Sandeep Nailwal
Sandeep Nailwal is an India-born entrepreneur and co-founder of the blockchain network PolygonPolygonPolygon (formerly Matic Network) is a blockchain network and project founded in 2017, originally to scale Ethereum, and driven by organizations including Polygon Labs and the Polygon Foundation; its native token was upgraded from MATIC to POL, and in recent years it has shifted toward stablecoin payments infrastructure.Open the full entry (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.
Contents12 sections
Key facts
1987Birth
Sandeep Nailwal was born in 1987 in Ramnagar, a farming village in the Himalayan foothills, and moved with his family to Delhi at the age of four, growing up in poor settlements on the east bank of the Yamuna.[1]
Before 2016Education and Early Career
He took out a loan to study computer science and engineering at MAIT in Delhi, later earned an MBA at the National Institute for Training in Industrial Engineering (NITIE, now an Indian Institute of Management), and then worked at Deloitte and headed e-commerce technology at Welspun.[1]
By his own account, he was dismissive when he first heard of Bitcoin in 2013, changed his mind after reading the white paper and began investing, and was later drawn to Ethereum’s programmability.[1]
2016Founding Scope Weaver
In 2016, he founded Scope Weaver, a blockchain services startup.[1]
2017Co-Founding Matic Network
In 2017, he founded Matic Network in Bengaluru with Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun. Kanani proposed using Plasma to address Ethereum’s scaling problems, while Nailwal helped raise about $30,000 in seed funding.[2][1]
In February 2021, Matic Network was renamed Polygon.[3]
April 2021Launching a COVID-19 Relief Fund for India
During India’s COVID-19 resurgence, he set up a relief fund and asked the crypto community on social media to donate tokens to a multisig address to provide food, vaccines and medicine, saying he would personally take responsibility for transparency and compliance; by April 27, 2021, it had raised more than $2.2 million.[4]
June 2023$100 Million COVID-19 Research Funding with Vitalik Buterin
The Indian community fund Crypto Relief planned to provide $90 million in USDC, which together with $10 million from Vitalik Buterin personally made $100 million, to be distributed with the help of Buterin and Nailwal for COVID-19 research and medical infrastructure in India, focusing on long COVID and airborne transmission.[5]
June 11, 2025Becoming First CEO of the Polygon Foundation
He 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.[6]
He said decisions had previously been taking too long, and that the change was meant to bring “clear direction and focused execution” and return the team to actual product building.[7]
January 2026Acquisitions of Coinme and Sequence
Polygon Labs announced the acquisition of Coinme and Sequence for more than $250 million to build out its stablecoin payments system, Open Money Stack; Nailwal said he hoped Polygon would become the world’s largest avenue for stablecoin money movement.[8]
September 2026Announcing and Confirming a Burn of 100 Million POL
On September 18, he said on X that a contract allowing any holder to trigger a burn of POL accumulated from network base fees was running on testnet, pending Security Council signatures; he also put Polygon’s 2026 revenue at about $24.5 million, a figure that has not been independently verified.[9]
On September 23, 100 million POL, about 1% of total supply, was permanently burned, and he then confirmed that the network had completed the burn.[10]
As of October 2026: Chief Executive Officer of the Polygon Foundation
The Polygon Labs website lists him as co-founder and chief executive officer of the Polygon Foundation.[11]
Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts
Polygon: Official website: https://polygon.technology/ (opens in a new window)[11]
X: Public account: https://x.com/sandeepnailwal (opens in a new window)[11]
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: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandeep-nailwal-60709a33/ (opens in a new window)[11]
Sources
- Slumdog billionaire: Incredible rags-to-riches tale of Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal (opens in a new window)
- By solving Ethereum’s scalability problems, blockchain startup Polygon gave rise to India’s first crypto billionaires (opens in a new window)
- Matic Network Pivots to Help Ethereum Fight Blockchain Rival (opens in a new window)
- Polygon co-founder raises $2.2M for India COVID-19 relief (opens in a new window)
- Vitalik Buterin and Polygon founder to help send $100M COVID-19 donation (opens in a new window)
- Sandeep Nailwal takes control of Polygon Foundation (opens in a new window)
- Sandeep Nailwal’s Polygon takeover is his chance to ‘go all in’ (opens in a new window)
- Polygon Labs spends $250 million to acquire Coinme and Sequence, ‘foundational’ elements of its Open Money Stack (opens in a new window)
- Polygon Prepares A Burn That Any Holder Can Set Off, Nailwal Confirms (opens in a new window)
- Polygon price rises 12% since 100M POL burn – Can it hold above $0.11? (opens in a new window)
- About Polygon — Leadership (opens in a new window)