Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal has now taken complete executive control, a step away from the decentralised governance model the company had adopted.
Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal has taken complete command of Polygon Foundation as its first-ever CEO. This is a step away from the decentralised governance model the organisation had followed.
The foundation, which governs Polygon Labs and other branches of the ecosystem, will now be run by Nailwal as it tries to refocus in the face of increasing competition in the layer-2 arena, the project announced in a statement posted on Cointelegraph.
At our early days, Polygon was all about aggressive execution and ambitious goals. In 2021–23, we did our best to institutionalize the project by hiring some great folks as co-founders, established a board and had a phase of intense tech research and discovery,” Nailwal explained.
“Now, it is time to once again move fast, aggressively and with utmost conviction and attention,” he continued.
Nailwal’s appointment occurs at a time when Polygon is still experiencing challenges. The native POL token of the project continues to trade below 80% of its all-time high, per CoinMarketCap data.
Polygon Foundation to concentrate on AggLayer
Among the earliest of reforms is a redoubled emphasis on Polygon’s AggLayer, the interoperability protocol that will bring disparate chains together. AggLayer v0.3 is due by the end of this year, and the foundation intends to place the protocol more overtly under the Polygon brand.
Concurrently, the foundation will retire the zkEVM chain in 2026, citing performance and development constraints that prevented builders from scaling efficiently.
Polygon proof-of-stake (PoS) chain is being upgraded to a “GigaGAS” chain with a target of more than 100,000 transactions per second. The aim is to process payments at the speed of real life and secure trillions of tokenized assets.
Polygon also intends to solidify its payments standing with the July Bhilai upgrade, set to introduce faster finality, reduced gas fees and integration with AggLayer. The current project partners are JPMorgan and Stripe.
Polygon is facing exodus of co-founders
On May 24, Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic stepped down from his role at the project. “After much thought and reflection, I’ve decided to step down from the board of the Polygon Foundation and wind down my day-to-day involvement with Polygon Labs,” he said at the time.
Over the past two years, two of Polygon Labs’ early founders, Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun, also stepped away from the company.
