rewrite this content using a minimum of 1000 words and keep HTML tags
Victoria d’Este
Published: November 07, 2025 at 9:49 am Updated: November 07, 2025 at 9:49 am
Edited and fact-checked:
November 07, 2025 at 9:49 am
In Brief
Polygon Labs is bridging traditional finance and Web3 by building the infrastructure that makes stablecoins and tokenized assets usable at scale—creating a future where moving value is as seamless as sending an email.
Polygon Labs is positioning itself at the center of the convergence between traditional finance and blockchain. In this interview, Aishwary Gupta, Global Head of Payments and RWA, discusses how Polygon Labs is building the infrastructure to make stablecoins and tokenized assets truly usable at scale, from enabling instant, low-cost global payments to supporting institutional adoption of RWAs. He shares insights on regulation, partnerships, and the next phase of blockchain-based financial systems, where moving value becomes as seamless as sending an email.
Could you please introduce yourself and share your journey to Web3?
Before jumping into web3, I worked in payments and treasury management at American Express, which gave me a deep understanding of how legacy systems work, and where they don’t. Payments are slow, fragmented, and expensive for everyday people – especially cross-border.
In 2021, I took a leap of faith and joined Polygon as the first full-time DeFi hire. I had never worked in business development before, but given what I’d seen in TradFI, I knew this was the future I wanted to help build.
From there, I set up the Payments vertical – first within DeFi and later as its own standalone unit. My mission was to make stablecoins and digital assets genuinely usable in real economies as infrastructure that solves actual problems for users, businesses, and institutions.
How do you see the role of stablecoins evolving as a bridge between traditional and decentralized finance?
Stablecoins are starting to function like programmable, global money, and that’s a game-changer. They’re paving the way for cash that can move 24/7, settle in seconds, and plug into both consumer apps and institutional systems. We’re seeing them enable instant, low-cost, borderless transactions in ways that traditional rails can’t match. This is happening across global remittances, where families can send money without losing significant value to fees, as well as cross-border payments and B2B settlements, where businesses are cutting days off their payment cycles. What’s changed dramatically is that institutions now have the regulatory clarity and infrastructure to participate at scale.
What trends in the RWA tokenization space are currently shaping up as the most impactful for institutional adoption?
Tokenized Treasuries and Ultra-Liquid Instruments: Institutions are gravitating toward tokenized versions of high-quality, highly liquid assets (e.g., short-term government bonds or money-market style funds). These products represent a clear “first wave” of institutional use-cases in the RWA space.
They offer yield, transparency, and settlement efficiency.
They act like “digital cash equivalents” on-chain, which makes them appealing as both treasury holdings and collateral.
Their adoption builds institutional comfort with the mechanics of tokenization (custody, settlement, audit) before moving into more complex asset classes.
Infrastructure & Network Effects Matter — Fees, Finality, Ecosystem: The asset alone isn’t enough — adoption follows settlement plumbing and liquidity rails. For institutions to make meaningful allocations into tokenized assets, the platform must deliver:
Low transaction costs and fast finality (reducing operational friction)
Robust custodial, regulatory, and audit frameworks
Growing ecosystem of secondary markets, liquidity channels, and standardised protocols
In this context, chains like Polygon (low fees, EVM-compatible) or dedicated RWA rails gain significance because they create the “deep, sustainable markets” institutions seek.
Regulatory Clarity & Compliance Readiness: Institutional investors cannot operate in an environment of legal ambiguity. Tokenized assets demand clear frameworks around issuance, custody, transfer restrictions, KYC/AML, and redemption mechanisms.
Usability & Real-World Use-Cases Beyond Yield: While yield-bearing tokenised treasuries are early winners, the next frontier is usability: how easily tokenised assets integrate into institutional workflows and broader ecosystems (collateralisation, programmable finance, on-chain liquidity). Key facets include:
In your view, which sectors will be the first to widely adopt tokenized RWAs — real estate, commodities, or treasury assets?
Treasuries are already there. They have clear regulation, consistent demand, and a simple risk profile. That’s why billions are already flowing into tokenized T-bills and MMFs.
Commodities will follow quickly. At Polygon, we have a majority market share of non-USD stablecoins, and our infrastructure can also support commodity tokenization.
Real estate is happening, but in many regions, it will take longer because the legal structures are more complex and vary significantly by jurisdiction. But as those frameworks mature, we’ll see institutional capital flow into tokenized property as well.
How has the regulatory environment around stablecoins influenced institutional confidence in using them for payments and settlements?
