4 days ago
Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal has officially assumed the relation of CEO of the Polygon Foundation, marking a pivot successful the organization’s enactment constitution and a sweeping overhaul of the network's longterm roadmap.
Nailwal, who launched the task successful 2017 erstwhile it was inactive called Matic Network, volition consolidate power and reorient the squad toward AggLayer — Polygon’s caller cross-chain liquidity protocol that promises seamless interoperability crossed networks.
"This renewed power marks the opening of a strategical propulsion for Polygon to reclaim its presumption astatine the forefront of Web3," the squad wrote successful a property merchandise shared with CoinDesk
As main executive, Nailwal volition steer semipermanent planning, usher cardinal ecosystem initiatives, and guarantee that the instauration — which oversees Polygon Labs and different affiliated entities — delivers “exponential growth, accrued absorption and greater worth to POL stakers,” according to the foundation.
In its aboriginal days, Polygon’s proof-of-stake sidechain marketed itself arsenic a low-cost, accelerated alternate to Ethereum, providing users with entree to decentralized apps without the load of precocious state fees. It rapidly roseate to prominence arsenic a go-to Ethereum scaling solution.
But enactment has since cooled. Total worth locked (TVL) crossed Polygon networks has fallen to astir $1 billion, down astir 90% from its June 2021 highest of $9.79 billion, per DefiLlama.
Polygon has ceded crushed to a caller question of Ethereum scaling networks — namely “layer-2 rollups” similar Optimism and Arbitrum — which connection akin idiosyncratic experiences but with tighter Ethereum compatibility and much blase information systems. Polygon’s ain rollup, zkEVM, ranks conscionable 27th by TVL among layer-2s, according to L2Beat, trailing good down its newer competitors.
Now, the zkEVM experimentation is being phased out. Polygon said it volition sunset the zkEVM Mainnet Beta successful 2026, citing developer friction, architectural limitations, and sluggish adoption. “To guarantee a creaseless transition, the sequencer volition stay unrecorded for the adjacent 12 months,” the squad noted.
The determination besides comes with a cardinal unit shift: Jordi Baylina, Polygon’s zero-knowledge probe lead, volition permission to rotation retired his ain project, ZisK.
As portion of its strategical reset, Polygon volition treble down connected its flagship PoS sidechain, present targeting real-world fiscal assets (RWAs). The instauration teased an “ambitious roadmap” with milestones to alteration the concatenation into a “gigagas” web susceptible of processing 100,000 transactions per 2nd and securing trillions successful tokenized assets.
Polygon's reorganization mirrors changes astatine the Ethereum Foundation, which precocious restructured its enactment and revamped its roadmap successful a process led by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
In a station connected X, Nailwal said Ethereum’s “existential crisis” had pushed Polygon to revisit its halfway individuality — returning to a bolder, much nimble, and much decisive “zero-to-one” mentality.
His stated goal: "to present greater worth to POL stakers and bring accrued clarity to the broader market." POL, antecedently called MATIC, is Polygon's autochthonal token. The plus tin beryllium "staked" with Polygon's PoS web to assistance unafraid it successful speech for rewards.
The timing of the revamp, Nailwal suggested, could enactment successful POL's favor.
"The SEC has dropped its investigations and lawsuits related to MATIC arsenic a security, which should person ne'er existed fixed the quality of MATIC (and present POL)," helium wrote. "We are excited to spot respective ample marketplace makers coming backmost to the array successful caller days to marque markets successful POL that strengthens the liquidity of POL connected exchanges globally."
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