Polygon Launches Rio Upgrade: Bringing Near-Instant Finality and 5,000+ TPS to On-Chain Payments

• The Polygon Rio upgrade enables up to 5,000 TPS and improves network reliability, cost efficiency, and scalability for global payments.
• Institutional demand for POL jumps as Swiss FINMA-regulated AMINA Bank AG becomes the first global bank to offer institutional staking services for POL token.

The Polygon blockchain network has recently rolled out its Rio upgrade, in a major step that seeks to position the network as a global standard for on-chain payments. This Rio upgrade is now live on the mainnet and introduces faster transaction finality, improved scalability, and a new block production model designed to enhance network reliability and cost efficiency.

Key Features That Polygon Rio Upgrade Introduces

The Rio upgrade brings near-instant transaction finality with zero risk of reorgs, significantly reducing delays for exchanges and payment applications. Polygon said the update enables the network to handle up to 5,000 transactions per second (TPS), thereby enhancing the network’s throughput.

Furthermore, the Rio upgrade also introduces lightweight nodes, which lowers the cost for validators and builders. At the same time, it the increased capacity supports higher transaction volumes for global payment service providers.

At the heart of Rio is a new Validator-Elected Block Producer (VEBloP) model. This architecture allows validators to elect a single block producer per span, using stateless block validation to achieve faster block production and one-block finality. The result is a more efficient, secure, and stable network optimized for real-time payments.

Rio is Polygon’s biggest payments-focused upgrade so far, which reinforces the blockchain’s long-term Gigagas roadmap. The update aligns with Polygon’s broader vision to serve as a foundational layer for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and global payment infrastructure. Thus, it specifically emphasizes speed, cost efficiency, and reliability at scale.

POL Adoption Jumps Among Crypto Banks

It seems that Polygon’s native cryptocurrency POL, is seeing an increased adoption among global crypto banks. FINMA-regulated Switzerland-based AMINA Bank AG has become the first global bank to offer institutional staking services for Polygon’s native POL token.

The move introduces a bank-regulated model for earning staking yields on the Polygon network. It also provides institutional investors with a secure and compliant way to participate in network staking. The development comes as Polygon has achieved a significant institutional milestone with AlloyX launching a tokenized money market fund (MMF) on the network. Standard Chartered Bank will serve as both the custody provider, as mentioned in our previous report.

This development of AMINA Bank comes amid surging demand for Polygon, which currently leads the EVM ecosystem in everyday payments under $100 with over 30% market share, manages $3.4 billion in stablecoin supply, and dominates emerging markets with 90% of stablecoin activity.