From Polygon's Shadow to Independence: How Jordi Baylina's Zisk Reimagines Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machines

When Polygon Foundation pivoted its strategic focus in mid-June, one of crypto’s most ambitious technical initiatives faced an uncertain future. But rather than fade into history, Jordi Baylina and the core development team behind the zero-knowledge EVM chose a different route: independence. On June 18, Baylina announced the formal launch of Zisk, a newly independent project that inherits both the technical foundation and ambitious mission of what Polygon’s zkEVM promised but never fully delivered.

The path to independence: when billion-dollar bets hit a wall

The timeline tells a revealing story. Since May 2024, Baylina’s team had been incubating what would become Zisk within Polygon’s structure. By June 13, the separation was formalized. The carve-out was triggered by a broader leadership transition—Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal took the helm of the Polygon Foundation and immediately recalibrated priorities. The zero-knowledge EVM, which had been consuming over $1 million annually, was deprioritized in favor of Polygon PoS and the AggLayer interoperability protocol.

For a project that had attracted nine figures in investment, this represented a significant strategic abandonment. Blockchain researchers noted the quiet pivot with some surprise: Polygon’s original zkEVM vision had been technically innovative, yet it struggled to achieve the performance characteristics that real-world applications demanded. Rather than fight an uphill battle within a shifting organization, Baylina and his team recognized the opportunity to rebuild on their own terms.

All intellectual property—including the codebases developed under Polygon—transferred to SilentSig GmbH, a Swiss entity fully owned by Baylina, ensuring complete technical and operational independence.

The technical differentiation: where Zisk diverges

While existing zero-knowledge virtual machines prioritize EVM compatibility above all else, Zisk’s architecture takes a fundamentally different approach. The priority: low-latency proof generation. This distinction matters enormously for use cases like decentralized exchanges and blockchain gaming, where verification speed directly impacts user experience and scalability.

Preliminary benchmarks suggest the efficiency gains are substantial—early data indicates Zisk’s proof generation could be 40-60% faster than current incumbents. However, independent audits will be essential to validate these performance claims under real-world conditions.

Jordi Baylina has also committed to maintaining Zisk’s open-source heritage, preserving the permissionless nature of the codebase. This ensures the project remains accessible to the broader developer community rather than becoming a proprietary tool.

What’s at stake for the zero-knowledge ecosystem

Zisk’s emergence reflects a broader tension in crypto infrastructure: the gap between what projects promise and what they deliver. Polygon’s original zkEVM ambition was genuine, but it carried architectural legacy and organizational constraints that limited its potential. The spinout creates space for a cleaner, more focused execution.

Whether Zisk can achieve its performance targets and gain meaningful adoption will depend on execution, developer adoption, and the ability to integrate smoothly with existing DeFi and gaming ecosystems. But the fact that a respected team like Baylina’s chose independence over organizational inertia signals something important: technical credibility and clear architectural vision still matter in an industry cluttered with compromises.

The next chapter of zero-knowledge virtual machine development may well be written by builders willing to leave institutional backing behind.