Polygon Prepares Permissionless Burn of 100 Million POL

Polygon is preparing a permissionless contract that would allow anyone to permanently burn 100 million POL, according to The Defiant. Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwal said the contracts are running on testnet with a shift to mainnet planned once final Security Council signatures are secured.

The first call would destroy 100 million tokens at once from a base-fee collector holding 121 million POL, representing roughly 83% of that balance. Nailwal stated the initial action would leave approximately 21 million POL in the collector before further fees accumulate. Future burns would be initiated quarterly by any community member.

This reduction amounts to 1% of POL’s original 10 billion-token allocation. Blockscout data shows the total supply at approximately 10.716 billion POL, meaning the burn equates to roughly 0.93% of the total. The mechanism does not establish a hard cap, given POL’s continuous emissions at an effective annual rate of 2% starting after June 2025.

Nailwal reported that Polygon earned $24.5 million in 2026 revenue, contrasting figures of $8.41 million for Arbitrum and $5.6 million for Near. He attributed the comparison to “my analyst at ChatGPT,” without specifying the dataset or methodology used.