The co-founder's exit extends a long list of similar departures from leading crypto projects in 2023.
Polygon co-founder Jaynti Kanani revealed on Tuesday that he had been absent from day-to-day work on the project for the past six months, having moved on to “new adventures” after helping launch it in 2017.
“I decided to step back from the daily grind,” Kanani wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. The developer said he remains confident in Polygon's future, and is “optimistic on Polygon 2.0.”
This makes Kanani the third of Polygon's 10 founders to announce his departure this year. And in the crypto industry—although this is not unique to digital finance—the departure of some executives could be a sign of trouble.
Former Alameda Research CEO Sam Trabucco resigned last August, three months before FTX's collapse. Matteo Liebowitz, Uniswap Labs' venture leader, announced his resignation last week amid speculation that despite recent court wins, the project was not faring well while under SEC investigation.
To be fair, it is very likely that all of the departing founders decided to move on to new projects at the same time. But it's also true that this has been a tough year for Polygon.
Polygon Labs did not respond to Decrypt's request for comment.
Polygon is a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum, using a multi-chain ecosystem to enable cheaper, faster, and more private transactions. Its governance token,$MATIC , is the thirteenth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, reaching $5.2 billion, according to CoinGecko.
In addition to being one of Polygon's ten founders, Kanani co-wrote Polygon's whitepaper itself, alongside Anurag Arjun, Mihailo Bjelic, and executive chairman Sandeep Nailwal.