Matic Kept Its Chain as Polygon Expanded Its Scope and Changed Token

1. Three names on a narrow proposal

Polygon Labs’ later account says Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal and Anurag Arjun co-founded the protocol in 2017. The Matic whitepaper separately names the same three as its authors. Their proposal did not promise to replace Ethereum. It made a narrower diagnosis: congestion and awkward user experience kept smart-contract applications from reaching large audiences, so Matic would work with Ethereum first and preserve the developer ecosystem already forming around it.^[4][1]

That choice shaped the project’s identity. Matic proposed an adapted Plasma framework, a proof-of-stake checkpointing layer and block producers that would execute transactions away from Ethereum before committing checkpoints back to it. The paper also described wallets, payment APIs and software kits because the founders treated slow confirmation and difficult interfaces as one product problem, not two separate complaints.^[1]

“Matic Network strives to solve the scalability and usability issues, while not compromising on decentralization and leveraging the existing developer community and ecosystem.”^[1]

— Matic whitepaper, version 1.1

2. The design met a deliberately cautious launch

By the whitepaper’s own account, Matic had a working test network and an alpha mainnet configuration using Ethereum as its base chain. That document is evidence of what the team had built and intended at the time; its throughput targets and future fraud-proof work were design claims, not proof that every promised component was already operating in production.^[1]

The public mainnet sequence in May 2020 exposed a practical compromise. Step one allowed only Matic Foundation nodes and validators invited by the team. The announcement said the Foundation and selected validators would control more than two-thirds of stake during this phase so early faults could be resolved quickly. Public validator slots would then open in batches before a fully validator-run network.^[2][7]

The launch also kept MATIC as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. Users could move tokens into the new system through a bridge while the token contract remained on Ethereum. Matic therefore launched a new execution network without pretending that every asset and validator relationship had become independent on day one.^[2]

3. Polygon was an expansion, not a replacement

On February 9, 2021, Matic Network announced that it would become Polygon. The announcement expanded the product and technical scope from operating Plasma and PoS chains to supporting a broader set of Ethereum scaling systems. It also made an unusually important continuity promise: the existing Matic PoS and Plasma implementations would remain functional and receive continued development.^[3]

“From the beginning, we have had one and only one mission — scale Ethereum for mass adoption.”^[3]

— Jaynti Kanani, Polygon rebrand announcement

The name change therefore created two histories that are easy to collapse. Polygon became the umbrella for a growing portfolio, including later zero-knowledge work, while Polygon PoS remained the operating chain descended from Matic. Calling the entire portfolio one “Layer 2” hides differences among a sidechain, a Plasma design and rollups that publish proofs to Ethereum. The project’s own rebrand notice distinguished those components.^[3]

4. The wider portfolio changed the founding team

A broader product scope also produced harder boundaries. On March 16, 2023, Polygon Labs announced that Avail, its data-availability project, would become a separate, self-funded entity. Anurag Arjun, named with Kanani and Nailwal as a 2017 co-founder, stepped down from Polygon Labs and the Polygon Foundation to lead Avail. This was a documented organizational split, not a story of three founders moving forever as one unit.^[4]

Polygon Labs explained the decision as a way to focus more closely on Ethereum-native data availability and ZK scaling, including support for EIP-4844. Avail would pursue protocol-agnostic modular infrastructure under Arjun. The same scalability problem had produced two institutional answers: one tied its roadmap more tightly to Ethereum, while the other left to serve many chains.^[4]

The spinout matters because it shows what the 2021 expansion cost as well as what it enabled. Polygon could collect several scaling approaches under one brand, but it still had to decide which research belonged inside the organization. Avail’s independence narrowed Polygon Labs’ focus even as the Polygon name continued to suggest a large family of technologies.^[4][3]

5. Even the token name became part of the redesign

On September 4, 2024, Polygon made POL the native gas and staking token of Polygon PoS. MATIC already held on Polygon PoS required no holder action, while MATIC held on Ethereum received a 1:1 upgrade path through Polygon Portal. The announcement separated what was live immediately from possible future POL roles across an aggregated network, which remained subject to later community decisions.^[5]

The token change completed a pattern that began with the rebrand. The original PoS chain was not discarded, yet the name attached to its gas, staking and wider roadmap changed. Matic became Polygon without shutting down Matic PoS; then MATIC gave way to POL while the chain continued to process transactions. Continuity was carried by the network and its Ethereum alignment rather than by one permanent label.^[3][5]

That is the more durable founding story. The founders made the initial choice to scale Ethereum rather than compete with it, and they opened the network under controlled conditions. Polygon Labs later separated Avail as Arjun left, and the project then migrated MATIC to POL. Those sequential decisions changed who operated and built the system, and which token paid for gas and secured the chain, while Ethereum alignment remained the organizing constraint.^[1][2][4][5]