Polygon Labs closes $250 million Coinme deal, gains 37 state money-transmitter licenses

• Polygon Labs closed the Coinme acquisition, securing 37 state money-transmitter licenses and 11 exemptions covering 48 US states
• Coinme settled a multistate enforcement case for $2.5 million in October 2024 and must wind down its 6,000 Bitcoin ATMs by January 1, 2027
• Four early customers, Tazapay, Mesh, Toku, and Kira, are now building cross-border payments, payroll, and banking integrations on Polygon’s Open Money Stack

• $3 trillion in cumulative stablecoin transfers across Polygon since September 2020
• $741 billion in stablecoin volume moved on Polygon in 2026 year-to-date, tracking well ahead of 2024’s full-year total of $276 billion
• 6,000 Bitcoin ATMs Coinme must shut down by January 1, 2027, or pay $4 million additional penalty

Polygon Labs announced the completion of the Coinme acquisition, integrating the regulated payment infrastructure into its Open Money Stack, a bundle of fiat on- and off-ramps, wallets, cross-chain routing, and settlement intended to let businesses move funds from bank deposits to stablecoin holdings to local-currency payouts through a single integration. The acquisition gives Polygon direct access to the 37 state money-transmitter licenses and FinCEN registration Coinme held, extending its regulated coverage to all but two US states.

Polygon’s Open Money Stack reaches four paying customers as Revolut and PayPal USD scale stablecoin volumes

Four firms are already building on the completed Open Money Stack. Tazapay, a cross-border business payments platform serving over 1,000 enterprises across 30 countries, uses the stack’s on- and off-ramps to connect stablecoins directly to local currency without intermediate financial rails.

Mesh, a payment network aggregating over 300 wallets, exchanges and financial services, has integrated Polygon’s on-ramps to give users multiple paths to fund digital asset transactions without requiring each business to build separate integrations.

Two other early customers address specific institutional use cases. Toku, a global payroll and employer-of-record platform operating in over 100 countries, is using Polygon OMS wallets to let workers paid in stablecoins hold earnings and convert to local currency within a single compliant flow.

Kira, which connects fintechs and OTC desks to US banking, uses the stack to expand stablecoin options and can open accounts within 72 hours of receiving client documents.

The stack enters a market where stablecoin volumes on Polygon have accelerated sharply: Polygon recorded $933 billion in stablecoin transfers in 2025, up from $276 billion in 2024, and has moved $741 billion so far in 2026.

Coinme’s 6,000 Bitcoin ATMs face forced shutdown as regulatory settlement clouds acquisition timing

The acquisition closes just days after Coinme settled a multistate enforcement case with 34 state regulators on October 8, 2024, paying $2.5 million to resolve alleged Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering failures. As part of the settlement, Coinme agreed to wind down its virtual currency kiosk business by January 1, 2027, or pay an additional $4 million penalty.

The company must also hire an independent consultant to review its compliance program.

Coinme had operated roughly 6,000 Bitcoin ATMs in the US through a partnership with coin-counting operator Coinstar. The kiosk business has faced repeated regulatory pressure: in June 2025, California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation fined Coinme $300,000, including $51,700 in restitution, for breaching crypto-kiosk transaction limits and receipt-disclosure rules.

The settlement obligation to exit the kiosk business by January 2027 effectively neutralizes that revenue stream at the moment Polygon brings it on board.

Polygon stated in January 2024 that it had shifted from being “a scaling company” to “a blockchain-based payments company,” signaling a strategic pivot away from the core business of improving layer-2 transaction throughput that had defined the platform since 2017.

Sequence acquisition still pending as Polygon completes one half of $250 million payments strategy

Polygon announced the combined $250 million acquisition of both Coinme and Sequence on January 13, 2025, aiming to acquire licensed US payment access and cross-chain routing infrastructure in one move. The Coinme leg closed on October 2025, roughly ten months later. Sequence, which supplies smart wallets and the Trails cross-chain routing engine, has not yet been closed.

No timeline for Sequence’s acquisition completion has been disclosed.

Polygon has meanwhile expanded Open Money Stack’s reach beyond its own chain. In recent weeks, it added support for the TRON network to tap into TRON’s approximately $94 billion in circulating USDT. Mastercard selected Polygon as one of its networks for expanded settlement options that include nights, weekends and holidays.

PayPal USD began issuing natively on Polygon in summer 2024, and Revolut moved $810 million across the platform in 2025 alone while rolling out its euro stablecoin EURR.

The CCS read. We see a paradox in Polygon’s bet: the stack consolidates US payment infrastructure that rivals like Uniswap and Aave still operate through separate partners, giving Polygon a genuine moat in institutional settlement flows. Yet Coinme’s forced ATM shutdown removes the retail distribution that once justified the acquisition’s premium. Polygon is now paying $250 million primarily for regulatory licenses and wallet plumbing, not customer touchpoints.

The material open question is whether Polygon can close the Sequence acquisition and reach full Open Money Stack capability before the window for new stablecoin on-ramp partnerships closes. Mastercard’s selection of Polygon as a settlement partner signals institutional demand; so does Mesh’s integration of World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin for merchant payments. But if Sequence remains unclosed past Q1 2026, competitors building cross-chain routing independently may begin to fragment the stack’s value proposition before Polygon can ship it at scale.

Original reporting: cryptopolitan.com