Polygon Foundation’s founder Sandeep Nailwal has been appointed the first CEO, effective June 11, 2025.

This appointment initiates significant reforms aimed at enhancing the blockchain ecosystem.

Nailwal presented a multi-point strategy to improve operational efficiency and provide value to POL token stakers.

Key plans include the rollout of the Agglayer interoperability protocol and the development of a high-speed “GigaGAS” chain capable of over 100,000 transactions per second.

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🔗 Source: Polygon Foundation

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Founder-led turnarounds follow a predictable crypto market pattern

Nailwal’s return to direct control follows a common pattern in tech where founders reassert leadership during critical transitions or after periods of underperformance.

Polygon’s journey mirrors other tech companies where founders step back to “institutionalize” projects with professional management, only to return when faster execution is needed. The timing is significant: Nailwal’s return coincides with Ethereum’s Layer 2 landscape becoming increasingly competitive, where Polygon faces mounting pressure to differentiate its offering with clear strategic focus.

This leadership transition appears aimed at moving Polygon from a research-focused phase back to the aggressive execution that characterized its early days, addressing a common criticism that decentralized organizations often struggle with decision-making speed.

The shift from consensus-based management to a single decision-maker suggests Polygon recognized that committee-led product strategy was limiting its ability to compete in a rapidly evolving market.

2️⃣ Economic realities driving Polygon’s technical pivot

The decision to sunset zkEVM represents a rare acknowledgment of product-market failure in the blockchain space, where projects typically continue indefinitely despite low adoption.

With the staking economy now exceeding $100 billion globally, Polygon’s renewed focus on its PoS chain aligns with where actual economic activity is already happening—stablecoin transactions ($514 billion) and real-world asset tokenization.

The pivot from zkEVM to the GigaGAS high-throughput chain reflects a strategic bet on practical use cases like payments and RWAs rather than competing directly in the increasingly crowded zkEVM landscape where multiple projects have struggled to gain significant traction.

This approach acknowledges market realities: despite zkEVMs’ technical elegance, most users and developers prioritize cost, speed, and liquidity over perfect Ethereum equivalence—creating an opening for Polygon’s high-throughput alternative.

Polygon’s refocus on market makers and liquidity also reflects lessons from the broader crypto ecosystem, where token value increasingly depends on practical utility and trading accessibility rather than technical innovation alone.

3️⃣ Striking the balance between decentralization and operational efficiency

Polygon’s restructuring highlights the tension between decentralized governance and operational efficiency that many blockchain projects face when scaling.

This organizational pivot comes at a time when the global blockchain market is experiencing significant growth and investment, requiring more decisive leadership to capture market share in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Focusing on a high-throughput PoS chain aligns with broader industry trends toward more energy-efficient consensus mechanisms that can support real-world applications at scale.

The strategy of empowering focused spin-offs with their own tokens (via airdrops) represents a hybrid approach that maintains the benefits of independent innovation while preserving alignment through the core POL token—addressing a key challenge in blockchain governance.

Recent Polygon developments

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