Polygon 2026: Polymarket Takes 84 Percent of the Fees With It to Its Own Chain

Polygon was for years the answer to every fee question: anyone who found Ethereum too expensive moved to Polygon. Today it looks as if nobody is left there. Our own measurement on September 28, 2026 gives a more precise picture, and it is less comfortable than the impression. The chain holds $765 million, and over 30 days it produced $37.05 million in fees, of which $30.98 million came from a single protocol. That is 83.6 percent. And that very protocol, the prediction market Polymarket, has announced that it is leaving Polygon. This overview works through the ecosystem in order: what the chain is today, who actually uses it, where POL stands against its all-time high, how you get there in practice, where trading happens, and which risks an investor in Germany should know beforehand. All figures were collected on September 28, 2026 from the DefiLlama and CoinGecko interfaces. Polygon at a Glance: Chain ID 137 and POL as Gas and Staking Token Polygon is an independent network with chain ID 137 that presents itself as a fast and cheap complement to Ethereum. Technically it is EVM-compatible: the same smart contracts, meaning self-executing programs on the blockchain, run unchanged on...