Anurag Arjun, Flame X Hall

Contrary to reports at the time, Polygon never tried to kill Ethereum. In the year In 2021, various organizations, including CoinGecko and Nasdaq, named Polygon a “faster and cheaper” blockchain than Ethereum, building a perception among some that the project's proof-of-concept blockchain was intended to be an “Ethereum killer.”

The label couldn't be more wrong, says Anurag Arjun, founder of Polygon and Avail.

“I don't think that was the intention. Sure, maybe it's perception, but in terms of actual action, I Polygon has built one of the first zkEVM packages on Ethereum,” the Indian-born tech entrepreneur tells Hall of Flames.

“I think that fact alone speaks volumes about the strategy and its future,” he said on a call from Dubai, like many other crypto investors these days.

He explains that Matic (Polygon's original name) will initially be a Plasma solution developed in 2017 – one of the first L2 scaling solutions for Ethereum.

Also Read: Slumdog Billionaire: The Incredible Rags-to-Rich Story of Polygon Sandeep Nelwal

“So the motivation behind building the company was to build a scaling solution for Ethereum; of course, Plasma didn't work at the time; ultimately it wasn't feasible,” says Arjun.

That's why in 2020 Polygon moved to the Polygon POS network before finally building a suite of ZK-rollup solutions.

“And that's why we have to turn to the Polygon POS chain. And of course, we had time to build the current solution.

Arjun admits that switching from an external Plasma solution to a PoS network may seem like they're trying to “build a competitor to Ethereum.”

However, on the inside, it was simply a pillar of production. Polygon needs to “send something useful to users to get feedback again.”

The feedback helped the team “en masse” with ZK-rollup solutions.

Polygon network history

Arjun, Jainthi Kanani and Sandeep Nilwal founded Match Network in 2017, after meeting in a crowded co-working space, a well-known startup for crypto hustlers.

He pointed out that Kanani and Nilwal are already tight because they met in a WhatsApp crypto trading group.

Although the trio have now been named India's first “crypto billionaires” by Geeky India, Arjun reiterated that the ride has not always been smooth, especially after Plasma Solution's failure in the “depths of the bear market”.

It was a struggle to get any major funding for the team. Fast forward to 2024, and Polygon appears to be one of the biggest players in the blockchain industry.

Arjun left Polygon in 2023 to focus on running Avail, part of the Polygon family.

There were no hard feelings when Arjun and Avail parted ways with Polygon Labs. They thought Polygon had too many products under its umbrella.

While Avail has been going in a different direction as an independent Layer 1 with a focus on power infrastructure, Polygon brands have stuck with the Ethereum L2 ecosystem play.

Polygon is now led by Marc Boiron, and Nilwal is the last remaining original co-founder at the company, serving as chief business officer.

What brought Arjun to X fame?

With 123,900 followers, Arjun has more followers than most shameless “influencers” could ever dream of.

But if you're playing a game of “who has over 100k followers” at a dinner party, his humble and polite tone probably makes him the last choice.

In Polygon's “early days” he wasn't even active on Twitter (now X). He was very busy with the project.

“In the beginning, I avoided social media in general because I was thinking too much about building, but maybe four years ago, I started tweeting,” he says.

As the project began to grow, Arjun felt a responsibility to inform everyone about what was happening and also to “inspire other people to learn”.

Over the years, as Polygon took off, it saw a huge increase in followers. The content still includes the same threads as the original tutorial, but now hints at its success.

For example, a cheeky public service announcement about the joy of throwing cash at projects that build something meaningful in the industry.

Also Read Slumdog Billionaire 2: ‘Top 10… Not Satisfying,' Says Polygon's Sandeep Nailwal

What kind of content does Arjun make?

Arjun says the social media content is mixed. It's a bit of a nod to the “whatever” on his mind, but for blockchain-related things, it's “mostly a wrapper role.”

“Primarily, what kind of infrastructure is needed to run these services because I believe these are fundamentally important to blockchain,” he said.

The reason he keeps going on about rolls is because he thinks most people don't get what they really want.

“Rollups are not very well understood in the sense that they are revolutionizing how blockchains are built,” he said.

“Rollups are also blockchains, but they are not blockchains alone. There is this base layer, and on top of it, you can build more rolls,” he added.

What kind of content does Arjun like?

Arjun says he adheres to the following list “very strongly”. During our conversation, he quickly checked and noted that he was “following 800 people,” which doesn't sound that strict, but for a founder, it means that most of the people he gets will not get a follower after the connection.

He's followed 24 more people since our chat, but unfortunately I'm yet to become one of them.

As for the content he likes, he is particularly a fan of the work of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, as well as the content of several Ethereum Foundation researchers, such as lead developer Peter Szilagyi. According to Arjun, Silighi “may be very aggressive, but he is a true builder.”

What are Arjun's predictions? Turning to the moon

When asked about possible price movements for Polygon's native token MATIC over the next six months, Arjun informed me that he is not a trader.

“I don't comment on prices. I am not a businessman myself. I generally don't trade at all,” says the billionaire.

After talking to Arjun for 45 minutes, it is clear that he is not the one to start shouting price predictions.

He takes the opportunity to switch topics from talking about price predictions to how optimistic he is about blockchain rollups.

“I think I'm really excited about blockchain because it's the future of how blockchains are created,” he said.

Subscribe

A very engaging read in Blockchain. It is given once a week.

Ciaran Lyon

Ciaran Lyons is an Australian crypto journalist. He is also a freelance comedian and has been a radio and TV presenter on Triple J, SBS and The Project.