Polygon Labs is negotiating to raise up to $100 million for a stablecoin payments business, The Information reported on April 8, citing sources familiar with internal matters.

Polygon previously raised funds by selling Polygon tokens, but this time it chose to sell $50 million to $100 million worth of equity in the new payments business. The price of the Polygon token is down 90 percent from 2 years ago.

The new payments business is focused on generating revenue from transaction fees while increasing transaction volume on the Polygon blockchain.

That would put it in competition with Stripe, Coinbase, Zero Hash, Conduit and Mastercard unit BVNK. Polygon Labs hired John Egan (존 이건), a former head of Stripe's crypto division, as chief product officer in September last year.

To build the payments business, Polygon Labs acquired Coinme and Sequence together for $250 million in January. Coinme provides conversion services between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies, and Sequence provides crypto wallets. With the two acquisitions, Polygon was able to provide payment processing services on its own without relying on outside firms.

The Information reported that as the crypto market downturn extends into a sixth month, more crypto companies are looking to shift toward payments and fintech. It said established financial firms are also accelerating efforts to expand crypto payment services. Last month Mastercard announced it would acquire BVNK for up to $1.8 billion. Payments-related deals accounted for 16.4 percent of total crypto funding and 66 percent of merger and acquisition value in the first quarter, The Information said.