Bjelic is the third Polygon co-founder to exit the blockchain network within the last two years, fueling concerns within the community regarding the protocol’s future.
Mihailo Bjelic, one of the co-founders of Polygon, has decided to step down from the board of the Polygon Foundation. This makes him the third founder to walk away from the protocol after Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun. According to his post on X, Bjelic plans to stick around, cheering on Polygon from the sidelines.
Why is Bjelic Stepping Down From Polygon Leadership?
Though not explicitly explained, the Polygon co-founder acknowledged that the project has evolved and matured.
Hence, he noted, “It is natural for visions to evolve, and sometimes diverge.” The guess is that his exit from the ecosystem board is the divergence he speaks about. Furthermore, Bjelic clearly stated that he could no longer contribute to Polygon.
PSA: After much thought and reflection, I’ve decided to step down from the board of the Polygon Foundation, and wind down my day-to-day involvement with Polygon Labs.
I was introduced to crypto in 2013 (damn, time flies). By 2017, I was deep down the rabbit hole, fascinated by…
— Mihailo Bjelic (@MihailoBjelic) May 23, 2025
At the same time, he remains positive about the work the Layer-2 scaling solution built on Ethereum will do going forward. On this note, the crypto innovator promised to show his support from the background.
The exit from the Polygon Foundation board adds Bjelic to co-founders Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun, who equally left their active roles at the blockchain project a while ago. Arjun was the first to step down as a board member in March 2023. He left to focus on Avail, his modular blockchain project, whose main network went live in 2024.
Seven months later, Kanani also decided it was time to retire. Today, Sandeep Nailwal is the only co-founder on the protocol’s board at the Polygon Foundation.
Together with Nailwal, all four individuals founded the Ethereum-based L2 eight years ago. During this time, the ecosystem has recorded notable growth. It even went from being referred to as Matic Network to Polygon. More recently, it completed the migration of the MATIC token to POL, reflecting its evolution.
“From significant breakthroughs in zero-knowledge tech, to onboarding some of the world’s biggest brands, we’ve made meaningful strides toward that grand vision,” Bjelic wrote on X on May 23, 2025.
Bjelic claimed that he had been in the crypto space since 2013.
In light of the latest development, the Polygon co-founder also revealed plans to stop working with Polygon Labs daily.
Is Polygon In Distress?
The announcement of Bjelic’s exit from the Polygon Labs and Polygon Foundation board has ignited some reactions among crypto community members. Several people are disturbed by the trend of exits, with some regarding the latest as a loss to Polygon. This is based on Bjelic’s contributions to major advancements recorded by the protocol.
Other entities are citing a potential problem with the ecosystem, although no one has been able to substantiate these claims. Polygon faced some difficulties at the beginning of 2025 as it suffered from declining network health. At this time, several analysts and market observers feared that POL would record a sizable decline.
As of this writing, the price of POL was trading at $0.2368, corresponding to a 3.72% dip, likely influenced by the update of Bjelic’s exit.
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