‘We Scaled Ethereum, Got Zero Help’ – Polygon and Sonic Labs Slam Ethereum Foundation

Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal publicly questioned his loyalty to Ethereum after years of contributing to the ecosystem without receiving support from the Ethereum Foundation or ￰1￱ criticism came alongside revelations that former Geth lead developer Péter Szilágyi earned just $625,000 over six years working on Ethereum’s $480 billion ￰2￱ controversy intensified as Solana co-founder Raj Gokal openly suggested collaboration with Nailwal, while multiple developers criticized the Foundation’s treasury management and talent retention ￰3￱ Founder Questions Ecosystem Loyalty Nailwal stated that he “ started questioning his loyalty toward Ethereum , ” despite building infrastructure that scaled the network and hosting successful applications, such as ￰4￱ noted that “ I/we never got any direct support from the EF or the Ethereum CT community — in fact, the reverse ,” while maintaining moral loyalty that potentially cost “ billions of dollars in Polygon’s valuation. ” The Ethereum community refuses to classify Polygon PoS as a layer-2, despite its ecosystem including true L2s like Katana and XLayer, which creates market perception issues as competitors like Hedera Hashgraph achieve higher ￰5￱ Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, emphasized that “ Polygon PoS is a customer of Ethereum ” that pays significant fees to the network, arguing the Foundation should “ embrace ” rather than “ shun ” ￰6￱ referenced friends suggesting that Polygon declare itself an L1, noting that the chain would likely achieve a two- to five-times higher valuation with such ￰7￱ promised “ a final push that might just revive the entire L2 narrative ” in the coming weeks, while acknowledging that Ethereum operates as a democracy where “ people on all sides end up disgruntled. “ Read this from Peter and realized that it's time for me to also speak up.

NGL, I’ve started questioning my loyalty toward Ethereum. I did not come into crypto because of Bitcoin but because of Ethereum. I also have a lot of gratitude toward @VitalikButerin — someone I looked up… ￰0￱ — Sandeep | CEO, Polygon Foundation (※,※) (@sandeepnailwal) October 20, 2025 Developer Compensation Crisis Exposes Foundation Mismanagement Szilágyi revealed in a May 2024 letter to Foundation leadership that his total compensation for six years managing Ethereum’s primary execution client was $625,000 before taxes, with zero benefits, raises, or ￰8￱ described working at the Foundation as “ a bad financial decision “. He warned that the situation creates “ a perfect breeding ground for perverse incentives, conflicts of interests and eventual protocol capture. ” The former developer paraphrased Vitalik Buterin’s compensation philosophy as “ if someone’s not complaining that they are paid too little, then they are paid too much. “ Back in September, Protocol Guild data revealed that Ethereum core developers earn 50% to 60% below market standards , with a median base pay of $140,000 compared to average market offers of $359,000.

One developer reported declining a $700,000 package to continue core ￰9￱ 37% of contributors receive equity or token grants from employers, unlike commercial crypto ventures, which often offer significant upside ￰10￱ responses highlighted that the Foundation recently sold 10,000 ETH worth $43 million while maintaining insufficient developer ￰11￱ lead engineer for Ethereum is paid $105k a year, pre-tax, with no benefits, no raises, and no incentives ethereum has a market cap of $480b and the foundation recently sold $43m of $eth where is the money going? ￰12￱ — hype (@VarrockBank) October 20, 2025 Critics across crypto Twitter questioned where Foundation funds are directed, with some noting a grant abuse issue where projects receive over $200,000 for minimal work, while core developers remain ￰13￱ Foundation holds a massive ETH treasury without implementing treasury management or even staking its ￰14￱ Builders Migrate Vitalik Buterin responded to Nailwal’s criticism with appreciation for Polygon’s ￰15￱ highlighted the platform’s role in hosting Polymarket and advancing ZK-EVM technology through early investments in Jordi Baylina’s ￰16￱ noted Polygon’s “ immensely valuable role in the ethereum ecosystem ” and praised Nailwal’s personal efforts, including $190 million voluntarily returned from donated SHIB tokens that funded Balvi’s open-source biotech ￰17￱ suggested that Polygon could adopt off-the-shelf ZK technology, which has improved dramatically, with proving costs now around $0.0001 per transaction.

I really appreciate both @sandeepnailwal 's personal contributions and @0xPolygon 's immensely valuable role in the ethereum ￰18￱ recap: * Polygon hosts @Polymarket , which is probably the single most successful example of a "not just boring finance" app that has actually… — ￰19￱ (@VitalikButerin) October 21, 2025 Brendan Farmer from Polygon Zero countered that “ every zkVM running in prod ” except RiscZero runs on Polygon Zero’s technology, including Succinct Labs and ￰20￱ argued Polygon’s Plonky2 release was over 100 times faster than existing solutions from StarkWare, crediting the company for open-sourcing the work as a public ￰21￱ noted that the $0.0001 per transaction figures may be misleading when considering the actual costs of proving high-throughput chains that require over-provisioned ￰22￱ development team shared that after four years of building on Ethereum and Base without success, they moved to Solana six months ago and generated $3.5 million in revenue within 48 hours of their ￰23￱ spent 4 years building on ethereum and ￰24￱ took off. 6 months ago, we moved to @solana launched addicted → $3.5M in revenue in 48h, flipping pumpfun’s 24h ￰25￱ you’re still building on base or any eth L2, you’re wasting your ￰26￱ isn’t just… — Addicted (@addicteddotfun) October 20, 2025 They described the Base and Ethereum ecosystems as “ closed dinner parties ” with inner-circle dynamics, while Solana provides open, builder-first support regardless of project ￰27￱ a related development, the Foundation has begun decommissioning the Holesky testnet this week, following the completion of Fusaka-related testing , with node operators scheduled to shut down their infrastructure over the next ten days.