Polygon Co-Founder Spins Off ZisK zkEVM Project

Polygon co-founder Jordi Baylina has spun off a new zero-knowledge project called ZisK — an independent initiative aimed at supporting multiple programming languages and accelerating the adoption of decentralized technologies.

ZisK is a fully open-source zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkEVM) stack initially developed at Polygon, the new company said in a Wednesday social media post. Baylina said his main focus will shift to developing ZisK, but he will continue to serve Polygon in an advisory role. 

The Baylina-led spinoff will house seven additional developers, described as the “core minds behind the Polygon zkEVM prover.” According to ZisK, the development team has worked together for at least three years. 

ZisK is described as modular in design, supporting high-level languages like Rust and others.

Zero-knowledge technology has long been considered a game-changer for blockchain infrastructure, especially in addressing Ethereum’s long-standing scalability and gas fee limitations. As layer-2 scaling solutions, zkEVMs increase transaction throughput while relying on privacy-preserving cryptography.

Related: Polygon grants lending protocol $300K as crosschain lending enters the spotlight

Sandeep Nailwal becomes CEO of Polygon Foundation

ZisK spun off from Polygon shortly after Sandeep Nailwal took full executive control of the Polygon Foundation, which oversees Polygon Labs and the broader layer-2 ecosystem. 

While Nailwal has long been the face of Polygon, he now serves as the Foundation’s first official CEO. 

The leadership shake-up followed the exodus of Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic, who had served on the Foundation’s board. Nailwal described Bjelic as “a force behind so much of what makes Polygon what it is today.”

In addition to Polygon PoS, one of the Foundation’s core focuses is the AggLayer, an interoperability layer designed to optimize crosschain liquidity and unify fragmented chains. 

Competition in the Ethereum layer-2 space is intensifying, as companies race to build new infrastructure to onboard traditional finance into the world of tokenized assets.

As Cointelegraph Magazine reported, traditional financial institutions plan to tokenize billions, if not trillions of dollars of real-world assets via custom-built L2s.

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