Polygon Basis CEO Sandeep Nailwal has publicly questioned his “loyalty towards Ethereum,” igniting a uncommon, unvarnished bout of soul-searching throughout the ecosystem that drew speedy responses from core contributors, buyers, and finally Vitalik Buterin himself. The change, which unfolded on X over the previous 10 hours, facilities on whether or not the Ethereum Basis (EF) adequately helps its builders, how Layer-2 tasks are acknowledged inside Ethereum’s narrative and market “beta,” and whether or not the group’s tradition has drifted from its authentic beliefs.
Is The Ethereum Basis A ‘Shitshow’?
“Learn this from Peter and realized that it’s time for me to additionally converse up,” Nailwal wrote, referencing core developer Péter Szilágyi’s resolution on October 19 to publish a letter he says he despatched to EF management roughly 18 months in the past. Nailwal, who credit Ethereum and Buterin as his entry level and inspiration, mentioned his long-standing ethical loyalty to Ethereum has come at private and company value: “Although I/we by no means acquired any direct help from the EF or the Ethereum CT group — actually, the reverse. However I’ve all the time felt ethical loyalty in the direction of Ethereum even when [it] prices me billions of {dollars} in Polygon’s valuation maybe.”
Nailwal’s critique is each cultural and monetary. “The Ethereum group as a complete has been a shit present for fairly a while,” he wrote, including that recurring public crises drive main contributors to “query what they’re even doing right here.” He mentioned buddies, together with AkshayBD (Chief Advertising and marketing Officer of the Solana Basis and a co-founder of SuperteamDAO), have urged him to declare Polygon an L1 and “stroll away from this circus,” and claimed the group’s “socialistic habits” has trolled Polygon regardless of its contributions “due to some arbitrary ‘technical definition.’”
He argued that market construction punishes Polygon for refusing the L1 label: “It’s extensively believed that if Polygon ever determined to name itself an L1, it might most likely be valued 2–5× larger than it’s at this time,” pointing to a now-widely mentioned comparability: “Like give it some thought, Hedera Hashgraph an L1 is valued larger than Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism and Scroll mixed.”
The classification dispute, in Nailwal’s telling, has real-world penalties for recognition and index inclusion. He insisted “Polygon PoS successfully hinged on Ethereum, whereas Katana, XLayer, and dozens of different chains in Polygon’s ecosystem are true L2s,” but “the Ethereum group ensures Polygon isn’t thought-about an L2 and isn’t included within the markets’ perceived Ethereum Beta.” He added {that a} “distinguished Polygon Stakeholder” scolded him as a result of he “can’t get Polygon on GrowthPie, which refuses to checklist the Polygon chain,” and contrasted how Polymarket’s success is credited to “Ethereum” at the same time as “Polygon itself just isn’t Ethereum. Thoughts-boggling.”
Regardless of the frustration, Nailwal mentioned he intends to strive as soon as extra to realign technical and social consensus round scaling: “I’m going to present this a closing push which may simply revive the complete L2 narrative. Simply bear with me for a number of extra weeks.” He concluded with a certified protection of the messiness: “Ethereum is a democracy — and in any democracy, folks on all sides find yourself disgruntled. But it surely’s nonetheless the one system that actually works in the long term.”
The thread drew speedy reactions from distinguished builders. Andre Cronje — who says he burned “over 700 ETH on deployments and ETH infra” throughout his Ethereum years — questioned EF’s help priorities outright. “I attempted contacting EF, by no means a response, no BD outreach, no grants, 0 help, not even a retweet,” Cronje wrote. Evaluating his expertise to Fantom’s Sonic ecosystem, he mentioned he was “confused” to see groups there obtain BD help, grants, TVL, audits and advertising, and requested: “If it isn’t the core builders, Peter & geth, and it isn’t the loudest L2 supporters (Sandeep and Polygon), the place is it going?”
Tommy Shaughnessy of Delphi Ventures framed the issue as under-compensation of irreplaceable expertise. “The Ethereum basis ought to be paying its builders like skilled athletes.[…] The Ethereum basis is mainly paying folks to go away. High builders ought to be paid like Professional Athletes.”
Vitalik Buterin Reacts
Buterin responded a number of hours later with an unusually private be aware of appreciation for each Nailwal and Polygon’s contributions, whereas additionally providing a technical path ahead. “I actually admire each @sandeepnailwal’s private contributions and @0xPolygon’s immensely invaluable function within the ethereum ecosystem,” he wrote, name-checking Polygon’s function internet hosting Polymarket, its early and resource-intensive bets on ZK-EVM proving (“bringing in Jordi Baylina’s workforce”), infrastructure for proof aggregation through AggLayer, and help for “purposes which have wanted excessive ranges of scalability.”
On the central technical query — whether or not Polygon can and will harden its safety ensures with fashionable zero-knowledge proofs — Buterin argued that the market has advanced towards a separation of considerations between L2 operators and ZK-prover specialists.
“It’s very troublesome to be each the perfect L2 and the perfect ZK workforce, the 2 are very completely different talent units,” he wrote, citing standalone ZK suppliers and urging Polygon to “choose up off the shelf ZK tech that has now gotten fairly good and apply it to the PoS chain to get full stage 1 and later stage 2 ensures from the ethereum L1.”
He emphasised how far the economics have moved: “Proving prices are round $0.0001/tx,” and mentioned many L2 groups “are very shocked once I inform them the current numbers… The newest ZK-EVMs, and reside tasks like @Lighter_xyz, present that that is false” with respect to the concept that ZK is unviable at hyperscale.
At press time, ETH traded at $3,873.
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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