Polygon zkEVM Team Launches Independent Startup ZisK

Co-founder of Polygon, Jordi Baylina, along with a team of seven developers behind Polygon zkEVM, has transitioned to an independent project named ZisK.

Me, together with a core team of 7 developers, just spun off from Polygon to continue the ZisK project as an independent initiative.
I’ll remain co-founder and advisor at Polygon, but my main focus now shifts to @ziskvm.
Excited for this new era in the blockchain journey — we… https://t.co/aCOvbm3BX4

— Jordi Baylina — baylina.eth (@jbaylina) June 18, 2025

The decision follows recent leadership changes at Polygon, which saw co-founder Sandeep Nailwal assume full control of the Polygon Foundation as its first CEO.

As part of these changes, the head of the L2 platform introduced new strategic priorities for the project. Among other things, they included the closure of Polygon zkEVM in 2026 to focus on the development of Polygon PoS and AggLayer.

Growthepie’s head of research, Lorenz Lehmann, noted that the network had been operating at a loss of over $1 million annually. Initially, the project was called Hermez, which was rebranded to Polygon zkEVM in 2021 following a $250 million acquisition.

What is ZisK?

According to the announcement shared by Baylina, ZisK represents a “new era” for zero-knowledge proof technology:

“A high-performance open-source zkVM stack developed at Polygon has now spun off as an independent project.”

As part of the transition, all intellectual property of Polygon zkEVM was transferred to Baylina’s company, SilentSig Switzerland GmbH. He will remain an advisor for the L2 solution.

ZisK features a modular design and is built on universal zkProver technology. The system functions as a library or standalone software for creating custom proofs. The team offers Ethereum projects direct integration of the technology into protocols or the ability to modify the code to suit their needs.

In December 2024, the largest liquid staking protocol, Lido, ceased support for Polygon PoS.