We got some interesting data from the folks who track this stuff, like the report on the State of Polygon Q1 2025. It seems things kept moving along, with some big steps taken.
- Polygon’s Agglayer went live, enhancing blockchain interoperability with a safety check feature. This allowed various companies to integrate and connect different types of virtual machines and protocols.
- The Polygon PoS network saw increased activity with more daily active addresses and transactions, driven by the growing stablecoin sector and a rebound in DeFi user activity. Stablecoins became the most popular thing on Polygon PoS based on active users.
- NFT trading volume surged, particularly driven by Pokémon NFTs on the Courtyard platform, and real-world assets are gaining traction, making Polygon a key spot for tokenizing assets like real estate and stocks. Polygon is becoming a popular place for this.
One of the main things that happened was the Agglayer (think of it like a connector for different blockchains) went live with something called pessimistic proofs back on February 3rd. This is a fancy way of saying they built in a safety check. It lets the Agglayer connect chains that work differently, even if one isn’t using the newest tech, and still feel safe about it. It’s like saying, “Okay, I’ll trust you, but I’m still going to double-check everything you do, just in case.” This makes sure nobody can take out more digital money than they put in.
This new safety feature opened the door for some cool hookups. Companies like Tria, SOCKET Protocol, Karate Combat, and Rome Protocol all started integrating with the Agglayer. Tria helps connect different types of virtual machines (where the code runs), so it’s easier for apps to reach users and money no matter which chain they’re on. SOCKET Protocol helps developers build apps that work across chains without needing tricky bridges. Karate Combat, yeah, the fighting league, used it to make their token available on more chains. And Rome Protocol is using it to link Ethereum and Solana, which is a pretty big deal.
The plan for the Agglayer is to keep adding features. Later this year, they want to make it support even more types of chains and get transactions finalized super fast, like under five seconds. That would make using different chains feel almost instant.
Now, let’s look at the main Polygon network, the one called Polygon PoS (that stands for Proof-of-Stake, just a way it keeps itself secure). Activity saw a bit of a bump in the first three months of 2025. The number of daily active addresses, basically people using the network, went up to 546,000. That’s a small increase, about 4.4%. And the number of daily transactions, the stuff people were actually doing, climbed to 3.4 million, an 8% jump.
But here’s a funny thing, while more people were doing stuff, fewer *new* people showed up. The average daily new addresses dropped by over 16%. Maybe the folks already there just got busier?
One reason things got busier was the stablecoin sector. These are the digital coins meant to stay at a steady price, like a digital dollar. They became the most popular thing on Polygon PoS based on active users. The total supply of these stablecoins grew quite a bit, up over 23% to hit $2 billion. USDC, USDT, and DAI, the big ones, all saw their supply grow. Polygon even moved up to be the seventh-largest network for stablecoin supply. It was number one for active users holding USDC, which is neat.
And get this, the state of Wyoming even started testing their own state-backed stablecoin, WYST, on Polygon. It’s backed by real cash and government bonds. They plan to launch it fully in July. Imagine, a state government putting their money on a blockchain!
DeFi (that’s decentralized finance, basically banking without banks) also saw a big rebound in user activity. The number of active addresses in DeFi more than doubled! However, the total value locked (TVL), which is the total amount of digital money sitting in these DeFi apps, actually went down a bit, dropping about 14.5% to $744.8 million. This pushed Polygon down one spot in the rankings for network TVL.
Aave was still the biggest DeFi app on Polygon by TVL, even though its amount dropped. Polymarket, the prediction market, held steady. But two others, Spiko and QuickSwap, saw their TVL jump up quite a bit, over 28% and 72% respectively. They actually passed Uniswap, another big trading app, which saw its TVL drop.
Something called Morpho, which helps with lending, also launched on Polygon in March. They put up some incentives, like a little bonus money, to get people to start using it.
NFTs (non-fungible tokens, unique digital items) also had a good run. The average daily trading volume for NFTs shot up by over 68% to $1.4 million. The number of daily sales also increased. A big part of this was driven by a platform called Courtyard.
Courtyard saw a massive surge in sales, especially in March. Sales that month were $56.5 million, which was way, way up from December. And guess what was selling like hotcakes? Pokémon NFTs! They made up over half of Courtyard’s sales in March, bringing in $28.9 million just for those digital cards. Courtyard has now put over 700,000 tokenized Pokémon cards into the hands of thousands of collectors. It just goes to show people really like collecting things, even digital ones.
Beyond digital collectibles, real-world assets (RWAs) are also picking up steam. These are things like real estate or stocks put onto the blockchain. Polygon is becoming a popular place for this. The total value of RWAs on Polygon reached $271.8 million, putting it seventh among networks.
We saw companies like Fasanara, a big investment firm, launch a tokenized money market fund on Polygon. Another company, Securitize, which handles tokenized funds like BlackRock’s BUIDL, integrated a system to move these assets easily between Polygon and other chains. Platforms for trading tokenized stocks and real estate also launched or expanded on Polygon. Even Mercado Bitcoin, a large platform in Latin America, is planning to tokenize over $200 million in assets on Polygon this year. It seems putting real stuff on the blockchain is becoming a real thing, and Polygon is a key spot for it.
Polygon also has this toolkit called the CDK (Chain Development Kit). It helps developers build their own specialized blockchains that use this ZK tech (Zero-Knowledge, a privacy-focused way to prove things). Several new chains built with the CDK launched or upgraded in Q1, focusing on things like payments, gaming, and business applications.
Now, about the POL token (that’s the new name for MATIC). Its market value took a hit in Q1, dropping about 54% to $1.7 billion. The market wasn’t great overall, and the switch from the old MATIC token to the new POL token is still happening, which kind of splits the value between the two for now. But hey, it’s still the second-biggest token in the Ethereum Layer-2 space.
Transaction fees on Polygon PoS stayed super low, averaging just $0.01. This is because of an upgrade last year that made posting data cheaper. Even though the number of transactions went up, the total amount of fees collected went down because each transaction was so cheap. This low cost makes Polygon a good spot for things that need lots of small transactions, like payments.
In other news, Polygon joined a group working on making cross-chain interactions smoother, like a shared language for different blockchains. They also released a tool to test how well different ZK systems perform, like a standard benchmark test.
Governance, the system for making decisions about the network, was a bit quiet in Q1. Only two proposals actually got put into action. One fixed some issues after a previous upgrade, which is important work, even if it’s not flashy.
Overall, Polygon had a busy start to 2025. The Agglayer is up and running with its safety checks, connecting more chains. The main network saw more users and transactions, especially in stablecoins, DeFi, and NFTs, with those Pokémon cards being a fun highlight. Real-world assets are finding a home there too. Even with the market cap dip and quiet governance, the tech is advancing and real-world use cases are growing. It feels like they’re building for the long haul, focusing on connecting everything and making it easy and cheap to use.