Slumdog billionaire: Incredible rags-to-riches tale of Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal

From his puerility surviving successful a ghetto connected the eastbound slope of the Yamuna stream successful Dehli to launching the $6-billion Polygon blockchain, Sandeep Nailwal has an unthinkable rags-to-riches tale.

Now happily ensconced successful the futuristic, air-conditioned cityscape of Dubai, helium tells Magazine helium was calved successful a farming colony successful 1987 with nary energy called Ramnagar successful the foothills of the Himalayas.

His parents joined arsenic teenagers and past packed up location erstwhile Nailwal was conscionable 4 to effort their luck successful Dehli. They coiled up successful the mediocre settlements connected the eastbound banks of the river, often dismissively referred to arsenic Jamna-Paar.

“Imagine the Bronx successful New York,” Nailwal says. “It was similar a tier-three area. Even now, erstwhile you spell determination is simply a precise benignant of ghetto-ish area.”

An representation of portion of the Jamna-Paar country successful Dehli. (thecitizen.in)

He remembers tons of cows roaming the roads and amerciable guns, though helium says knives were the limb of choice. “When worldly needs to beryllium done, past weapon is the champion tool,” helium says of the attitude.

The Oscar-winning movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was renamed successful India. Crore equates to 10 cardinal rupees. (Amazon)

Nailwal didn’t be schoolhouse until helium was five, successful a state and play wherever galore schools accepted children arsenic young arsenic 2 and a half, chiefly due to the fact that his parents didn’t cognize immoderate better.

“My begetter and parent some were benignant of similar illiterate people; they did not adjacent recognize that the kid should beryllium sent to a schoolhouse aft 3 years oregon whatever. So, idiosyncratic successful my country who utilized to person a tiny schoolhouse said: ‘Why is your kid not going to school?’ And past I started going to school.”

He waves astatine an ordinary-sized country down him successful Dubai, saying the schoolhouse was “almost the aforesaid size” with 20 kids crammed in. Home beingness wasn’t overmuch better.

“My begetter became an alcoholic and got into gambling. So, helium would marque similar $80 to $90 a month, and retired of that, mostly galore times, helium would suffer each of it,” says Nailwal. As a result, the household was often down connected paying the school’s monthly fees, “so they volition marque you basal outside, and it’s fundamentally a precise traumatic acquisition arsenic a kid.”

Sandeep Nailwal. (Polygon)

Also read: ZK-rollups are ‘the endgame’ for scaling blockchains: Polygon Miden founder

Experiences similar that successful his formative years helped Nailwal recognize the benignant of antheral helium didn’t privation to beryllium and forge his determination to succeed. Now the caput of his ain family, with a young kid named Adi, helium says becoming a dada made him bespeak connected however helium hopes to bash things amended than his ain father. But the speech takes a astonishing crook erstwhile Nailwal reveals helium was really thrust into a paternal caring role, looking aft his babe member erstwhile helium was conscionable 10.

“I would accidental successful a way, my archetypal lad is my ain brother,” helium says, his dependable becoming heavy with emotion. “So, basically, erstwhile helium was precise young, helium met with an mishap astatine that constituent successful time. So, I would accidental that’s wherever my puerility ended fundamentally due to the fact that I had to instrumentality attraction of him.”

Young entrepreneur

Nailwal got his commencement successful concern arsenic a teenager, selling pens from a friend’s store astatine a decent markup successful schoolhouse and tutoring different students. After helium graduated, helium hoped to instrumentality an insanely competitory engineering exam for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) but couldn’t spend the other tuition helium needed to get an borderline among “1 cardinal students warring for astir 5,000 seats.”

He ended up getting accepted into the tier-two MAIT assemblage successful Dehli and took retired a indebtedness to enactment himself done a machine subject and engineering degree.

Supremely ambitious and perchance a tad overconfident, helium saw his aboriginal going down 2 imaginable paths based connected 2 notable relation models: Either articulation a institution and enactment his mode up to go “global CEO” similar PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi oregon commencement up a revolutionary net concern similar Mark Zuckerberg did with Facebook.

