Polygon zkEVM Team to Spin Off ZisK
Date: 2025-06-19 Author: Oliver Abernathy Categories: BUSINESS
Polygon co-founder Jordi Beilina, along with a team of seven developers who previously worked on the Polygon zkEVM project, have founded an independent startup called ZisK. This decision follows a significant change in Polygon management, with Sandeep Nailwal, one of the co-founders of the network, now serving as CEO of the Polygon Foundation and taking full control of the project.
As part of Polygon's new strategic development directions, the head of the L2 platform announced that the Polygon zkEVM project will be closed in 2026 to focus on the development of Polygon PoS and AggLayer. Experts such as Lorenz Lehmann from Growthepie note that Polygon zkEVM was generating losses of over a million dollars annually. The platform initially operated under the name Hermez, but was renamed in 2021 after being acquired for $250 million.
ZisK positions itself as an innovative solution for zk technologies - "a high-performance open-source zkVM stack" that was previously created inside Polygon. During the transition, all intellectual property rights for the project were transferred to Jordi Beilina's company - SilentSig Switzerland GmbH. At the same time, Beilina will continue to consult Polygon on L2 solutions.
ZisK technology is built on a modular architecture using the universal zkProver. The system can be used as a standalone software or a library for creating and verifying your own zk proofs. The developers offer Ethereum projects direct integration of the technology or the ability to adapt the code for specific tasks.
It is worth noting that at the end of 2024, a major liquid staking protocol Lido stopped supporting Polygon PoS, which was another important event in the ecosystem.
Thus, the separation of the Polygon zkEVM team and the creation of ZisK marks a change in focus within Polygon and the emergence of a new independent initiative aimed at developing cutting-edge solutions in the field of zk computing.
