Polygon co-founder sees no future for Solana, Aptos, Avalanche, Cardano

Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal said Ethereum would emerge as the dominant smart contract protocol — with all other competing layer 1s falling by the wayside.

Speaking to Ran Neuner on the Crypto Banter YouTube channel, Nailwal described his future vision of the crypto landscape:

“I don’t think there’s going to be a multi-layer 2 environment. There’ll be a layer 1 environment; there will be one single layer 1, which is Ethereum in my mind.”

User activity will happen on layer 2s that interact with the Ethereum base layer, said Nailwal.

Neuner said, “that’s a big statement,” and asked Nailwal to clarify whether if thinks the likes of Solana, Aptos, Avalanche, and Cardano will eventually disappear.

Nailwal said that none of the previously mentioned protocols had demonstrated significant traction, nor have their respective layer 2s. With that, he declared that no other chain could compete with Ethereum.

“I don’t see any significant traction on any of these chains.”

The video elicited a wide range of comments — one user pointed out that layers 2s exist to patch the failings of the base layer and that “new layer 1s” require no patching.

Others spoke of Nailwal’s shortsightedness for dismissing the multi-chain future.

Polygon woes

On Feb. 21, Polygon announced cutting 20% of its workforce due to prevailing macroeconomic conditions.

Despite the reduction in headcount, the company said it remains in a strong financial position — including cash holdings of over $250 million and a MATIC war chest to the tune of 1.9 billion tokens, valued at approximately $2.7 billion.

Users mentioned a delay in block production that lasted around two hours on Feb. 22. Nailwal attributed the issue to a problem with the native block explorer and recommended users use OKLink in the meantime.