POL (ex-MATIC) Price Prediction: 2025, 2030, 2040

Polygon's transformation into POL, from its MATIC roots, finds it navigating the typically turbulent cryptocurrency landscape. Entering May 2025, POL grapples with tough market conditions, with CoinCodex reporting its price near $0.213477 on May 6th. That particular day saw POL drop 5.69%, underperforming the wider crypto market, which itself tumbled 6.73% in total value. Against Bitcoin, POL shed another 6.30%. It's a stark contrast to December 2021, when MATIC hit a high of $2.91. Looking back over the last twelve months, POL's worth has plummeted by a dramatic 70.11%. Even a recent one-month gain of 23.84% couldn't mask a gloomy three-month trend, showing a 31.18% fall.

What May 2025 holds for POL's price is anyone's guess, with predictions all over the map. For instance, CoinCodex, on May 6th, saw a chance for POL to jump to $0.279816 by May 11th – a nearly 30% climb in just five days. Yet, their overall feeling about POL leaned pessimistic. Taking a wider view of May, another CoinCodex analysis hinted that April's upward energy might carry over, possibly seeing POL average around $0.454796, swinging from a bottom of $0.224142 to a ceiling of $0.76565.

Polygon's shift from MATIC to POL, mostly wrapped up by September 2024 after starting on Ethereum's mainnet, underpins its roadmap ahead. This revamp is central to the ambitious Polygon 2.0 plan, designed to build the internet's "value layer" through a unified, expandable network of multiple chains. The POL token is specifically built to do more, serving as the main token for transaction fees (gas) and for staking. People holding POL can stake it on many different chains in the Polygon world, giving them a shot at rewards from various places. Big names in exchanges like Bybit, SunCrypto, and Remitano helped make this token switch happen, usually giving one POL for one MATIC.

So far, the new name and tech upgrades haven't managed to kickstart a lasting price rally for POL. Observers noted that even with the changeover, POL's value kept sliding through late 2024 and the start of 2025, hitting depths not seen in five years by March 2025. Around that time, crypto expert Ali Martinez warned things could get worse, suggesting POL might plummet to $0.04 if it couldn't hold onto vital price floors, referencing a long-term downward-pointing chart pattern.

Peering deeper into 2025 reveals a wide spectrum of price expectations for POL. 99Bitcoins pictures POL reaching $0.63 by the close of the year, perhaps even $1 if the general crypto mood is good, more people start using it, and Polygon 2.0 rolls out smoothly. Mudrex Learn suggests POL could trade anywhere from $0.60 to $1.00 in 2025, also emphasizing how crucial user growth and network development are. CoinCodex sees POL settling between $0.517567 and $0.677464 for the year. A few forecasters, including the team at The Currency Analytics, are looking at a $1.34 to $1.57 window by year's end. Cryptomus, citing AMBCrypto, puts the 2025 range between $0.53 and $0.78. On X (what used to be Twitter), some hopeful voices are even calling for a $5 POL in 2025, banking on new chain connections and the AggLayer's influence.

A handful of key elements will undoubtedly shape where POL's price heads next. Getting Polygon 2.0 up and running effectively, and seeing it widely embraced – especially its AggLayer, which is built to let different chains work together and share funds – is absolutely vital. Fresh off the press in April 2025 was the Agglayer Breakout Program, designed to get significant projects off the ground. Miden, one such project nurtured by this program, just pulled in $25 million in early investment. They're also looking to give POL stakers about 10% of their own tokens through an airdrop. Plus, the Polygon Staking Hub, expected sometime in 2025, should drum up more interest in POL by offering more ways to stake.

Under POL's updated economic model, its supply will grow by 2% each year for the coming decade, a strategy meant to fuel the ecosystem's expansion. Of course, this could also mean the existing tokens become slightly less scarce.

The general vibe of the crypto market, and particularly how Ethereum is doing, will heavily sway POL, given they've often moved in tandem. If more people jump into crypto and the rules become clearer and friendlier – maybe influenced by things like the US elections – that could give POL a boost. Tie-ups with big companies and businesses actually using the tech are still major engines for growth. Polygon isn't new to this, having worked with giants like Starbucks, Nike, and Reddit. Just recently, Stripe started using Polygon PoS for crypto payments, so businesses can now take USDC stablecoins via Polygon. And if putting real-world assets on the blockchain (tokenization) takes off, with services like Securitize using Polygon, POL stands to gain.

It's a dog-eat-dog world in the Layer-2 arena, where Polygon faces stiff competition from others like Arbitrum and Base, all fighting for a piece of the pie. To stay relevant, Polygon has to keep pushing the envelope with new ideas. What's more, Ethereum itself is always evolving; upgrades such as Dencun (EIP-4844), meant to cut down Layer-2 transaction costs, might mean people don't need separate scaling fixes as much, which could affect how much POL is wanted. On the flip side, some folks believe Ethereum's improvements will actually help Layer-2s like Polygon work even better.

One thing to keep in mind is that the old idea of "mining difficulty" doesn't fit Polygon (POL) because it uses Proof-of-Stake (PoS) to agree on transactions, not Proof-of-Work (PoW). What really matters for Polygon are things like how many people are staking, the count of network validators, and how secure and spread out the network is. The Polygon 2.0 changes aim to beef up these areas, giving POL stakers a key job in keeping the whole ecosystem safe and helping to run it.

So, wrapping things up for May 2025, POL's immediate future looks a bit shaky, leaning towards cautious, especially since it's trading so far below its old peaks even with the big Polygon 2.0 switch. While quick technical signs and general mood aren't too sunny right now, POL's long-run success really depends on Polygon 2.0 delivering on its promises, the whole crypto market picking up, people actually using it consistently, and its ability to hold its own against tough Layer-2 rivals. New developments in its ecosystem and upcoming features like the Staking Hub could spark growth, but for the price to truly bounce back, it needs to win back the trust of investors.