In a significant strategic move within the Ethereum scaling ecosystem, Polygon co-founder Jordi Baylina has announced the formation of Zisk, an independent company dedicated to advancing zero-knowledge (ZK) technology. The new venture emerges as a spin-off from Polygon Labs, comprising the team and intellectual property formerly behind the Polygon zkEVM.
Zisk will focus on developing a high-performance, open-source, and low-latency Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machine (zkVM). This technology allows for the verification of computations without revealing the underlying data, a cornerstone for building more scalable and private blockchain applications. According to its official communications, Zisk was incubated within Polygon Labs before officially becoming a standalone entity on June 13, 2025, with the mission to build the reference zkVM project in the Web3 space.
The launch of Zisk is a direct result of a major strategic realignment at Polygon. Newly appointed Polygon Foundation CEO, and fellow co-founder, Sandeep Nailwal recently announced plans to sunset the existing Polygon zkEVM chain. This decision is part of a broader pivot to concentrate resources on the core Polygon PoS chain and the "Agglayer," an interoperability layer designed to connect various blockchains.
This carve-out allows the specialized ZK team, led by Baylina, to pursue its technological vision with greater focus and agility, independent of Polygon's shifting roadmap. While Polygon is stepping back from its direct operational role in this specific zkEVM, the move empowers Zisk to innovate freely on ZK proving technology, which could ultimately benefit the entire blockchain industry, including the broader Polygon ecosystem, in the long run.
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