Sandeep Nailwal is a Delhi-based software developer who began his IT career in 2010 as a software engineer at Computer Sciences Corporation. In 2014, he joined Deloitte as a consultant and worked on management consulting and program management initiatives. From 2015 to 2016, Nailwal worked as the chief technology and supply chain officer for Welspun Group.
In March 2016, Nailwal launched ScopeWeaver as CEO, but became interested in AI and blockchain technology soon after. In 2017, Nailwal joined Polygon (Matic Network) as co-founder and chief operating officer.
As an Ethereum scalability solution, the Polygon network had a breakthrough year in 2021, with its cryptocurrency MATIC rising almost 29,000%. Under Nailwal’s guidance, the price surge may have been triggered by Polygon’s activity over the year.
On Aug. 19, Polygon Network announced the formation of a decentralized autonomous organization. The system aims to create committees that promote discussion between projects like Sushi, Aave, QuickSwap and others to “expand DeFi to the next million users.”
On Sept. 14, EY and Polygon announced a collaborative effort to create and implement scaling and enterprise solutions for the Ethereum ecosystem. Polygon and EY will collaborate on Polygon Nightfall — a public, privacy-focused rollup.
On Dec. 9, Polygon announced its purchase of Mir, a zero-knowledge cryptography company based in Zurich, for $400 million. Mir engineers will now be contributing to the Polygon Zero project, which will use zero-knowledge technology to help create a “highly-scalable, Ethereum-compatible ZK Rollup.”
In 2021, Nailwal launched the COVID-19 relief fund, urging his Twitter followers to donate tokens to a multi-signature ERC-20 address. “Can’t take this sitting down anymore, I am going to run a COVID relief campaign in lieu of what’s going on in India,” Nailwal tweeted. Prominent industry participants such as former Coinbase chief technology officer and angel investor Balaji Srinivasan as well as former Australian cricket star Brett Lee chipped in with donations. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also contributed 500 Ether and 50 trillion SHIB, at a market value of more than $1.14 billion at the time.
The COVID-Crypto Relief Fund has recently signed a collaboration with UNICEF India to provide 160 million syringes for the country’s vaccination campaign, and it has partnered with several organizations in India to offer ICU beds, CPR training and more.
According to Nailwal, there are more than 3,000 active development teams on the platform, and they should reach 5,000 soon. He also mentioned that Polygon’s daily active users have increased to 50% more than Ethereum’s. With the growing popularity of gaming and NFTs, this will be an interesting watch in 2022 as the Metaverse craze begins.
Polygon has seen a tenfold boost in its market capitalization due to the growing popularity of its blockchain among gaming platforms, NFTs and decentralized finance. As of Dec. 31, 2021, MATIC reached a market value of $18 billion and has been a regular among the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
On Dec. 17, 2021, Polygon announced the formation of a $200 million venture capital fund with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s startup Seven Seven Six. As part of the partnership, there are plans to invest in gaming, social media and Web3 projects that are being developed on Polygon. Having these platforms created on Polygon is expected to dramatically improve the network’s usage in 2022.
DeFi, Tech
