Anurag Arjun, X Hall of Flame

Opposite to studies on the time, Polygon by no means tried to slay Ethereum. Again in 2021, varied organizations, together with CoinGecko and the Nasdaq, labeled Polygon as a “sooner and cheaper” blockchain than Ethereum and constructed a notion amongst some that the challenge’s proof-of-stake blockchain meant to develop into an “Ethereum killer.”

The label couldn’t be extra inaccurate, claims Polygon and Avail co-founder Anurag Arjun.

“I don’t suppose that was the intent. For certain, perhaps a notion, however by way of precise motion, I imply Polygon constructed one of many first zkEVM rollups on Ethereum,” the Indian-born tech entrepreneur tells Corridor of Flame.

“I feel that reality alone says quite a bit in regards to the technique and the long run,” he says on a name from Dubai, similar to each different crypto tycoon nowadays.

He explains that Matic (Polygon’s authentic identify) was initially constructed on the 2017 premise that it might be a Plasma resolution — which was one of many first L2 scaling options for Ethereum.

Additionally learn: Slumdog billionaire: Unbelievable rags-to-riches story of Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal

“So the motivation behind constructing the corporate was to construct out a scaling resolution for Ethereum; in fact, Plasma didn’t work out then; it wasn’t in the end possible,” Arjun says.

He says this is the reason Polygon pivoted to the Polygon PoS community in 2020 earlier than in the end constructing out a collection of ZK-rollup options.

“And in order that’s why we needed to pivot to the Polygon PoS chain. And, in fact, there was time required for us to construct out the rollup resolution, which is there proper now.”

Arjun acknowledges that from the surface, switching from a Plasma resolution to a PoS community might need appeared like they had been attempting to “construct a competitor to Ethereum.”

Nevertheless, internally, it was merely a product pivot. Polygon wanted to “ship one thing helpful to customers to get suggestions once more.”

The suggestions helped the crew “massively” with its ZK-rollup options.

Historical past of the Polygon community

Arjun, Jaynti Kanani and Sandeep Nailwal shaped Matic Community in 2017 after assembly in a buzzing co-working area, a traditional begin for crypto hustlers.

He famous that Kanani and Nailwal had been already tight, having related via a WhatsApp crypto buying and selling group.

Regardless of the trio now being labeled by GQ India as India’s first “crypto billionaires,” Arjun reiterates that the journey wasn’t at all times so easy crusing, particularly after the Plasma resolution didn’t work out in “the depths of the bear market.” 

It was a wrestle for the crew to get any type of main funding. Quick ahead to 2024, and Polygon is seen as one of many largest gamers within the blockchain trade. 

Arjun left Polygon in 2023 to focus on operating Avail, a product throughout the Polygon household that additionally separated from the corporate on the identical time.

There have been no laborious emotions when Arjun and Avail parted methods from Polygon Labs. They simply figured that Polygon had too many merchandise beneath its umbrella. 

Avail was heading in a unique path as an unbiased layer 1, specializing in energy infrastructure, whereas Polygon manufacturers had been sticking with the Ethereum L2 ecosystem play.

Polygon is now led by Marc Boiron, with Nailwal being the final remaining authentic co-founder on the firm, serving because the chief enterprise officer.

What led Arjun to X fame?

With 123,900 followers, Arjun has extra followers than many shameless “influencers” might ever dream of. 

However should you had been enjoying a sport of “who’s most probably to have over 100K followers” at a cocktail party, his humble and well mannered tone would most likely make him the final decide.

In “the early days” of Polygon, he wasn’t even energetic on Twitter (now X); he was too busy engaged on the challenge.

“I initially form of shunned social media typically as a result of I used to be simply too heads down constructing, however most likely round 4 years in the past, I began tweeting,” he says.

Because the challenge began to develop, Arjun felt a accountability to tell everybody about what was occurring and in addition “encourage different folks to be taught.”

Over time, as Polygon took off, he noticed an enormous spike in followers. His content material nonetheless contains studying threads like within the early days, however now he additionally drops hints about his success. 

For instance, a cheeky public service announcement saying he’s pleased to throw money at tasks which are constructing one thing significant within the trade.

Additionally learn Slumdog billionaire 2: ‘Prime 10… brings no satisfaction’ says Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal

What sort of content material does Arjun do?

Arjun says his social media content material is a combination. It’s a little bit of a mind dump for “no matter” is on his thoughts, however for blockchain-related stuff, it’s “principally the function of rollups.”

“Primarily, what’s the infrastructure required to run these rollups as a result of primarily I consider these are actually helpful for blockchains,” he says.

The explanation he retains occurring about rollups is that he thinks lots of people don’t actually get what they’re for.

“Rollups really are very poorly understood within the sense that they’re bringing change in how blockchains are constructed,” he declares.

“Rollups are additionally blockchains, however they don’t seem to be standalone blockchains. There may be this base layer, and on prime of that, you may assemble many rollups,” he provides.

What sort of content material does Arjun like?

Arjun says that he retains his following listing “fairly tight.” Throughout our chat, he shortly checks and notes that he’s “following 800 folks,” which doesn’t sound that tight, however for a founder, it means many individuals he meets don’t get a comply with again after the interplay.

Since our chat, he has adopted 24 extra folks, however I’m but to be certainly one of them, sadly.

With regards to content material he enjoys, he’s particularly a fan of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s work, in addition to the content material from many Ethereum Basis researchers, corresponding to core developer Peter Szilágyi. Based on Arjun, Szilágyi “will be very aggressive, however he’s a real builder.”

What are Arjun’s predictions? Rollups to the moon

When questioned about potential value actions for Polygon’s native token MATIC over the subsequent six months, Arjun was fast to let me know that he isn’t a dealer.

“I don’t touch upon pricing. I’m not a dealer myself. I don’t commerce in any respect typically,” the billionaire says.

After chatting with Arjun for 45 minutes, it’s fairly clear he’s not the kind to start out shouting out bullish value predictions.

He takes the chance to change topics from speaking about value predictions to hammering residence how optimistic he’s about blockchain rollups.

“I feel I’m very bullish on rollups being the way forward for how blockchains are created,” he says.

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Ciaran Lyons

Ciaran Lyons is an Australian crypto journalist. He is additionally a standup comic and has been a radio and TV presenter on Triple J, SBS and The Venture.