Polygon's Big Pivot: Why the Network Is Pivoting to Payments and What It Means for POL

Stablecoins are gonna grow, like, so massively that, like, we can do decent, and we will do phenomenally well. And if you do phenomenally well relative to competition, we'll do, like we'll probably be one of the biggest companies that has ever existed in the world. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your now high praise source for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin. Thanks for joining us live stream. Before we get started, a quick reminder, nothing new here on Unchained is investment advice. This show is for informational and entertainment purposes only, and my guest and I may hold assets discussed on the show. For more disclosures, visit unchainedcrypto.com. Looking to unlock your crypto's liquidity? Figur offers crypto backed loans with an industry low 8.91% fixed rate. They're the only major provider with decentralized MPC custody and new liquidation protection. Take out a loan at figuremarkets.co/unchained. Today's guest is Mark Boyren, chief executive officer at Polygon Labs. Welcome, Mark. Hi, Laura. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Nice to see you. So Polygon had a big announcement on Tuesday, which is that it's becoming a US regulated payments platform. And as part of that move, you're acquiring Coinme and Sequent, and the goal is to move all money on chain. So explain what this means. Yeah. So, you know, one thing we've been doing for a long time, obviously, building out the Polygon blockchain. And, you know, we've been talking to institutions for a very long time, including in the payment space. And, you know, as we figured out that blockchains are gonna become specialized in certain use cases, We also looked at where it is that we're particularly strong, and it was in the payment space. And so we kinda doubled down on that probably about, like, twelve months ago with, like, real significant efforts in the last six months. But, on top of that, what we realized is we're having all of these discussions with, you know, the fintechs, banks, you know, enterprises, merchants, and all of them are talking about how hard it is to use stable coins, which is the opposite of what, you know, all of us are saying. And it's not the actual transfer of stable coins that's hard. It's them actually offering stable coins, you know, basically as a service for others to move money. And their single reason is because they'll come and they'll talk to Polygon, and then they'll talk to, you know, three, four of the blockchains trying to decide what to do. And then they'll go and they'll say, well, I need on ramps and off ramps. So, like, who should I talk to? And they'll go talk to a few folks. And then they're like, I need wallet. And they'll go talk to a few folks. And then they're like, I heard about this interop thing that I should probably worry about. So, like, let me go talk to them. And you run into a spot …