Ethereum scaling project Polygon has parted ways with research leader Prabal Banerjee as he joins his spin-off Avail, a modular blockchain project.
Banerjee has joined Avail as a co-founder, Avail said Friday. Avail spun off from Polygon last month, with Polygon co-founder Anurag Arjun leaving to manage Avail as a separate entity by taking over.
“I’ve been working on Avail with Anurag since I joined Polygon in 2020, starting with the initial design to creating a proof of concept and then launching a testnet,” Banerjee told The Block. “I believe in the Avail mission and the team behind Avail, and it was only natural that I would focus on that completely.”
Banerjee had decided to join Avail when Arjun left last month, but completed his ongoing duties at Polygon and left the company on April 14, he said. Polygon declined to comment on Banerjee’s departure.
Available, a modular blockchain project
Polygon started the Avail project in late 2020 and publicly introduced it in mid-2021. Avail is a modular blockchain that allows developers to build customizable and scalable applications. Unlike monolithic blockchains – such as Ethereum and Solana – modular blockchains break down and treat the essential functions of data consensus, security, availability and execution separately.
“This enables developers to build fast, efficient and scalable applications,” said Avail.
With its platform, the project hopes to meet both independent chain developers and scale projects.
“Blockchain development is a very niche space due to various complexities that come with chain rolling, and it shouldn’t be,” said Banerjee. “That’s why we want to provide a robust and secure data availability API so that chain developers can get security up and running in minutes and focus on business and execution logic.”
Polygon’s Avail team is moving
Avail is currently live on a testnet and the mainnet is expected to launch around the fourth quarter of this year, Banerjee said. There are currently 20 people working on the project. Last month, Polygon’s entire Avail team moved to the new entity.
While Avail is currently being developed by the team, it plans to create a non-profit called the Avail Foundation in the future, eventually handing governance over to a community. That suggests that Avail could launch its own token, but Banerjee declined to comment.
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