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Polygon’s token leads early gains on Friday, nearing a 2-month high

Transaction fees, which are paid in the network’s native token and also burned, have reached record levels.

Sage D. Young

The native token of polygon, a proof-of-stake side chain of the ethereum network, has seen over $319 million in trading volume in the last 24 hours, with the token increasing 16% to trade near a two-month high and lead crypto market gainers on Friday. 

The price swing comes amid elevated usage of the network. Since last Friday, users of the chain have paid nearly 11.4 million polygon tokens (worth roughly $1.8 million at current prices), a record level in transaction fees, data from blockchain explorer PolygonScan shows. 

Polygon burns its native tokens that were used as transaction fees, which means these are permanently removed from circulation. 

On Tuesday, polygon marked an all-time high of 3 million tokens for daily fees generated and burned on the network, Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwal noted:

The top applications on polygon by number of transacting users are Circle, Uniswap, and Tether, according to crypto analytics firm Artemis. Popular prediction markets platform Polymarket also runs on the network.

Another possible driver of polygon’s rally is its “Open Money Stack,” announced yesterday. Scheduled for rollout this year, the newly unveiled stack of services and technologies aims to ensure money that enters the on-chain economy can stay and be used on-chain forever, as opposed to today where on-chain money typically needs to return off-chain to be used, per a blog post published by Nailwal and Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron.

In other news, polygon is planning to acquire US bitcoin ATM kiosk provider Coinme for $100 million to $125 million, CoinDesk reported.

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Sui blockchain halts transactions for second day in a row

The sui blockchain is stalled again on early Friday, with the last transaction occurring more than two hours ago, data from blockchain explorer Suiscan shows.

“The Sui Core team is actively investigating. Updates and incident review will be shared as soon as they are available,” the team wrote on X.

The ongoing pause comes immediately after experiencing a halt the day before “due to a crash bug in the gas charging logic introduced by the 1.72 release,” the team said on Thursday.

SUI, the network’s native cryptocurrency, has dropped around 20% in the past seven days, according to CoinGecko.

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SoFi continues to surge following launch of its stablecoin to 15 million customers

SoFi Technologies announced Wednesday that its 15 million members can now use its stablecoin, SoFiUSD, marking the first time a US national bank-issued stablecoin is available on a banking app, but the markets seem to have really taken notice Friday, sending shares up over 7% in early trading.

Options data as of 9:42 a.m. ET also shows a bullish tilt from traders, with a put/call ratio around 0.16 vs a 20-day average of 0.39.

SoFi’s move is the first step to integrate SoFiUSD into the firm’s broader ecosystem, with plans to allow members to convert the stablecoin into tokenized deposits and roll out SoFiUSD on centralized exchange Bullish.

The stablecoin is currently on ethereum and solana, but the firm aims to add more blockchains to the list.

“We believe we can combine the speed and versatility of the blockchain with the trust of a bank to improve how money moves around the world,” SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said in a statement. “People no longer have to choose between blockchain technology and regulated banking products.”

Since President Trump signed stablecoin legislation GENIUS Act in July last year, the market capitalization of stablecoins has increased nearly 24% to $320.8 billion, data from DefiLlama shows.

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Ethereum drops to a 2-month low under $2,000

Ethereum has dropped 4% in the last 24 hours to trade as low as $1,967 on Thursday morning, a mark not seen since March.

Selling pressure is weighing on the token as “traders are actively opening short positions,” CryptoQuant Head of Research Julio Moreno told Sherwood News. “US spot demand for ETH has weakened, as seen by an extremely negative Coinbase price premium approaching levels not seen since February.”

The price action has spurred $237.2 million in liquidations, with the majority of them, $225.1 million, coming from long positions, data from CoinGlass shows. Elsewhere, ethereum ETFs have notched their longest outflow streak this year at 12 days, with Wednesday recording almost $67.2 million in outflows, per SoSoValue.

“ETH’s break below the psychologically important $2,000 level reflects a deterioration in near-term crypto risk sentiment rather than a collapse in Ethereum fundamentals,” according to Coinbridge cofounder and CIO Kelly Ye.

Ye said the drop under $2,000 was amplified by rising volatility and geopolitical tensions amid renewed US-Iran escalation and broader de-risking across high-beta assets.

Sentiment surrounding the cryptocurrency has also softened after David Hoffman, a known ethereum advocate, publicly disclosed offloading his entire ETH position and questioned whether the network’s growth translates to meaningful value accrual to ethereum as an asset, Ye pointed out.

“Still, ETH has continued to hold a broader pattern of higher lows since the April 2025 tariff-driven selloff near $1,500, with the February 2026 low around $1,800 now emerging as the next key level to watch,” Ye told Sherwood News.

“Importantly, on-chain activity has not shown significant deterioration, and Ethereum TVL [total value locked] measured in ETH terms has started trending higher again since May, suggesting underlying network usage remains relatively resilient despite weaker price action,” Ye added.

Some ethereum treasury firms have not stopped their strategy, such as Bit Digital, which announced on Thursday purchasing 8,568 ethereum tokens for $20 million, bringing its total holdings to 158,461.75 tokens.

Meanwhile, other altcoins are also in the red, with solana and dogecoin dropping over 3% in the last 24 hours.

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