Polygon’s governance is undergoing a significant transformation, with co-founder Sandeep Nailwal stepping in as the Foundation’s first CEO.
In a June 11 post on X, Nailwal said:
“As the largest holder of POL and someone who dedicated his life to development and success of Polygon from the very beginning, I have decided to take full control of Polygon Foundation and will be its CEO going forward.”
Nailwal said he had intentionally avoided taking on the CEO title to allow the Foundation to evolve with an institutional approach. However, he believes Polygon requires stronger leadership to navigate today’s fast-moving crypto landscape.
This move is remarkably prescient, considering that Polygon, according to DeFillama data, has gone from a DeFi superpower with a total value locked (TVL) of more than $10 billion at its peak to just over $1 billion as of press time.
Nailwal linked the platform’s falling fortunes to changes in Ethereum’s roadmap and shifts in the crypto industry.
Considering this, Polygon is reevaluating its structure and priorities to an ecosystem that favors user-focused design over purely research-led development.
According to Nailwal:
“The crypto industry has changed from being research centric to user centric and Polygon needs to change accordingly. Institutional setups and board structures are great for stability, but they tend to produce average-case decisions — not the sharp, aggressive moves needed to deliver exponential outcomes.”
Polygon’s new focus
Following his appointment, Nailwal announced sweeping updates to Polygon’s technical roadmap, which includes sunsetting Polygon zkEVM in 2025 and redirecting all development efforts toward two core pillars: Polygon PoS and Agglayer.
Polygon PoS will narrow its focus to real-world assets and stablecoin transactions, while Agglayer aims to unify blockchain networks into a seamless, trustless environment.
As part of this shift, Agglayer v0.3 will launch during the final week of June, with interoperability features expected to arrive by the end of Q3.
The Foundation has deployed the first milestone in its PoS upgrade plan, dubbed the Gigagas roadmap. This phase brings the network to over 1,000 transactions per second on testnet. Upcoming upgrades aim for sub-second finality and performance exceeding 5,000 TPS, with long-term scaling plans targeting over 100,000 TPS.
Nailwal also confirmed that the Agglayer Breakout initiative will continue, spinning out research teams and delivering POL airdrops to stakers. The next spinout, Polygon ZisK, will be led by Jordi Baylina and focus on applied ZK technology.
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