Polygon Hits Visa Like Payment Speeds

Polygon Labs says its network can now handle up to 5,000 payment transactions per second, a threshold the team says puts it in the same throughput tier as traditional card networks, at a fraction of the cost.

What Changed Under the Hood

The milestone was reached by raising the block gas limit to 160 million while holding block times at 1.5 seconds. According to Polygon Labs, the upgrade adds enough room that it takes far more volume before blocks fill and fees move at all, meaning costs stay low and predictable even as transaction demand grows. The move follows a series of incremental upgrades, including a February 2026 gas limit raise that brought throughput to 2,600 TPS at around $0.002 per transaction, and the Giugliano upgrade in April 2026, which delivered faster confirmations and published fee parameters onchain. The latest raise to 160 million gas is the current step in Polygon's published Gigagas roadmap, a multi-phase engineering program that ultimately targets 100,000 TPS.

The network's real-world traction adds weight to the technical claims. Stripe activated global USDC payments on Polygon in December 2025, giving merchants in more than 150 countries access to stablecoin settlement. Polygon also processed $79 billion in stablecoin volume in May 2026 and closed the month at a record $3.7 billion in stablecoin supply, with Revolut alone crossing $1.2 billion in onchain transactions on the network.

Open Money Stack Enters Technical Preview

The throughput upgrade arrives alongside a significant product milestone. Polygon's Open Money Stack (OMS) has entered technical preview, with limited early access now available to select partners. In a single API, the OMS supports cash ramps, business bank ramps, custodial wallets, stablecoin transfers, external wallet routing, and compliance tooling. The goal is to let fintechs, neobanks, and financial institutions build stablecoin payment products without assembling multiple vendors for each component.

Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron framed the combined announcement in straightforward terms: the throughput was never the core problem for enterprise adoption, costs and integration complexity were. With the 5,000 TPS upgrade in place and a single-API stack entering preview, Polygon Labs is positioning Polygon Chain as a production-ready rail for the next wave of stablecoin-native financial products.

For developers and payments teams, early access to the Open Money Stack is available directly through Polygon's website.

Sources:
Polygon Labs: Polygon Chain Scales to 5,000 Payments Per Second
Polygon Labs: Open Money Stack Enters Technical Preview
Crypto Economy: Polygon Open Money Stack Technical Preview Coverage