Polygon Co-Founder Leaves to Independently Pursue Avail Blockchain

Avail Modular Blockchain

Polygon Co-Founder Anurag Arjun is leaving the Ethereum Layer-2 project to pursue development of the modular blockchain Avail.

In a Twitter thread, Arjun said he started Avail within Polygon Labs in 2020. Now, Polygon has to focus on its L2 solutions, and the Layer-1 Avail chain falls outside that scope.

“Avail as a modular blockchain with a data availability layer is uniquely positioned to help developers overcome the challenges of monolithic blockchains but falls outside Polygon's L2 solutions. Thus, I offered to continue leading Avail as a separate, self-funded entity,” he said.

In a blog post, Arjun described Avail as “a base consensus layer that allows other blockchains or applications with any execution environment to be built on top,” with a peer-to-peer network providing Data Availability Sampling.

Avail is being built to enable the development of blockchain scaling solutions including sovereign rollups (especially ZK), sovereign chains, Validiums, Optimistic chains and “Various new constructions made possible via a secure data ordering and availability API,” according to the blog post.

Avail is currently in testnet. Arjun said he hopes to provide information soon on the timing of the public mainnet launch.

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What is Polygon:

Polygon is a “sidechain” scaling solution that runs alongside the Ethereum blockchain — allowing for speedy transactions and low fees. MATIC is the network’s native cryptocurrency, which is used for fees, staking, and more. The effectiveness of Polygon as an alternative to Ethereum has seen existing projects such as Aave and Curve adopting its chain.

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