Polygon has announced its plan to phase out Polygon zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) by 2026, marking the end of its zero-knowledge scaling efforts. It plans to focus on the Polygon Proof of Stake (PoS) sidechain and the AggLayer.
The founder, Sandeep Nailwal, disclosed this today in a post on X, noting that Polygon PoS will focus on stablecoin payments and real-world assets (RWAs) while the AggLayer will continue in its effort to become a cross-chain settlement layer.
Nailwal said:
“Polygon PoS will focus on Stablecoin payments and RWAs, while AggLayer will focus on building a trustless Internet of Blockchains.”
As part of its plans for AggLayer, Nailwal disclosed that AggLayer v0.3, which has been in the pipeline for some time, will launch on June 30th with improved features, signaling the organization’s readiness to ship more products to the market.
He added that Polygon PoS will also see improved capacity as the milestone of its Gigagas roadmap is now live on the testnet. This upgrade will launch by early July and will push the network capacity to 1,000 transactions per second.
Interestingly, Nailwal stated that this is only part of the several changes that have started to increase Polygon’s economic viability and will ensure that stakers of its native token, POL, also get more value
Nailwal becomes CEO of Polygon Foundation
Meanwhile, Nailwal also announced that he would take up the CEO role for Polygon Foundation, the parent company of all Polygon products. According to Nailwal, the move shifts Polygon from its decentralized governance approach to a centralized model necessary for the project’s evolution.
He said:
“I’ve always stayed away from moving into the CEO role because I’ve been focused on building PF as an institutionally governed foundation. But right now, Polygon needs clear direction and focused execution, which means stepping up.”
Despite the changes, Marc Boiron will remain as CEO of Polygon Labs, with Nailwal only having positive commendations for the executive. In his words, Boiron is the “best executive/leader in the crypto industry.”
Meanwhile, Nailwal noted that the company has a healthy treasury with hundreds of millions in cash. Thus, it is well-positioned for its long-term building without worrying about raising capital.
While Polygon appears to be moving away from ZK efforts, Nailwal added that this is not exactly the case. Instead, the company plans to spin off its ZK projects while acknowledging the role of the technology in blockchain developments.
The planned spinoff subsidiary for its ZK research would be known as Polygon ZisK and led by Jordi Baylina. However, there are no specific timelines for when this would launch.
POL sees a massive surge in value
Meanwhile, the market appears to have taken to the recent developments positively, with POL price increasing by more than 6% in the last 24 hours according to CoinMarketCap. This represents a significant increase in value for the token formerly known as MATIC.
It is a welcome development, given how POL has struggled so far this year. The token is down 50% year-to-date, making it one of the worst-performing major cap tokens this year.
This poor performance was mostly due to the struggle to generate significant activity and compete with other Ethereum layer-2 networks such as Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism. Even Nailwal acknowledged Polygon’s struggles as one of the major factors that necessitated recent changes.
Interestingly, POL could see more tailwinds soon. POL has already enjoyed some regulatory clarity after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dropped its lawsuit over the status of POL, which is already attracting more market makers to the token.
However, the Polygon Foundation is also planning to start campaigns to create awareness so users can know about the upgrade of MATIC to POL. If the foundation is successful with its plans, the token could see a significant surge in value before the year ends.
