Latest news with #SandeepNailwal
Gulf Insider
15 hours ago
- Business
- Gulf Insider
10 Years On, The Fight For Ethereum's Soul Continues...
Ethereum went live 10 years ago, bringing programmability and composability to a technological innovation sparked by the advent of Bitcoin in 2009. But what does the future of Ethereum hold? It's a loaded question that is incredibly difficult to answer given the complexity and decentralized nature of the world's pioneering smart-contract blockchain protocol. Cointelegraph recently traveled to EthCC in Cannes to speak to the brightest minds in the Ethereum community about its current state and the future of the protocol amid the rise of highly competitive next-generation layer-1 blockchains. These conversations formed the backbone of Cointelegraph's latest mini-documentary: 'The Fight for Ethereum's Soul.' The documentary features several founders, CEOs and builders in the Ethereum ecosystem including Ethereum Foundation (EF) co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Ethereum France president Jerome de Tychey, Figment co-founder and CEO Lorien Gabel, Dune Analytics co-founder and CEO Fredrik Haga, Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron, YAP Global co-founder and CEO Samantha Yap and Base head of product Tom Vieira. The documentary was directed and produced by Cointelegraph's head of multimedia Gareth Jenkinson, with senior producer Celine Tan. Ethereum has dramatically evolved over the past decade. The blockchain managed to execute a change in consensus algorithm, often likened to replacing the engine of a car driving at full speed on a highway. The shift from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake fundamentally changed the way the protocol works. Ethereum parted ways with Bitcoin's proof-of-work approach to consensus, rooted in computationally and energy-intensive hashing, to a skin-in-the-game system that requires validators to stake ETH tokens to maintain the network and reap rewards. While Ethereum initially provided fantastic functionality, it eventually encountered the same problems as the preeminent cryptocurrency protocol. Its base layer chain simply could not serve the needs of the growing number of users, applications and services that set up on its network. To enable the ability to process infinitely scalable transactions, the Ethereum community adopted a layer 2-centric approach to scaling. Execution, from transactions or asset creation, was shifted to a separate infrastructure layer. These layers use incredible advances in cryptography, like ZK-proofs, to submit trustless evidence of transactions and activity to Ethereum's base layer. This brought scale, speed and cost reductions to layer 1, but an inevitable consequence was the fragmentation of liquidity and shifting incentives for validators. Fees dropped on the base layer, which remains a core incentive for Ethereum validators to maintain the network. Meanwhile, the superior execution environments of layer 2s began to pull liquidity from Ethereum's base layer. In 2024, grumblings of discontent began to surface. Prominent voices called for the EF to intervene and propose changes to the protocol that ensured the value of ETH continues to rise while maintaining the advances in UX and UI that layer 2s had provided. In 2025, the EF made significant changes to its organisational structure. Tomasz Stańczak and Hsiao-Wei Wang took up a dual role at the top of the Foundation, reporting to a braintrust led by Vitalik Buterin. Pectra, Ethereum's latest network upgrade, hit the mainnet in May. It was the most significant change to the protocol since the Merge in 2022. Combining the Prague execution layer and Electra consensus layer hard forks, Pectra introduced 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) to improve scalability, user experience and staking efficiency. Pectra builds improvements made by the 2024 Dencun upgrade, which famously introduced Blobs through EIP 4844, known as proto-danksharding. Blobs provided a new way for L2s to post transaction data on the L1. The impact was dramatic; L2 transaction fees dropped by 90%. An unavoidable consequence of this upgrade was that L2s no longer paid huge fees to settle on Ethereum. According to Dune co-founder Fredrik Haga, this was a technological boon, but an economic drawback for L1 validators. 'The L2 situation is interesting because now 85% of transactions are on L2, so there's only 15% left on Ethereum L1, but 85% of the volume still lives on L1,' Haga said. 'The L1 has very limited engagement, if you will, in like the absolute number. But the big money is still clearly on L1. Then obviously the L2 used to pay a lot to settle to L1. And since blobs were introduced in March 2024, that has basically gone to zero.' The combined impact of Dencun in 2024 and Pectra in 2025 has helped the Ethereum ecosystem move further down an intricate development roadmap. Stańczak said unifying liquidity, interoperability and improving overall user experience has been a top priority for the Ethereum Foundation (EF) over the past 18 months. 