Polygon Labs cut roughly 30% of its staff as it redirected capital and talent into a stablecoin payments strategy valued at more than $250 million.
The company announced the restructuring and a set of acquisitions in mid-January as part of a plan to build what it calls an “Open Money Stack” for on‑chain, cross‑border payments.
Polygon implemented a workforce reduction of about 30% to reallocate resources to payments and treasury-grade rails. The personnel cuts were presented as a strategic consolidation to focus engineering and go‑to‑market effort on the new payments roadmap that management outlined in early January.
Polygon’s native token, POL, registered a notable uptick after the announcements, rising close to 20% on trading driven by narratives around stablecoin settlement and strategic partnerships, according to market reports cited in coverage of the story.
Open Money Stack and Polygon acquisitions
Polygon described the Open Money Stack as a modular architecture to link fiat rails, on‑chain settlement, identity and yield functions. Its stated objectives were instant programmable money movement, easier fiat on/off ramps and integrations that let businesses automate payments and treasury flows on chain.
To accelerate that play, Polygon entered definitive agreements to acquire Coinme and Sequence for a combined sum exceeding $250 million. Coinme — a Bitcoin ATM operator — was positioned to bring regulated, physical cash on/off ramps into the stack. Sequence was described as wallet and orchestration infrastructure providing enterprise smart wallets and a one‑click cross‑chain engine for moving money on chain.
Coverage of the transactions noted the acquisitions were intended to deliver three pillars of the Open Money Stack: regulated rails, wallet infrastructure and cross‑chain orchestration. The deals were announced on Jan. 13, 2026 and were expected to close after customary steps, according to reporting on the agreements.
 The completion of the Coinme and Sequence transactions, and the rollout of the Open Money Stack components, will be the immediate tests of whether Polygon can convert the strategic pivot into reliable payment flows and meaningful revenue for institutional customers.
