Polygon Co-founder Mihailo Bjelic has officially concluded his time as a member of the Polygon Foundation board. He gradually stopped being involved in Polygon Labs’ daily activities.

Bjelic informed his community of his desire to resign in an X post on May 23, 2025. The choice came after he had given the situation a lot of thought and reflection, he explained.

Key-Takeaways:

• Mihailo Bjelic’s exit marks the third founding member to leave, reflecting Polygon’s evolving vision as it matures.
• Despite departures, Polygon remains strong with rising user activity, stablecoin supply, and new ecosystem initiatives like the Agglayer Breakout Program.

How the Change Unsettled the Polygon Landscape

While he didn’t mention what he would do next, the Polygon Co-founder said there had been changes in the team’s future plans. Visions are expected to shift and sometimes differ from the original plan when projects grow and mature, as Bjelic said in the announcement, “Because of this, I cannot support Polygon to the extent I have been able to.”

Bjelic started learning about blockchain back in 2013 after discovering cryptocurrency. By the year 2017, the Polygon Co-founder had fully immersed himself in the space.

In 2019, he was part of the project that later evolved into Polygon, a top solution for scaling Ethereum. He led the way in zero-knowledge technology which attracted leading brands from around the world.

People in the crypto world acted swiftly after learning about the Polygon Co-founder’s announcement. Many people acknowledged the benefits of his involvement on the project.

Sandeep Nailwal, fellow co-founder, believes that Bjelic has driven much of what Polygon stands for today. Head of marketing Leon Stern also expressed gratitude and wished the board member luck in his future career.

It’s hard to put into words what you mean to me and to Polygon. More than a co-founder, you’re a brother. From the earliest days — whiteboards full of ideas, endless whitepapers, governance frameworks, strategy calls deep into the night — you have been a force behind so much of…

— Sandeep | Polygon (※,※) (@sandeepnailwal) May 23, 2025

A Series of Departures From Important Positions

Bjelic’s announcement is the third example of a founding member leaving the company in recent times. It underlines a new development in the project’s leadership.

This resignation follows earlier resignations by Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun. Arjun departed shortly after releasing Avail which today functions as an independent layer that he oversees.

Even with these changes, those who monitor the industry say that this kind of shift often happens when blockchain projects advance and the founding team wants to move in different directions. Although some people are concerned by the move, the network’s main activities and procedures have not been disrupted.

Polygon Has Continued to Perform Well

The announcement from the Polygon Co-founder has come when the network is performing well. Q1 figures for 2025 reflect that Polygon is still growing steadily.

Active addresses making trades every day increased from 522,000 to 546,000 with a rise of 4.4%. Transactions each day were at 3.4 million, an increase of 8% over the previous quarter.

Supply in the network’s stablecoin market increased notably, by 23.3%, hitting $2 billion, largely because of rising USDC supply. This progress suggests that people still believe in the strength of Polygon’s financial framework during a time of market ups and downs. 

Trading within the NFT sector surged, as daily deals reached $1.4 million which is a significant 68.2% rise from the previous three months.

Although the DeFi sector saw a drop of 14% in total value locked, there were big increases in both users and activity in the gaming sector. It seems from the numbers that Polygon’s community is growing well and now has many uses that do not depend directly on the Polygon Co-founder.

Polygon keeps moving forward by announcing new strategies to grow its ecosystem. One important effort is the Agglayer Breakout Program which was just announced.

The goal is to launch high-value chains to improve the network’s ability to bring together different services. Version 0.2 of this cross-chain settlement layer launched with the Polygon software in early 2025, after being built in partnership with other organizations.

Led by both the Polygon Foundation and Polygon Labs, the program is designed to introduce major projects that encourage activity on both Agglayer and Polygon PoS. Web3 is becoming a greater focus, as seen by Jio Platforms joining the Web3 space and DigiShares starting RealEstate.Exchange on the network.

Conclusion

Mihailo Bjelic leaving as Polygon Co-founder signifies the close of an important age for the network. The project’s considerable strengths and ongoing growth suggest it will continue to grow after Polygon departed. Bjelic is suggesting he will still be involved with blockchain, which means we may see his impact in the future.