Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal charts a new course for the network, supporting a single leadership model as important in the future.
In an interview with Cointelegraph, Nailwal said the transition from board -led management was not only a structural change but a strategic response to the efficiency that slowed the polygon momentum.
On June 11, he announced that he would take the CEO of the Polygon Foundation, which describes the decision as it is necessary to bring the “clear direction and committed implementation” to the next chapter of the project.
Now under his single leadership, the Ethereum Scaling project will shine the ZKEVM chain and focus on real-world (RWAs) payments and Stablecoin payments through Polygon POS while using its agglayer to pursue its dream of building a blockchain internet.
Nailual in the “mentality of the mentality” driving polygon
In January, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Blerin aroused the debate’s debate expresses a single authority in decisions about the leadership of the Ethereum Foundation.
“It’s exactly the same, except I said I was the director,” Nailwal told Cointelegraph, referring to his own role.
After the rise of the Polygon in 2021 and 2022, the project sought to “promote” by mirroring the structures of large companies. The Polygon Foundation is administered by a board-a model that is now melted, leaving Nailual as the sole decision manufacturer.
“Things will definitely take a lot of time. The decisions to make in two weeks sometimes take two months,” he said.
Nailwal said the stream of decision making does not mean that an abandonment of empathy. He still has a so -called “servitude mentality,” a style of leadership that is shaped by his care. Both of his grandparents were servants in a rich household, where they met and arranged his parents’ wedding.
“I think the history has given me this disgusting habit to keep everything happy, and I still feel that way. When someone is happy, you get a hit of dopamine – every person – but in my case, it’s deeper.”
He recognizes this natural in helping to develop an early polygon community. Nailwal is one of some founders of a top-tier protocol that personally engages in retail users, who often responds to telegram messages itself. He recently put guards on his personal accounts.
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“In retrospect, if the token’s up, they are happy. If not, they are angry,” he said. “I took two or three cycles of that cycle to realize that I couldn’t pour all my energy here.”
According to Nailwal, the crypto industry is emerging, too-shifting to appreciation of theoretical research, such as the early development of zero-knowledge proof, and towards the reward of real world traction and income.
“Everyone thought it would eventually happen, but I think it has begun to happen recently than before,” he said
The ZKEVM Sunset of Polygon and RWA Drive
Following Nailwal’s announcement, questions arose about ZKEVM’s health, which is set to be -phased out by 2026. Once known as the Hermez Network and obtained In 2021 for 250 million matics (Pol) (now Pol and costs about $ 250 million in time), ZKEVM is Polygon’s bid for equality in Ethereum.
“It launched a lot of fanfare because all research; people are like, ‘It’s nice.’ Vitalik (Baterin) said and all of this was a surprise, “Nailwal claimed.
“But when the end-users were used, it didn’t fall into expectations in terms of experience. We didn’t think of a lot of user growth on ZKEVM for the longest time,” he added.
The assets locked in ZKEVM dropped from more than $ 35 million in July 2023 to just $ 2.75 million. The chain struggles to produce fees and has been reported operated on a loss, according to Defillama data.
With ZKEVM fading, Polygon’s attention turns on the Agglayer’s POS chain and infrastructure. Pos still host More than $ 1 billion in total amount locked, rank in the middle of Top chains for non -generated token transactions (NFT) and home of nearly $ 1 billion each in USDC (USDC) and USDT by Tether (USDT).
Although the NFT market has collapsed, Nailwal said significant NFTs will continue to endure. He compared the conceptual NFTs to the Memecoins, saying that the “hype phase” has passed, clearing the space for higher quality projects. He added that the underlying NFT technology remains a major player for tokenizing assets, which can be fungible or unforgiving.
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“NFT technology will be fully used in tokenization and in greater RWA applications,” he said.
“Our focus on actual NFTs – not the speculation -haka, fake – has been paid. It is now clear that Stablecoin’s payments and tokenization will be two major use cases.”
Polygon’s stakes in two cases of using this blockchain are aligned with global trends. The US Senate passed the Henyo Stablecoin Bill on June 17 as the global discussion of the regulation intensified. Meanwhile, RWAs draw interest in the institutional, including from Blackrock, which Running tokenized currency market funding in many chainsincluding polygon.
Polygon’s Road at 100,000 TPS
Polygon tried to fit the institution’s trend by building a board after Increase of $ 450 million in a 2022 investment cycle These include sequoia capital, softbank and tiger global.
But it’s back to the zero-to-one startup phase. Nailwal removed the board in pursuit of streamline implementation. But in ZKEVM in its release and the attention of the industry is moving rapidly, the burden of the proof now depends on whether the single leadership can deliver results in the real world.
“We need to go back to the actual product building. Your product needs to be good, and people should be willing to pay for it,” Nailwal said.
For him, it also means his evolution as the leader – from keeping everyone happy to find Polygon’s best interests.
“It will make some people, both in our community and outside, unhappy. But we have no other choice,” he added.
Nailwal and Polygon bet all of the “Gigilas” roadmap, which aims to measure its network with 100,000 transactions per second. That matches modern rivals scaling their networks or launching faster blockchains.
To date, the community reaction to the nailwal which claims the single polygon leadership is mixed. Some praise his stance CEO stance, while others point to the expensive ZKEVM detour.
However, Nailwal believes that a faster decision-making process is what the moment demands: “Life has given me a chance to play at a global level. I have to be a 25-year-old child ready to go to everyone.”
If the stake itself pays it is likely to be clear by the end of the year, as the network career to hit the TPS milestone and prove its relevance to a mere crypto ecosystem.
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