Polygon's USDT0 holder count shot past 8 million, but new data shows most of that spike tracks with scam-driven activity. The findings cast doubt on the network's real adoption and its stablecoin payment push.
Bitquery's latest research throws a wrench into Polygon's adoption story. The analytics firm tracked a wave of new USDT0 addresses since August 2025 and found that most of the growth came from wallets behaving like address-poisoning scams. Out of 1.71 million new USDT0 addresses, about 998,000 matched scam-linked patterns. That's 58% of the net increase, and it puts a dent in claims of organic user growth.
Address-poisoning scams work by generating wallet addresses that look almost identical to real ones, then sending tiny transactions to lure users into copying the wrong address for future transfers. These scam wallets usually hold only dust-level balances, but they still count as holders in network stats.
Polygon's USDT0 holder count grew by over 1.7 million addresses in just 13 months, but nearly 1 million of these matched address-poisoning scam patterns.
Bitquery's data shows that 48% of all USDT0 holders on Polygon control less than a cent, and 65% haven't moved the token in a year. The firm used probabilistic methods and didn't estimate direct financial losses, but the scale of suspicious activity calls Polygon's adoption numbers into question.
Polygon's USDT0 holder count now tops 8.1 million, beating out other blockchains in Token Terminal's comparison. Yet the actual supply of USDT0 on Polygon dropped 41% over the same period, falling from $1.35 billion to $798 million. Addresses with at least $10 in USDT0 fell 42%, from 1.24 million to 720,000. The headline growth in holders isn't showing up in real balances or active use.
Polygon has pitched itself as a stablecoin payments network, chasing payment processors and institutional liquidity. Growthepie's data shows Polygon processed more wallet-to-wallet stablecoin transactions in a recent week than Ethereum mainnet, and more than Base and Arbitrum together. But this stat leaves out DeFi contracts and may still be padded by bots or scam activity, including address poisoning.
Polygon's August 2025 upgrade replaced bridged USDT with native USDT0, automatically preserving user balances and contract addresses. This means the post-upgrade surge in address count does not necessarily reflect new user acquisition, but rather a technical migration.
The August 2025 upgrade from bridged USDT to native USDT0 kept existing balances and contract addresses intact. Bitquery found that about 67% of current holders first received Tether before this upgrade. DeFiLlama reports Polygon holds around $2.93 billion in stablecoins, with Circle's USDC making up 55.29% of the market and Tether about 27%.
Polygon's stablecoin ecosystem is shifting, even as its USDT0 base shrinks. The data doesn't show whether real USDT0 payment volumes have dropped, but the gap between address growth and actual capital points to network stats that don't track real user demand.
Measuring true adoption in crypto isn't straightforward. Automated scams can easily inflate address counts. Bitquery's findings echo issues flagged in EgonCoin's earlier investigation into DeFi vault risk grading after a major exploit. As Polygon pushes for payment flows and institutional deals, the reliability of its adoption metrics stays under the microscope. The evidence calls for tighter standards in reporting network growth as stablecoin payments become central to blockchain business.
Bitquery's research highlights how headline address growth can hide deeper risks in network activity. For U.S. users and companies weighing stablecoin payment rails, the difference between real adoption and inflated stats shapes decisions on integration and compliance. As stablecoins take on a bigger role in cross-border payments and DeFi, knowing how address-poisoning scams skew network numbers is now a core part of due diligence.
