Polygon co-founder Jaynti Kanani revealed on Tuesday that he’s been absent from daily work on the project for the past six months, having moved on to “new adventures” after helping launch it in 2017.
“I decided to step back from the day-to-day grind,” Kanani tweeted on Wednesday. The developer said he remains confident in Polygon’s future, and is “bullish on Polygon 2.0.”
That makes Kanani the second of 10 Polygon co-founders (and the third executive) to announce their departure this year. And in the crypto industry—although it’s not unique to digital finance—multiple executive departures can be a sign of trouble.
Former Alameda Research CEO Sam Trabucco stepped down last August, three months before FTX’s calamitous collapse. Matteo Liebowitz, Uniswap Labs venture lead, announced his departure last week amid speculation that despite its recent court win, the project isn’t faring well while under SEC investigation. Jesse Powell, CEO and founder of crypto exchange Kraken, stepped down in the middle of backlash over his “anti-woke” sentiments and the company paying the SEC a $30 million settlement. And much has been made about the pace at which Binance and Binance US execs have headed for the exits since the crypto exchange landed in the SEC’s crosshairs.
Polygon Labs Shakeup: President Ryan Wyatt Out, Marc Boiron Named CEO
Ryan Wyatt, president of Polygon Labs, has announced he will be stepping down from his position at the end of the month. He will be replaced by the project’s Chief Legal Officer, Marc Boiron. Wyatt, who comes from a gaming and esports past, first took the position of Chief Executive Officer at Polygon Studios in February 2022. He later transitioned into the president role at the then newly-branded Polygon Labs. Under his leadership, Polygon was named “Decrypt’s 2022 Project of the Year.” Shaking...
To be fair, it’s entirely possible that all the departing founders decided to move onto new projects around the same time. But it’s also true that it’s been a punishing year for Polygon.
Polygon Labs did not respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.
Polygon is a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum, using a multi-chain ecosystem to enable cheaper, faster, and more private transactions. Its governance token, MATIC, is the thirteenth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, standing at $5.2 billion, according to CoinGecko.
Aside from being one of Polygon’s ten co-founders, Kanani co-authored the Polygon whitepaper itself, alongside Anurag Arjun, Mihailo Bjelic, and executive chairman Sandeep Nailwal.
Man this makes me emotional. What a ride we've had together brother. But its just the start for Polygon, i wish we could've done more for longer together in this crazy journey that is Polygon. But hey, you got to do what you got to do.
Lets keep pushing Polygon ahead together,…— Sandeep Nailwal | sandeep. polygon 💜 (@sandeepnailwal) October 4, 2023
Back in March, co-founder Arjun left the company to work on a modular blockchain spinoff project called Avail. Later, Polygon Labs President Ryan Wyatt stepped down from his role to be replaced by the company’s former Chief Legal Officer, Marc Boiron.
Since its all-time high in December 2021, MATIC has dropped 80% from $2.92 to just $0.56. While seemingly bleak, rival coins—including Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Polkadot (DOT), and Avalanche (AVAX)—have each fallen more than 90% from their respective peaks that year, according to CoinGecko.
Polygon also remains ahead of most competitors in decentralized finance, boasting the fifth-highest total value locked (TVL) compared to other networks at $794 million. One of its competitors in the realm of Ethereum scaling, Arbitrum, stands above it with $1.7 billion TVL.
Polygon 2.0 Aims to Provide 'Unified Liquidity' Across Ethereum Scaling Networks
Polygon Labs is moving ahead with plans to reinvent its entire architecture as part of its goal to become the "value layer of the Internet." Polygon 2.0 will have a fundamentally different architecture that makes it easier and more seamless to spin up new chains in the Polygon ecosystem. Polygon itself is an Ethereum layer two. It was designed to address some of Ethereum's limitations through a sidechain solution. As its upgrade seeks to make it easier to create new Polygon chains, it will also...
TVL refers to the value of digital assets currently on a blockchain and has long been the go-to metric by which investors gauge the health of DeFi ecosystems.
Though on-chain metrics appear healthy, Polkadot’s regulatory situation may not be.
Upon suing Coinbase in June, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) named MATIC among a host of tokens it deemed to be unregistered securities listed by the exchange. Others swept up in the controversy included ADA and SOL. Polygon Labs dismissed the SEC’s accusation at the time, noting that it had distributed MATIC to non-US investors.
The company is now planning to transition to Polygon 2.0, an interconnected network of layer-2 chains powered by zero-knowledge technology. The upgrade will transform Polygon’s current MATIC token into POL. In fact, the project has brought on some new execs as it prepares for the switch, including Vice President of Product David Silverman (formerly of Aave) and Vice President of Markting Alicia Katz (formerly of Euler Labs).
Editor's Note: This story originally said that three co-founders have left Polygon in 2023. Two founders have left along with former Polygon Labs President Ryan Wyatt, who was not one of the project's co-founders.
