Exclusive Interview with Avail Co-founder Anurag Arjun: What We're Building Will Far Surpass Polygon
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Exclusive Interview with Avail Co-founder Anurag Arjun: What We're Building Will Far Surpass Polygon
From Polygon, beyond Polygon?
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsInterview and translation: Wendy, Alex Liu, Foresight News
"Honestly, if I had stayed at Polygon, I could have retired. The reason I left to build Avail is that deep down, I believe it will become something far greater than Polygon."
As a co-founder of Polygon, Anurag Arjun makes no secret of his ambition for his new project, Avail.
The project, aimed at providing infrastructure support for Ethereum scaling, was officially launched within Polygon in 2020. Last year, Avail spun out from Polygon to operate independently, hitting the acceleration phase. In February this year, Avail announced a $27 million funding round led by Funders Fund and Dragonfly. In April, it conducted a token airdrop and plans to launch its mainnet in May, followed shortly by listing on exchanges.
How did Avail, with its "Trinity" narrative, come into being? What subtle relationships does it have with Polygon and Ethereum? What are the team's current priorities and future development goals? With these questions in mind, Foresight News recently sat down with Anurag Arjun, co-founder of Avail, for an exclusive interview.
Below is the full transcript.
Blockchain’s Shift Toward Modularity — The Origin of Avail
Foresight News: As a co-founder of Polygon, the community already knows quite a bit about you personally, but remains curious about the Avail team and its current focus. Could you first introduce the team and how Avail came about?
Anurag Arjun: The Avail project was initiated internally at Polygon back in 2020. Prior to 2020, most blockchain innovation revolved around building chains faster or cheaper than Ethereum—mainly focused on Layer 1s. But that year, Ethereum published its rollup-centric roadmap.
What does that mean? I like to use internet applications as an analogy: Not all apps run on one supercomputer. They’re hosted on different servers and scale independently based on demand. Blockchains are heading in the same direction—we won’t have one massive monolithic chain, but rather a world filled with numerous rollups.
I realized back then that blockchains were shifting—from monolithic designs toward more modular architectures—and we needed to provide the infrastructure for this change. That’s why I started Avail inside Polygon, to support a rollup-centric future for blockchains. That’s the essence of Avail.
Now, there are already hundreds of rollups, with new ones launching almost every week. How do they communicate with each other? So, not only do we need to provide infrastructure for these rollups, but also enable them to interconnect—that’s exactly what Avail aims to do.
In March last year, we decided to spin Avail out from Polygon to operate independently. We brought the entire Avail team with us—about 18 people at the time. Now, we’ve grown to nearly 50 members spread across the U.S., four European countries, Dubai, India, and Southeast Asia.
Avail now has two co-founders. One is me—I co-founded Polygon in 2017 with Jaynti Kanani and Sandeep Nailwal. Before that, I spent 11 years working in the tech industry. At Polygon, I built much of the tech stack, including the Polygon PoS chain, Plasma stack, bridges, helped shape ZK strategies, and acquired projects like Hermes, Zero, and Miden, which together formed the foundation of Polygon zkEVM.
The other co-founder is Prabal Banerjee. He led research at Polygon and contributed to major strategic initiatives such as ZK strategy, the PoS chain, and Avail. Before joining Polygon, he pursued a PhD at a top cryptography institute in India.
While many of our early team members came from Polygon, we’ve been actively expanding and attracting talent from across the industry. Today, we also have a highly innovative young team working on cutting-edge technologies.
Foresight News: What is the Avail team currently focusing on?
Anurag Arjun: We're building critical infrastructure for the future architecture of blockchains. The first part is Avail DA—the Avail Data Availability layer—which we've been developing and plan to launch on mainnet next month for production use. Beyond that, we're building Avail Nexus and Avail Fusion to unify the rollup-centric blockchain future. So, our immediate priority is launching Avail DA on mainnet. Of course, along with network launch will come other developments, such as token issuance.
Foresight News: Do you have further exchange listing plans? Can you share any timeline?
Anurag Arjun: Yes, certainly—but I can't disclose too much right now. However, news will come out soon (shortly). Overall, we are a Layer 1 blockchain, so when the mainnet launches, the token will go live as well.
“The Trinity” — Avail’s Grand Vision for Rollup Unification
Foresight News: You mentioned three components—Avail DA, Nexus, and Fusion—your so-called “Trinity” vision. These areas each have teams working on them. Why must all three be developed by the same team? Or put differently, what value does unified development bring to users?
Anurag Arjun: Avail DA, Nexus, and Fusion aren’t three separate products—they are different parts of one integrated system.
First is Avail DA—the data availability layer. This is the foundational base. In a world with thousands of rollups, large-scale rollup adoption simply isn’t possible without such a base layer. Ethereum’s throughput capacity to support rollups is extremely limited. Therefore, dedicated infrastructure is needed to support rollups in this regard.
