Polygon announces a groundbreaking change: Sandeep Nailwal is the new CEO of the Foundation, end of zkEVM and focus on PoS and Agglayer

Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of the project and major holder of the POL token, has officially announced taking on the role of CEO of the Polygon Foundation, marking the beginning of a new strategic phase for the network. The decision comes at a key moment for the entire blockchain sector and aims to bring Polygon back to the center of innovation.

Polygon: a strong leadership to face the new phase of the market

In a long statement published on X (formerly Twitter), Nailwal explained the reasons for this choice. After years of working to build institutional governance, he decided to take full operational control of the Foundation, with the aim of ensuring speed

of execution, strategic clarity, and a vision aligned with the new phase of the crypto market.

According to Nailwal, the sector has shifted from a research-driven logic to a user-centric one, and traditional structures — while offering stability — are not sufficient to ensure the aggressiveness and efficiency required by a “zero to one” phase.

The Polygon Foundation currently has hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, resources that allow the team to operate without the need for fundraising, focusing exclusively on building the ecosystem. The goal is to generate sustainable value for POL stakers and to consolidate Polygon as a reference infrastructure for high-scale decentralized applications.

End of Polygon zkEVM: the future is Polygon PoS and Agglayer

One of the most significant decisions announced concerns the deactivation of Polygon zkEVM in 2025. The protocol will focus on two fundamental assets:

• Polygon PoS: optimized for payments in stablecoin and tokenization of real-world assets (RWA).
• Agglayer: platform dedicated to blockchain interoperability, with the goal of building a trustless internet of blockchain.

This change of direction aims to simplify the technological offering and to concentrate resources on solutions with high adoption and economic impact.

The Gigagas roadmap: Polygon PoS towards 100,000 TPS

Polygon PoS enters a new phase of technical development thanks to the Gigagas roadmap, whose first update is already live on the testnet. The planned improvements include:

• Exceeding 1,000 TPS by July 2025;
• Objective of finality in less than a second and zero reorganizations by the fall;
• Demonstrated capacity of over 5,000 TPS in a development environment;
• Progressive scalability up to 100,000+ TPS in the coming years.

These optimizations position Polygon PoS among the most high-performing blockchains in the world and strengthen the economic sustainability for validators and stakers.

Agglayer 0.3, ZK spin-off and new airdrops for POL holders

The release of version Agglayer 0.3 is scheduled for the week of June 30, 2025. This version will be functionally complete, with fast interoperability expected for the third quarter. In parallel, the Agglayer Breakout program will continue to generate:

• Focused spin-offs on modular solutions;
• Token distributions (airdrop) for the benefit of POL stakers.

Polygon’s contribution to zero-knowledge technology will continue through autonomous entities. The launch of the Polygon ZisK project, led by Jordi Baylina, has already been announced, focusing on advanced research in the ZK field.

Closure of the dispute with the SEC: liquidity returns to POL

With the closure of the SEC investigations on MATIC, the POL token has regained centrality. According to Nailwal, several top-tier market makers have returned to actively operate on POL, increasing the global liquidity of the token.

The Foundation will launch a communication campaign to inform the ecosystem about the transition from MATIC to POL, thus consolidating the unified identity of the project.

The Agglayer brand will also be integrated under the Polygon identity, strengthening brand consistency and simplifying the protocol’s positioning in the market.

Operational structure confirmed and centralized communications

Although Nailwal takes the lead of the Foundation, the operational management of Polygon Labs remains entrusted to Marc Boiron, reaffirmed as CEO and described by Nailwal as “the best executive in the crypto industry”. Mudit Gupta (CTO), Ryan Wyatt (COO), and other key team members also remain active.

From now on, the main updates on Polygon will be communicated directly from Sandeep Nailwal’s personal profile on X, with a view to greater transparency and visibility.

Conclusions: Polygon relaunches as next-generation infrastructure

The new strategic setup represents a paradigm shift for Polygon, which is relaunching with the ambition to lead the sector of modular and highly scalable blockchains. 

With more agile governance, a vision focused on concrete use cases (payments and RWA), and one of the most ambitious technical roadmaps in the industry, Polygon positions itself as one of the key infrastructures of the future Web3.