Key Insights:
- Polygon Foundation CEO outlines a 100M POL burn, pending final council signatures.
- Nailwal cites $24.5M in Polygon revenue, but the figures lack independent verification.
- Polygon plans community-triggered quarterly burns while retaining 2% annual emissions.
Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwal said Polygon plans to permanently burn 100 million POL through a permissionless contract.
The announcement paired the proposed supply reduction with his claim of $24.5 million in 2026 revenue. However, the contracts remain on testnet, with mainnet deployment awaiting final Polygon Security Council signatures.
Once deployment clears, any community member can trigger the initial burn, according to Nailwal. The proposed mechanism would allow community members to initiate additional base-fee burns once per quarter.
His announcement thus outlined both an initial token destruction event and a recurring process for later burns.
The planned burn would draw tokens from a base-fee collector contract holding approximately 121 million POL, the Polygon Foundation CEO said.
Each network base fee adds POL to that collector, linking the accumulated balance to transaction activity. Of that balance, the first burn would permanently remove 100 million tokens.
That amount equals 1% of POLs initial supply of 10 billion tokens. However, the initial supply serves as a historical reference rather than a permanent ceiling. POL retains an ongoing annual emission rate of 2%, even as Polygon prepares the burn mechanism.
Nailwal said POL has operated in a deflationary phase since January 2026, citing transaction base fees. That claim accompanies the pending burn rather than confirmation that the proposed 100 million tokens have already disappeared.
The contracts still require the remaining signatures and mainnet deployment before anyone can initiate that removal.
Although Nailwal described the approval sequence, his post did not link a specific governance proposal or Polygon Improvement Proposal number.
Those details remain omitted from the announcement, which places the contracts on testnet. The Polygon Foundation CEO identified final Security Council signatures as the remaining approval step before mainnet deployment.
Polygon Foundation CEO Cites Revenue Gap With Rivals
Alongside the burn plan, Nailwal compared Polygons revenue with figures he supplied for Arbitrum and NEAR Protocol.
He listed Arbitrum at $8.41 million and NEAR at $5.6 million for the same year-to-date period. His $24.5 million Polygon figure amounts to roughly three times Arbitrum‘s total and more than four times NEAR’s.
However, Nailwal attributed the revenue comparison to his “analyst at ChatGPT.” The figures lack independent verification in the reporting accompanying his announcement. His Arbitrum calculation included the Robinhood chain, while the NEAR figure included NEAR Intents.
Nailwal presented the comparison as rival tokens attracted attention during their rallies. He congratulated both communities while describing his frustration over POLs relative performance as “bad cope.”
That remark framed the revenue comparison around differing token performances, alongside his update on Polygons planned burn.
Network Activity Accompanies Burn Announcement
Nailwal also said Polygon had increased its processing capacity tenfold to 5,000 transactions per second. He cited payments, trading, and consumer applications among the activities using the network.
Additionally, he indicated that further transaction-capacity updates would follow, without providing specifics in his announcement.
Meanwhile, a CoinMarketCap News report recorded a 6.5% POL price increase shortly after the announcement. That reported move followed the release of both the burn mechanism details and Nailwals revenue figures.