'I think the big focus now is on the interop, on the tooling and the standards, and accelerating that idea that all the chains around Ethereum should feel very much like a single ecosystem, and it should be very natural for the users to transfer between them to use all the applications that just flow to different chains if they need to,' Stańczak said. 'There are clear challenges on presenting how the fee structure, data availability and interop mechanics all work together. Just a few years ago, it was really hard to predict how the L2s would evolve. Now we see we have much more clarity.' Jerome de Tychey, the head of Ethereum France and organizer of EthCC, added that the future success of the protocol is a balancing act between prioritizing L1 mechanics and the symbiosis with L2s. 'We are doing two things right now. First, we are putting some emphasis on the L1, on scalability and on the sustainability of the L2. We have a lot of consideration about the future performance of the security aspect of things, and also of potentially the token itself, of course, but also upgrading how the user experience is going to be unfolded in the next years. That's a very, very good signal that Ethereum is going to be more accessible from a usability standpoint,' De Tychey said. Still, the balancing act remains a precarious one. How does the Ethereum L1 ensure that validators are incentivized to keep the network running and avoid getting into a performance arm-wrestle with new-age layer 1s like Solana, SUI and Aptos? Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron offered food for thought, suggesting that any efforts to try to compete directly with Solana, SUI or Aptos might be to the detriment of Ethereum's future. 'I'm pretty optimistic about it in the sense that it does look like they're saying, like, OK, maybe let's focus on data availability and execution more than personally I would like, but without really giving up this benefit that we have from a settlement perspective,' Boiron said. 'I think it is dangerous, right? If they go down this road of trying to compete on execution too heavily, the likelihood is they will end up getting out-competed by those who are trying to do the exact same thing.' While the volume of criticism was deafeningly loud over the past year, conversations at EthCC gave a sense of optimism about the future of Ethereum. This optimism is not rooted in fervour but rather in utility and onchain metrics. More than 90% of tokenized real-world assets are being built on Ethereum. BlackRock, the world's biggest asset manager, is tokenizing securities on Ethereum. Robinhood grabbed headlines in Cannes with the launch of its own Ethereum-based layer 2, squarely aimed at RWA and securities tokenization. 'If you think about DeFi versus TradFi, I would say absolutely no chance that DeFi will not dominate all the global markets. It will be there. It will happen on Ethereum,' Stańczak said. De Tychey said there's no meaningful alternative. 'Everything else is a ghost train and going in the wrong direction, and pushing and lobbying to still be able to exist with a lot of different interests, a lot of vested interests.' Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal summed things up succinctly: 'Ethereum got dragged into the execution game. Whereas Ethereum's core value proposition is this highly decentralized, sovereign-resistant, permissionless settlement layer. And if Ethereum plays well to its strengths and focuses on being the best settlement layer, we already have enough network effects and the momentum for the whole Web3 world to be created around Ethereum.'
Yahoo
06-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Polygon Holds 3% Advance, Outperforming Broader Market
Polygon (POL) rose 9% in early U.S. morning trading hours from $0.206 to $0.225 before selling emerged in the afternoon, CoinDesk Analytics data shows. The token saw significant volatility overnight as volume surges to 708,489 and 804,401 units, crushing the 24-hour average of 410,606, before heavy selling pressure emerged, establishing critical resistance for near-term action. POL is currently trading at $0.221, up about 3% over the past 24 hours. It is outperforming the broader market as tracked by the CoinDesk 20 Index, which is down about 2.4% over the same period. The token is down more than 90% from its all-time high of $2.92 in December 2021 even as other cryptos such as bitcoin (BTC) and XRP have surged to new highs recently. Polygon is currently focusing on scaling AggLayer, an application that helps users connect to other blockchains, in addition to advancing payments and real-world assets tools, its CEO and co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, told Bloomberg in an interview recently. Nailwal was appointed CEO of the foundation in June with the goal to strengthen its strategy in order to compete with other projects.
