Polygon

The project was originally named Matic Network and was founded in Bengaluru in 2017 by software engineers Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep NailwalSandeep NailwalSandeep Nailwal is an India-born entrepreneur and co-founder of the blockchain network Polygon (formerly Matic Network), who has served as chief executive officer of the Polygon Foundation since 2025 and launched a cryptocurrency relief fund for India during the COVID-19 pandemic.Open the full entry and Anurag Arjun, with the aim of scaling Ethereum.⁠[1][2]

In its early days, Matic raised about $5 million through an initial exchange offering (IEO) on Binance.⁠[1]

After about two and a half years of development, the Matic Network mainnet went live in a phased rollout, starting as a delegated proof-of-stake network with a restricted validator set whose first seven operating nodes were all deployed by the Matic Foundation; ETH and ERC-20 tokens could move between Ethereum and Matic.⁠[3]

Matic Network announced that it was rebranding as Polygon and shifting toward a multichain system, setting the goal of building a hub for Ethereum scaling and an “Internet of Blockchains”; the MATIC token continued to be used to secure and incentivize the ecosystem.⁠[4]

During the expansion and rebranding of 2020 to early 2021, Serbian engineer Mihailo Bjelic joined as a co-founder.⁠[1]

Polygon received an investment of an undisclosed amount from American investor Mark CubanMark CubanMark Cuban is an American entrepreneur and investor whose early work in computer systems and internet audio and video expanded into sports, film, venture investment and pharmaceuticals. He was the Dallas Mavericks’ controlling owner and a longstanding investor on Shark Tank, and co-founded Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company.Open the full entry.⁠[1]

On August 13, 2021, Polygon announced its merger with Hermez Network, a zero-knowledge-proof-based Ethereum scaling network, which became Polygon Hermez; Polygon committed up to 250 million MATIC from its treasury (about $250 million at the price on the August 4 agreement date), with a swap ratio of 3.5 MATIC per HEZ.⁠[5]

Polygon presents such acquisitions as part of its expansion into zero-knowledge (ZK) technology.⁠[2]

Polygon raised $450 million through a private token sale led by Sequoia Capital IndiaPeak XV PartnersPeak XV Partners is a venture capital firm that grew out of Sequoia’s India and Southeast Asia business, investing across the seed, venture and growth stages in markets including India, Asia-Pacific and the United States. The firm began operating as Sequoia Capital India in 2006 and adopted its current name and became independent in 2023.Open the full entry, with participants including Tiger Global, SoftBankSoftBank GroupSoftBank Group (SoftBank Group Corp.) is an investment holding company headquartered in Tokyo, founded by Masayoshi Son in 1981. Starting out as a distributor of personal computer software, it moved into the internet, broadband and mobile communications, and has since become an investment group centered on AI-related assets such as Arm, the SoftBank Vision Funds and OpenAI.Open the full entry, Galaxy DigitalGalaxy DigitalGalaxy Digital (Galaxy Digital Inc., Nasdaq and Toronto Stock Exchange: GLXY) is a New York-based digital asset financial services and data center infrastructure company founded by Mike Novogratz, which says it was founded in 2018. It provides institutional clients with digital asset trading, lending, investment banking, asset management, staking, and custody technology services, and is building data centers in Texas for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.Open the full entry and Republic Capital. As of January 20 that year, the network had processed more than 1.3 billion transactions and hosted over 7,000 decentralized applications.⁠[6]

In the same year, brands including AdobeAdobeAdobe (Adobe Inc.) is a software company headquartered in San Jose, California, founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke. Known for PostScript, PDF and creative software such as Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and After Effects, it moved its main creative products to Creative Cloud subscriptions from 2013 and expanded into digital marketing and generative AI; it is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker ADBE.Open the full entry, Disney, MetaMetaMeta (Meta Platforms, Inc.) is a publicly listed American technology company, renamed from Facebook in 2021, that operates social communication, digital advertising, virtual reality, smart glasses and artificial intelligence businesses.Open the full entry, the NFLNFLThe NFL (National Football League) is a U.S. professional American football league of 32 clubs. Founded in 1920 as the APFA and renamed in 1922, it is organized into the AFC and NFC, with the season culminating in the Super Bowl.Open the full entry, Nubank, Reddit, Robinhood and Starbucks launched pilots on Polygon.⁠[2]

Polygon Labs launched the Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta, an EVM-equivalent layer-2 network based on zero-knowledge proofs, with open-source code and permissionless public access; Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin made its first transaction. In the initial stage, a Security Council retained the power to upgrade it rapidly.⁠[7]

In summer 2023, a series of community proposals collectively called Polygon 2.0 was put forward; in September that year, the phased upgrade plan PIP-18 was published on the community forum; after community consensus, the POL token went live on mainnet that October.⁠[8]

The first components of AggLayer, an aggregation layer for connecting multiple chains, went live, with X Layer and Polygon zkEVM connected. Polygon describes AggLayer as infrastructure built with zero-knowledge technology to unify the crypto ecosystem.⁠[8][2]

Polygon Labs announced that the upgrade from MATIC to POL was expected to take place on mainnet on September 4, 2024; afterwards POL would become the native gas and staking token of Polygon PoS, validators would need to stake POL to earn rewards and fees, and its uses would later extend to AggLayer.⁠[9]

Co-founder Sandeep Nailwal became the first chief executive officer of the Polygon Foundation with full executive control, after co-founder Mihailo Bjelic had left the foundation’s board on May 24; two other early founders, Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun, had stepped away over the preceding two years.⁠[10]

Polygon Labs announced definitive agreements to acquire crypto exchange operator Coinme and wallet infrastructure company Sequence, totaling more than $250 million and both subject to regulatory approval; the two companies were positioned as foundational parts of its stablecoin payments middleware, Open Money Stack.⁠[11]

Every base fee paid on the network adds POL to a fee collector contract, which at the time held about 121 million POL; on September 18, Sandeep Nailwal said a burn contract that anyone could trigger was running on testnet, pending final signatures from the Security Council.⁠[12]

On September 23, 100 million POL accumulated from network fees was permanently burned, about 1% of POL’s total supply, and Nailwal confirmed the burn; the mechanism allows the community to trigger future fee-funded burns. Polygon Labs later said the burn had been completed by the community.⁠[13][14]

Polygon Labs said cumulative stablecoin transfer volume on Polygon had passed $3 trillion since September 2020, including about $933 billion in 2025.⁠[14]

Polygon Labs announced the completion of its acquisition of Coinme, making Open Money Stack a U.S.-regulated payments platform covering 48 states (37 state money transmitter licenses and 11 applicable exemptions) and registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) as a money services business.⁠[15]

Polygon Labs positions itself as a developer of infrastructure for global payments; its chief executive officer is Marc Boiron and its chief technical officer is Mudit Gupta, while Sandeep Nailwal is co-founder and chief executive officer of the Polygon Foundation.⁠[2]

Polygon: Official website: https://polygon.technology/ (opens in a new window)⁠[2]

X: Official account: https://x.com/0xPolygon (opens in a new window)⁠[2]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Official account: https://www.linkedin.com/company/polygonlabs (opens in a new window)⁠[2]