Polygon grabbed attention this week after Token Terminal reported on Feb 17 that the network flipped Ethereum in daily transaction fees. Polygon’s daily fees moved beyond $300,000, a level that signals unusually heavy activity compared with its usual baseline.
Source: Token Terminal
Although Ethereum is still ahead in terms of total value locked and high-profile buyers, this is a point in time that shows Polygon is becoming more relevant in busy areas of transactions.
As demand increases, the price of fees is likely to rise, and the latest data from Polygon shows that a lot of value is being moved through the ecosystem.
According to Alfonso DAO, a crypto and blockchain market analyst, this achievement is not a significant success for DeFi as a whole. He refers to Polymarket, a prediction market protocol, as the key contributor to this increase.
He thinks that the current success of Polygon is primarily due to this single application and not due to continuous growth in the entire DeFi sector.
In 2026 so far, Polymarket has created more than $1.7 million in fees for Polygon since January. This has resulted in the burning of 12.5 million POL tokens and has increased the daily transactions to above 3.5 million.
Also Read: Polygon (POL) Bounces From Support as Analysts Target $0.13–$0.52
Polymarket Drives Network Activity
Prediction markets are very active in the crypto space, particularly when world politics and large events come into play.
Alfonso DAO stated that the main reason for the recent increase in transactions on Polygon is Polymarket. Polymarket has broken $12 billion in total volume, but its daily volume is still much lower.
Source: X
Polygon handles around $162 million in decentralized exchange volume per day, and Polymarket handles around 28% of that, or $46 million, which is a portion of Polymarket’s daily growth that has recently increased around 18%, indicating that demand is still increasing.
It is a self-reinforcing cycle: the more betting activity, the higher the network fees, which in turn helps burn tokens and keep the Polygon chain busy. If global elections and geopolitics heat up, prediction markets could continue to fuel the transaction volume on Polygon.
Stablecoin Explosion Strengthens Polygon’s Position
Polygon is on the rise in prediction markets. It also sees record usage of stablecoins. According to expert Leon Waidmann, Polygon sees a new high in daily USDC transactions, over 12 million per day.
The other large networks are below 3 million, with Base, Arbitrum, and the Ethereum mainnet far behind. Researcher Peter also pointed out the huge week for stablecoins on Polygon. The weekly USDC transactions were 28 million, outstripping Solana’s 22 million.
Source: X
The USDC transfers were a record 103 million, giving Polygon a 46% market share, with more than double the volume of the next biggest chain.
For all USD stablecoins, the total transactions on Polygon were 32.6 million, up 67%, and the total transfers were 120 million, which beat BNB for the first time.
Source: X
Also Read: Polygon (POL) Price Outlook: Break Above $0.124 Could Open Path to $0.176
