Polygon Co-founder Mihailo Steps Down: A Key Turning Point for the Polygon Ecosystem?

Recently, Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic announced his departure from the daily operations of the project and the board of directors, becoming the third founder to leave after Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun in 2023.

Current co-founder Sandeep Nailwal expressed his gratitude on social media, calling Bjelic a "brother" and reflecting on their early entrepreneurial journey, but the market’s reaction to this news is mixed—does Polygon face the risk of core team disintegration?

Mihailo Bjelic candidly stated that "vision divergence" was the main reason for his exit. As a member of the founding team in 2017, Bjelic led the project's transition from a sidechain to a Layer 2 scalability solution, but the recent aggressive expansion of Polygon in technologies such as zkEVM and ZK-Supernets may diverge from the early founding team's original intent of "decentralization first."

Mihailo Bjelic's departure is not only a necessary step for Polygon's transition from "founder-driven" to "community-driven," but also a reflection of the intensifying competition in the Layer 2 space. For Polygon, the core challenge is not the number of founders, but whether it can prove its irreplaceability as the "scalability hub" of the Ethereum ecosystem through technological iteration, ecological incentives, and DAO governance.

To learn more about the cryptocurrency space and get the latest cutting-edge information, follow me, and you won't get lost in the crypto world!