Finextra
23-06-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Velda raises $18 million bring DeFi to consumer and institutional audiences
Veda, the leading DeFi vault platform enabling crypto applications, asset issuers, and protocols to build enterprise-grade cross chain yield products, today announced it raised $18M in funding. 0 The round was led by CoinFund, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, GSR, Maelstrom, Animoca Ventures, Mantle EcoFund, BitGo, Credibly Neutral, Draper Dragon, Heartcore, PEER VC, and Relayer Capital. Angel investors Anchorage Co-Founder and CEO Nathan McCauley, Co-Founder and CEO Mike Silagadze, and Polygon Co-Founder and COO Sandeep Nailwal also participated in the round. Unlocking access to DeFi DeFi has the potential to empower financial freedom with an open, transparent system that is low risk and free from value-extractive third parties. However, DeFi today is complex for the user, and there isn't the right infrastructure to build multichain protocols at scale. To help bring DeFi to consumer and institutional audiences, financial applications must remove this complexity and manage risk on behalf of users, while preserving self-custody, transparency and security. 'The best infrastructure is invisible — it just works. That's what we've built with Veda,' said Sun Raghupathi, Co-Founder and CEO of Veda. 'We enable any platform to offer onchain yield without exposing the complexity of DeFi, while preserving what makes it powerful: self-custody, transparency, and control.' A universal vault infrastructure Veda abstracts away the complexities of DeFi so that application users can have a seamless experience transacting through its universal vault infrastructure platform - the largest of its kind in DeFi. A vault is a smart contract that holds user deposits and applies a defined strategy to generate yield or execute a financial function. Veda allows developers and institutions to create vaults for any DeFi use case, from liquid restaking tokens (LRTs), to yield-based stablecoins, to savings accounts, to bootstrapping ecosystems, and more, all from Veda's BoringVault framework, the most used vault standard in DeFi. Veda is one of the very few vault infrastructure protocols that is modular, composable, and cross-chain to fit any DeFi use-case that a protocol or institution may want. Since its March 2024 launch, this vault standard has amassed over 100,000 users and powers yield strategies across a wider range of segments such as yield vaults, including Plasma's Vault, Liquid, Lombard's DeFi Vault and, LRTs like eBTC and weETHs, native yield for chains including Sonic Rings and Corn's sBTCN, pre-deposit campaigns for Berachain and TAC, and wallets including Binance Wallet and Bybit Web3. 'Institutions and fintechs aren't just exploring DeFi in theory anymore — they're actively implementing it,' said Stephanie Vaughan, Co-Founder and COO of Veda. 'Veda's BoringVault framework is already the definitive standard in DeFi, and the only one operating at this scale with a flawless security record. This raise allows us to deepen those partnerships and accelerate the next wave of DeFi adoption across established financial platforms.' Veda was founded in early 2024 by CEO Sun Raghupathi, CTO Joe Terrigno, and COO Stephanie Vaughan, bringing a wealth of experience from previous ventures. Veda has over $3.7 billion in Total-Value Locked (TVL) to date, over 100,000 depositors, and plans to partner with a top five global centralized exchange in the next month. 'Veda solves an unmet and growing need in the DeFi ecosystem—as more wealth comes on chain, infrastructure for the on-chain equivalent of traditional 'funds' must exist, and Veda is the leader in providing these vaults,' said David Pakman, Head of Venture Investments and Managing Partner at CoinFund. 'This investment reflects our conviction in the expansive venture return potential in DeFi and the Veda team's foresight and leadership in providing critical foundational infrastructure for the future of financial markets.'
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Protocol: Polygon, Once a Scaling Leader, Eyes a Revamp
Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. We're Margaux Nijkerk and Sam Kessler, CoinDesk's Tech & Protocols team. In this issue: Sandeep Nailwal Takes Control of Polygon Foundation, Charts New Course, Retires ZkEVM Ethereum Foundation Unveils New Treasury Policy With 15% Opex Cap Bitcoin Core 30 to Increase OP_RETURN Data Limit After Developer Debate Concludes Plume Launches Genesis Mainnet to Bring Real-World Assets to DeFi Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option SANDEEP NAILWAL TAKES CONTROL OF POLYGON FOUNDATION, RETIRES ZKEVM: Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal has officially assumed the role of CEO of the Polygon Foundation, marking a pivot in the organization's leadership makeup and a sweeping overhaul of the network's longterm roadmap. Nailwal, who launched the project in 2017 when it was still called Matic Network, will consolidate control and reorient the team toward AggLayer — Polygon's new cross-chain liquidity protocol that promises seamless interoperability across networks. The foundation will also retire zkEVM, Polygon's rollup network. "This renewed control marks the beginning of a strategic push for Polygon to reclaim its position at the forefront of Web3," the team wrote in a press release shared with CoinDesk — Marguax Nijkerk Read more. ETHEREUM FOUNDATION'S NEW TREASURY POLICY: The Ethereum Foundation published an updated treasury policy, outlining a series of new plans around token sales, fiat purchases and transparency practices designed to ensure the organization's "long-term agency, sustainability, and legitimacy." The EF, a Swiss non-profit, plays a central role in the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem. In addition to employing researchers, builders and community liaisons, the foundation was granted a large trove of ether (ETH) tokens at Ethereum's genesis which it uses to fund its operations and support other projects in the ecosystem. In a blog post, the foundation stated it plans to annually designate 15% of its treasury to operational expenses ("opex"), with a 2.5-year buffer kept