Honestly, it’s changed everything. Four years ago, stablecoins were stuck in a regulatory grey zone, and institutions were watching from the sidelines. Today, they’re building in-house programs, and MiCA in Europe has established a clear licensing regime that companies operate under. In the U.S., legislation like the GENIUS Act has given payment providers and fintechs the confidence to move forward with planned implementations.
That’s also why infrastructure has to evolve. Institutions need infrastructure that can support their scale and security requirements. Polygon enables this through our proven technology stack and, increasingly, through customizable networks via the Polygon CDK, which can be tailored to specific regulatory requirements, whether it’s privacy, KYC, or jurisdiction-specific compliance. It’s no longer about “public vs private” blockchains but purpose-built infrastructure.
What is the long-term vision for Polygon’s involvement in connecting traditional financial rails with Web3-based payment systems?
The long-term vision is simple – enable everyone to move money like we move information, fast, cheap, global, and programmable.
We’re focused on building infrastructure for fintechs, payment service providers, and banks that want the efficiency of blockchain without sacrificing compliance or user experience. This means sub-cent transaction fees, near-instant settlement, and the ability to scale to hundreds of thousands of transactions per second.
Through the AggLayer, we’re creating unified liquidity across chains so that moving value feels as simple as sending an email. Users shouldn’t have to think about which chain they’re on or how to bridge assets.
Could you share some current or upcoming partnerships Polygon is exploring to expand RWA integration?
We’re actively working with asset managers on tokenized money market funds and with government entities, such as the state of Wyoming, on their blockchain initiatives. Our collaboration with Securitize enabled BlackRock’s BUIDL fund to launch on Polygon.
On the enterprise side, we’re supporting projects like Libre, which is using Polygon CDK to build dedicated infrastructure for alternative investment tokenization, with partners including Brevan Howard and Hamilton Lane.
We’re also expanding partnerships in payments for use cases ranging from stablecoin transfers to cross-border B2B settlements.
What are the biggest barriers preventing global payment networks from fully adopting stablecoins?
Many jurisdictions still lack clear frameworks for KYC/AML compliance and for handling foreign exchange risks in stablecoin transactions. As that clarity emerges, adoption happens.
User experience remains a hurdle. Wallet management, key custody, and fiat on- and off-ramps can be complex. Users shouldn’t need to understand gas fees or blockchain mechanics to send a payment.
Most importantly, infrastructure must match the traditional payment scale. Payment networks need blockchain infrastructure capable of Visa-level throughput with consistent sub-second finality. At Polygon, we’re working toward the technical capability to scale to 100,000+ TPS as demand grows.
How do Polygon’s solutions address user experience and accessibility challenges that often limit stablecoin adoption?
We’re focused on removing blockchain complexity from the user experience. This means gasless transactions via account abstraction, seamless fiat on/off ramps via partnerships with platforms like Stripe and Revolut, and unified cross-chain experiences via AggLayer. Our partnerships with major payment gateways mean users can access stablecoin functionality through interfaces they already know and trust. The goal is that users interact with applications, not blockchains.
How do you personally define the “next leap” for blockchain-based financial systems?
The next leap happens when blockchain infrastructure becomes invisible. We’ll know we’ve arrived when tokenized treasuries, commodities, and real estate are traded with the same liquidity and far greater efficiency than their traditional counterparts.
What milestones should we expect from Polygon’s payments and RWA initiatives in 2025?
We’re expanding our partnerships optimized for payments use cases across Latin America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, and scaling our ZK technology to handle mainstream payment volumes.
You’ll see us deepen our RWA focus not just on asset issuance, but on utility and distribution, so that tokenized assets are maximally productive through DeFi integrations and institutional-grade infrastructure.
Disclaimer
In line with the Trust Project guidelines, please note that the information provided on this page is not intended to be and should not be interpreted as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other form of advice. It is important to only invest what you can afford to lose and to seek independent financial advice if you have any doubts. For further information, we suggest referring to the terms and conditions as well as the help and support pages provided by the issuer or advertiser. MetaversePost is committed to accurate, unbiased reporting, but market conditions are subject to change without notice.
About The Author
Victoria is a writer on a variety of technology topics including Web3.0, AI and cryptocurrencies. Her extensive experience allows her to write insightful articles for the wider audience.
More articles
Victoria d’Este
Victoria is a writer on a variety of technology topics including Web3.0, AI and cryptocurrencies. Her extensive experience allows her to write insightful articles for the wider audience.
and include conclusion section that’s entertaining to read. do not include the title. Add a hyperlink to this website http://defi-daily.com and label it “DeFi Daily News” for more trending news articles like this
Source link
