In a significant leadership shift, Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, has elevated himself to the position of Chief Executive Officer at the Polygon Foundation, an announcement he made on Wednesday. In his new role, Nailwal is asserting “unilateral control” and initiating a series of significant changes aimed at streamlining the nonprofit and boosting value for POL token stakers.
Among the key initiatives, Nailwal plans the “rapid launch of a full-featured Agglayer,” Polygon’s highly anticipated cross-chain aggregator. He also intends to “evolve” Polygon PoS into the “high-throughput GigaGAS chain,” which promises an impressive 100,000 transactions per second. Conversely, the Polygon zkEVM chain is slated for sunset.
“Together, these moves signal a clear shift from a more passive chapter in Polygon’s history to a focused and ambitious founder-led vision for the future,” a statement from the organization read.
Nailwal, who most recently served as Polygon’s Chief Operating Officer, is now the last remaining co-founder following the recent departure of Mihailo Bjelic. Co-founders Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun stepped back from the project two years ago.
Explaining his decision to assume the CEO role, Nailwal stated on X, “I’ve always stayed away from moving into the CEO role because I’ve been focused on building Polygon as a decentralized foundation. But right now, Polygon needs clear direction and focused execution and that means stepping up.”
Polygon, launched in 2017 as the Matic Network, has been a significant contributor to blockchain technology, particularly in zero-knowledge and proof-of-stake research and development.
Looking ahead, Nailwal confirmed that Polygon Agglayer v0.3 is on track for an “imminent” release by the end of June, moving it “one step closer to its full launch.” The GigaGAS upgrade is currently live on testnet.
The decision to deprecate Polygon zkEVM, according to Nailwal, stems from the “evolving needs of the ecosystem” and the recognition that the “product lacked a strong strategic position.” Polygon will continue to operate the sequencer for 12 months and offer grants to “projects migrating to other environments” such as Polygon PoS.