“I was inspired by each this hype astir Facebook in 2004, 2005,” helium says, recalling the aggravated media sum of Zuckerberg successful India astatine the time. “I said to myself — and it was precise anserine astatine that clip — similar I privation to physique my ain Facebook. That’s wherefore I chose machine science.”

Sandeep Nailway successful Cointelegraph Top 100 2023. (Cointelegraph)

During his assemblage degree, his talents successful information investigation saw him get a gig moving connected electorate investigation enactment for the determination BJP enactment — present India’s ruling party. After a abbreviated stint successful the workforce aft university, helium returned to survey astatine the National Institute for Training successful Industrial Engineering (now the Indian Institute of Management) to get his MBA, wherever helium met his wife, Harshita Singh.

Although a highly regarded worker astatine Deloitte, and past Welspun textiles, wherever helium was rapidly promoted to caput of exertion for e-commerce, Nailwal ne'er stopped moving connected his ain projects. He’d walk each time astatine work, past spell location and enactment connected projects similar a GPS-based strategy to optimize cargo conveyance deliveries oregon a B2B work level for task management.

Nailwal says helium felt helium wasn’t capable to prosecute a startup full-time, arsenic helium felt taste unit and a work to get his household retired of the one-bedroom rental they were successful and into their ain home. And cipher would springiness a location indebtedness to a 27-year-old with intermittent income from a fledgling business.

But Harshita 1 time said, “You volition ne'er beryllium blessed this way,” helium recalls. “She said, ‘I don’t attraction astir my ain house; we tin enactment and rent.’ That was a precise large load distant from me.”

In his past period of work, helium borrowed $15,000 truthful helium could spend to wage for a wedding 1 day, and past started to enactment connected the B2B services marketplace afloat time, which helium ran for a twelvemonth until helium realized it would ne'er standard up the mode helium wanted.

Bitcoin revolution

Instead, helium looked to get into “deep tech,” archetypal considering past abandoning AI arsenic it was beyond his mathematical abilities. Bitcoin was starting to get immoderate property astatine that clip owed to the upcoming halving successful 2016.

Nailwal had heard astir Bitcoin backmost successful 2013 but initially wrote it disconnected arsenic “some benignant of Ponzi scheme.” After discovering it had lasted the distance, helium thought it worthy of further investigation. Reading the “beautifully written” achromatic paper, helium realized:

“Oh, this is large — this is the adjacent gyration of humanity.”

Converted, helium was hopeless to get “skin successful the game” and, implicit the adjacent 3 months, tipped the $15,000 wedding indebtedness into Bitcoin astatine $800 a piece. Looking back, helium says it was an insanely risky determination fixed his finances astatine the time.

“The level of FOMO I had, it would person been precisely the aforesaid if I was 1 twelvemonth late. And I would person done the aforesaid happening astatine $20,000. Yeah, and I would person mislaid each that money, and it would person been really, truly problematic for me.”

But arsenic a builder, helium wanted blockchain to beryllium astir much than conscionable payments, which led him to Ethereum’s afloat programmability. “I was similar this is the thing, this is the happening I want,” helium says.

Sandeep Nailwal and Anurag Arjun successful the aboriginal days of Matic. (Twitter)

Throwing himself into the space, Nailwal founded a blockchain services startup called Scope Weaver successful 2016 and became well-known arsenic a moderator connected section Ethereum forums. That’s wherever helium met a “hardcore programmer” named Jaynti “JD” Kanan, who kept suggesting helium walk his $400,000 Bitcoin stash investing successful his startup ideas.

Kanan suggested they enactment connected fixing Ethereum’s scaling problems by processing the layer-2 Plasma exertion projected by Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Poon successful August that year, which helped offload transactions to faster and little crowded broadside chains. Nailwal agreed and helped rise $30,000 successful effect backing to physique a product, with Anurag Arju joining arsenic different co-founder and Matic Network officially launching successful aboriginal 2018. The task was bootstrapped connected the odor of an oily rag. All up, helium says, the Matic Network survived for its archetypal 2 years connected $165,000 of full funding.

It's #ThrowbackThursday!

Rewinding to August 2018, we delve into an insightful treatment with Sandeep Nailwal, CEO of Polygon Labs, who foresaw the imaginable of $MATIC successful its infancy.

