Polygon Appoints Nailwal CEO Amid Major Restructuring

Polygon, a leading Layer 2 blockchain platform, has announced a significant restructuring move with the appointment of its co-founder, Sandeep Nailwal, as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Polygon Foundation. This change marks a departure from the previous governance structure, where the foundation was managed through a consensus of multiple co-founders. The shift comes after Mihailo Bjelic, another co-founder and active developer, stepped down from the board in May.

Nailwal's new role will be pivotal in implementing a long-term strategy for the Polygon Foundation. His responsibilities will include overseeing key ecosystem initiatives and ensuring that the project delivers greater value to its users, applications, and POL stakers. The blockchain company has stated that this renewed control signifies a strategic push to reclaim Polygon's position at the forefront of Web3 technology.

Nailwal's immediate plans include driving a product-first approach to launch a full-featured Agglayer, a roadmap to evolve Polygon PoS into the high-throughput GigaGAS chain capable of supporting over 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) for payments and real-world assets. Additionally, he will focus on the expansion of the Agglayer Breakout Program, the sunset of Polygon zkEVM, and renewed market maker engagement to support POL and ensure robust liquidity across decentralized and centralized exchanges.

The Agglayer, developed by Polygon Labs, is a trustless interoperability protocol. Polygon PoS, a payment gateway from crypto to real-world finance, already has over $271 million in tokenized assets live, including products from major financial institutions. Given the increased focus on Polygon PoS, the Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta will be deprecated in 2026. Nailwal emphasized the need to move fast and aggressively with full conviction and focus, stating that the time has come to scale the next chapter of Polygon with focused leadership.

Polygon was founded in 2017 by Nailwal, Jaynti Kanani, and Anurag Arjun. Kanani and Arjun left the startup in March 2023 after a leadership reshuffle and went on to start their next ventures. Nailwal highlighted that the world is moving towards zero-knowledge proof technology, and the current co-founders, who are experts in this field, contribute more to the technological advancements of Polygon.

In 2022, Polygon (Matic Network) led by Sequoia Capital India with participation from more than 40 major venture capital firms, including Tiger Global, SoftBank, Galaxy Digital, Republic Capital, Makers Fund, Steadview Capital, and Elevation Capital.

Polygon Labs has also appointed former chief legal officer Boiron as the CEO, who continues to lead the organization’s strategic vision and drive execution. Mudit Gupta is the chief technology officer, a highly regarded engineering leader, and Ryan Niedzialek, a longtime Polygon Labs executive, is now the chief operating officer, overseeing business development, partner enablement, and core operational functions.