Polymarket USD

Every trade on Polymarket now settles in pUSD, the prediction market's own dollar token. Issued by Blockratize, the company behind Polymarket, it is not an algorithmic experiment but a plain wrapper: each pUSD is backed one-for-one by Circle's USDC, locked in onramp and offramp contracts on Polygon that enforce the peg in code. Because the backing is regulated USDC rather than anything Polymarket manufactures, and because unwrapping is permissionless, any holder can convert pUSD back to a dollar of USDC at any time without KYC. In April 2026 Polymarket replaced bridged USDC.e with pUSD as the native settlement asset across its exchange, so for users the change is invisible: they still deposit dollars and see the same balance, now denominated in the platform's token. It is best understood as a convenience layer over USDC rather than a standalone stablecoin with its own reserve.