Sandeep's foresight was evident arsenic helium led conversations connected crypto interoperability mode back… pic.twitter.com/k2hGBmn2wO

— Token Metrics (@tokenmetricsinc) September 14, 2023

Matic Network astir dies

Having watched endless projects rise millions with vaporware archetypal coin offerings, the squad was determined not to motorboat a token merchantability until they had a product.

They would travel to regret this determination bitterly. Launching straight into the large crypto marketplace clang of aboriginal 2018, the ICO marketplace was beardown for a fewer months aft but petered retired by the clip their runway was increasing short.

“We benignant of ignored that opportunity,” helium says. “Which was really, truly achy aboriginal on.”

“We had this immense accidental of raising $10 million. We near it; we did not bash it. And present we person nary wealth to build. I retrieve that 1 clip I had to astir beg 1 of the different founders of 1 task from India to assistance america $50,000 truthful that we tin tally for 3 much months.”

Shortly earlier his marriage, Nailwal traveled to transportation to a Chinese money that seemed keen to put $500,000 successful the struggling project. He recalls being delighted 2 days earlier his marriage, with a location afloat of guests, that everything was going to beryllium OK.

His wedding to his woman Harshita Singh. (Facebook)

“Everybody’s happy, and I’m besides contented that we volition get $500,000 present (for Matic Network), and suddenly, Bitcoin goes from $6,000 to $3,000. That money aft that simply said, ‘No, we volition not put present due to the fact that we were going to put 100 BTC; present the worth is half, truthful we are not investing.’”

Even worse, the project’s treasury was inactive successful Bitcoin and had besides halved successful value.

“That was a precise traumatic acquisition for maine astir that constituent due to the fact that I should not person speculated connected this money, which is the company’s Treasury,” helium says, meaning that helium should person cashed retired oregon turned it into stablecoins.

“So, I was truly aggravated astatine myself, and this happening went away. By that time, we had similar seven, eight, 10 radical [in Matic]. They are besides [attending] my marriage, and we are enjoying it and each that but heavy down, I cognize that ‘shit, we mightiness not person this squad successful the adjacent two, 3 months.’”

His wedding to his woman Harshita Singh. (Facebook)

Binance is really diligent

Toward the extremity of 2018 and aboriginal 2019, the accidental came up to rise funds successful an archetypal speech offering connected Binance Launchpad. While the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission thinks Binance is simply a clump of cowboys who will judge immoderate aged autobus pass arsenic Know Your Customer verification, Nailwal says the exchange’s owed diligence was perchance excessively diligent.

“Nobody believed that determination could beryllium a protocol coming from Indian co-founders. And determination were 2 oregon 3 projects which turned retired to beryllium scams, and everybody was precise wary,” helium says. Matic ended up going done 8 months of valuation earlier getting the motion to rise $5.6 cardinal successful $300 tons to the winners of a ballot.

Nailwal says, “At that constituent successful time, $5 cardinal was a precise bully amount.”

“If Binance had said, ‘You tin rise $1.5 cardinal oregon $1 million,’ we would adjacent settee for that due to the fact that we had a conflict for survival. But erstwhile we launched connected Binance, things became overmuch better.”

That marked a turning constituent for Matic, which survived the 2020 pandemic marketplace clang and grew from less than 1,000 regular users astatine the extremity of that twelvemonth to surpass Ethereum’s idiosyncratic numbers with 550,000 successful October 2021. It besides flipped Ethereum’s transaction numbers that year, too. Rebranding arsenic Polygon, it surged from a marketplace headdress of $87 cardinal astatine the commencement of 2021 to astir $19 cardinal by the extremity of the year.

Nailwal was present 1 of the richest and astir palmy radical successful the cryptocurrency industry. But helium wasn’t satisfied, by a agelong shot.

“Being successful apical 10, apical 15 projects brings nary restitution to me. It’s precise wide successful my caput that I privation Polygon to person that benignant of interaction which Ethereum and Bitcoin person had.”

Look retired for portion two, which tells the communicative of however Polygon became 1 of the cardinal players successful the abstraction and Nailwal’s plans to marque it a top-3 project.