Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal takes control as the organization's first-ever CEO

The move marks a shift away from the decentralized governance model the organization had embraced. The foundation will now operate under Nailwal's leadership

Polygon Foundation has announced that co-founder Sandeep Nailwal has taken full control of the organization as its first-ever CEO.

The move marks a shift away from the decentralized governance model the organization had embraced since setting up a board in 2021. It will now operate as a centralized entity under Nailwal’s leadership as the project attempts to regain momentum amid mounting competition in the layer-2 space, the project said in an announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

“At our beginnings, Polygon was all about bold execution and big goals. During 2021-23, we made a real effort to institutionalize the project by onboarding some amazing people as co-founders, set up a board and had a period of intense tech research and exploration,” Nailwal said.

“Now, it is time to again move fast, aggressively and with full conviction and focus.”

Nailwal’s appointment comes as Polygon continues to face challenges. The project’s native POL token remains down more than 80% from its peak, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Polygon Foundation to focus on AggLayer

Among the most immediate reforms is a renewed focus on Polygon’s AggLayer, the interoperability protocol that aims to unify fragmented chains. AggLayer v0.3 is expected by year-end, and the foundation plans to align the protocol more visibly under the Polygon brand.

At the same time, the foundation will sunset the zkEVM chain in 2026, citing performance and development bottlenecks that made it difficult for builders to scale effectively.

The Polygon proof-of-stake (PoS) chain is being upgraded into a “GigaGAS” chain, targeting over 100,000 transactions per second. The goal is to handle payments at the pace of everyday life and secure trillions of tokenized assets.

Polygon further aims to strengthen its position in payments with the upcoming Bhilai upgrade in July, which is expected to bring faster finality, lower gas fees and integration with AggLayer. The project’s current partners include JPMorgan and Stripe.

Polygon faces co-founder exodus

On May 24, co-founder Mihailo Bjelic stepped down from his role at the project.

“After much thought and reflection, I’ve decided to step down from the board of the Polygon Foundation and wind down my day-to-day involvement with Polygon Labs,” he said.

Over the past two years, two of Polygon Labs’ early founders, Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun, also stepped away from the company.