launched zkEVM version is still growing its user base. In 2025, Polygon aims to reposition itself as one of the reliable chains, serving as a hub for fintech, payments and tokenized assets. 

Polygon’s utility has not been reflected in its native token. In 2025, POL traded near its lower range, sliding to around $0.27 from a peak at $0.60 in late 2024.

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