at all times in its reserves. "We intend to reduce annual opex roughly linearly over the next five years, ending at a long-term 5% baseline," the foundation wrote. "This policy reflects our conviction that 2025-26 are likely to be pivotal for Ethereum, warranting enhanced focus on critical deliverables.' — Margaux Nijkerk Read more. BITCOIN CORE 30 TO INCREASE OP_RETURN DATA LIMIT: The developers of Bitcoin Core, the primary open-source software for connecting the blockchain behind the world's largest cryptocurrency, said October's version 30 release will increase the default limit for OP_RETURN data transactions from the current 80 bytes to nearly 4MB, a limit imposed by Bitcoin's block size. The proposal for the change, which was confirmed in an update on GitHub, had sparked debate within the Bitcoin community. Critics argued that removing the limit could encourage increased embedding of arbitrary data, potentially leading to network spam and a shift from bitcoin's primary function as a financial tool. — Sam Reynolds Read more. PLUME MAINNET GOES LIVES: Plume, a blockchain network focused on real-world assets, announced the launch of its hotly anticipated Genesis launch, according to a statement shared by the Plume team, marks the "next generation" of asset-backed DeFi — tokenizing traditional financial instruments, or real-world assets (RWA), so they can interact with blockchain-based financial tools. RWAs have taken over the world of blockchain, as they are viewed as a market that could be worth trillions of dollars with traditional financial institutions steadily dipping into crypto. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option Safe, the popular multiparty crypto wallet previously called Gnosis Safe, has launched a new development unit, Safe Labs, in a move aimed at consolidating its operations and sharpening its product roadmap after it was targeted in February's $1.4 billion ByBit hack — the largest crypto heist to date. Along with the change, Safe is building a more "opinionated" V2 of its platform targeted at enterprise customers. — Sam Kessler Read more. Morpho, a permissionless cryptocurrency lending protocol, unveiled an update that seeks to further align decentralized finance (DeFi) with traditional lending by bringing more in the way of bespoke, predictable loan terms. Morpho V2 delivers market-driven fixed-rate, fixed-term loans with customizable terms, features previously unseen in DeFi, which are required to meet the demands of institutions and enterprises looking to build or migrate financial products on-chain, Morpho said in a press release on Thursday.— Ian Allison Read more. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is working on policy to exempt decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms from regulatory barriers, said Chairman Paul Atkins. Software developers building DeFi tools have no business being blamed for how they're used, Atkins and other SEC Republicans contended at the final of five crypto roundtables that have been held at the agency since the leadership turnover under President Donald chairman told a roundtable of DeFi experts that he's directed the SEC staff to look into changes to agency rules "to provide needed accommodation for issuers and intermediaries to seek to administer on-chain financial systems." Atkins called that potential exemptive relief "an innovation exemption" that would let entities under SEC jurisdiction bring on-chain products and services to market "expeditiously." — Jesse Hamilton Read more. The international unit of Alipay owner Ant Group plans to seek stablecoin licenses in Hong Kong and Singapore, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Ant International will apply for a stablecoin issuer's license once the regulatory regime comes into effect in August, according to the report, citing people familiar with the matter. The firm is also planning to apply for a similar license in its native Singapore, as well as Luxembourg. — Jamie Crawley Read more. Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option June 8-22: Berlin Blockchain Week, Berlin June 24-26: Permissionless, Brooklyn June 30-July 3: EthCC, Cannes July 16-18: Web3 Summit, Berlin Sept. 22-28: Korea Blockchain Week, Seoul Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore Nov. 17-22: Devconnect, Buenos Aires Dec. 11-13: Solana Breakpoint, Abu Dhabi Feb. 10-12, 2026: Consensus, Hong Kong May 5-7, 2026: Consensus, Miami Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Time of India
11-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Polygon cofounder Sandeep Nailwal takes over as CEO amid restructuring
Sandeep Nailwal , cofounder of blockchain firm Polygon, will take over as the chief executive officer of Polygon Foundation , which includes Polygon Labs , as the company undergoes restructuring. The company, which was started in 2017 to solve the scaling issues of blockchain Ethereum , has been facing challenges in the last couple of years. It saw the exodus of co-founders, Jayant Kanani, Anurag Arjun, and Mihailo Bjelic, along with the exit of Ryan Wyatt, former CEO of Polygon Labs. The company had strengthened its US team, which created friction between the India and US teams, ET had earlier reported. The firm has been facing increasing competition from other players such as Coinbase's Base and Optimism, even as it saw most of its cofounders leave the firm. As a part of the restructuring, the company will focus on launching the AggLayer, short for aggregation layer, a blockchain protocol that facilitates interoperability between chains by FY25. It will shut down zkEVM, on the back of development hurdles. In a statement, the company said that the product lacked a strong strategic position and was no longer aligned with the evolving needs of the ecosystem. Other changes include Polygon PoS, which is now Gigagas, and will handle 100,000 transactions per second. The press statement said that the firm has processed $514 billion in stablecoin transactions in the past year and $3.7 billion in peer-to-peer (P2P) volume in April 2025. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories The company said that organisations such as Stripe, Reliance Jio, Nexo and BlindPay have built solutions on its blockchain.