Second is Avail Nexus, which connects all rollups. Technically speaking, to build true interoperability or composability layers, rollups need to share a common data availability layer. If rollups sit on different data availability layers or separate blockchains, bridging becomes fragile. To achieve real interoperability, you need data availability sampling. In technical terms, this is essentially validity proofs. When combined with execution proofs, this enables seamless interoperability. Such interoperability is only possible because we’ve built the underlying data availability layer. Avail Nexus is thus a natural extension of our product line—without the base layer, Nexus cannot exist.
Third comes Avail Fusion, which isn’t entirely a new layer. It allows not just staking of Avail tokens, but also Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin today has limited utility—mainly used as a store of value—and we want to unlock its potential for staking and enhancing network security. In this space, we’re not competing with EigenLayer; rather, EigenLayer provides the supply, and we deploy it into practical use cases.
Foresight News: Earlier this year at ETHGlobal London, you said that unifying different rollups would either need to be done by the Ethereum Foundation or by an independent third party. If the Ethereum Foundation took on this role, what would that mean for third-party projects like Avail?
Anurag Arjun: Ethereum already has the Danksharding sharding plan in its roadmap. But Ethereum has existed for over eight years, with perhaps $400–500 billion in value locked on-chain. It’s a crucial part of the financial ecosystem, and upgrading it without extensive user testing is difficult—it takes time. We expect Danksharding may take four to five years. In crypto timescales, that’s practically a full lifecycle. Meanwhile, Ethereum already has a thriving rollup ecosystem that needs infrastructure support today, and we aim to fill that gap.
So, we’re playing a complementary role to Ethereum, helping rollups scale collectively. The Avail Nexus we’re building acts as a pre-settlement layer for Ethereum. Currently, rollups settle directly on Ethereum. Going forward, they could first settle on Avail Nexus. This way, we can aggregate proofs from various rollups into a single proof submitted to Ethereum. We’re not trying to replace Ethereum—we’re offering a more synergistic scaling solution. This is exactly what the market needs right now.
Foresight News: On the topic of timing, did your decision to adopt Polkadot’s Substrate framework at Avail’s inception stem partly from time constraints? Looking back now, Cosmos seems like a more common choice—how did you evaluate this decision?
Anurag Arjun: That’s a great question. Let me clarify: we didn’t adopt Polkadot itself—we are not a Polkadot parachain nor a fork of Polkadot. We used Substrate, Polkadot’s node framework, which is similar to Cosmos SDK. Across the industry, there are essentially only two node frameworks available for building new blockchains: Cosmos SDK and Polkadot’s Substrate. When launching Avail in 2020, we had to choose between the two. We had prior experience using Cosmos in Polygon PoS and were familiar with it. But ultimately, we chose Substrate for several reasons:
First, it’s developed in a highly modular way, making customization easy. Second, it’s written in Rust—a language our team is comfortable with, so the learning curve was low.
More importantly, it allows us to support over 1,000 validators. After upgrading our signature scheme, we’ll be able to scale beyond 10,000 validators, enabling a very high Nakamoto coefficient (a metric measuring decentralization). In contrast, Cosmos SDK would limit us to roughly 100 validators. Since we prioritize decentralization, Substrate was the clear choice.
Foresight News: Another engineering question: as you mentioned, there are now many rollup solutions. What’s your engineering strategy? Which integrations are prioritized?
Anurag Arjun: Honestly, integrating with different rollup stacks isn’t particularly difficult, because we’ve already built robust data availability infrastructure. We only need to integrate once per rollup stack. So we’ll integrate with Polygon CDK, Arbitrum Nitro, OP Stack, Starkware, and zkSync—one time each. We’ve received strong support from these rollups and are also collaborating with others beyond the big five, such as Sovereign Labs, Stacker Labs, Tyco, Scroll, and more.
We have internal teams handling these integrations, and partners like AltLayer, Gelato, and other rollup infrastructure providers are also helping. Integration effort per specific rollup is relatively low. Our primary focus remains building the data availability layer.
Foresight News: In data availability (DA), you face many competitors. How does your technology differ? And if not, what is your competitive advantage?
Anurag Arjun: First, I’d emphasize that our product scope is broader—we’re not just a DA provider. Beyond DA, we offer Nexus for connecting rollups and Fusion for enhanced security.
On the DA front, yes, we have competitors. But we are the only project using light clients and validity proofs to achieve data availability sampling. Some competitors rely on fraud-proof-based models, while others don’t even implement data availability sampling.
Every blockchain inherently has data availability. The key isn’t just DA throughput, but what you can build atop it. Only with a zero-knowledge proof-based Avail DA can you build interoperability solutions like Avail Nexus. Other architectures simply cannot support these advanced features due to fundamental limitations.
Frankly, when rollup developers ask us which stack or DA layer to use, we tell them: you have to make a choice—Polygon, zkSync, Avail, or another.
But those aren’t the right questions. Once you’ve launched your chain, you need to think: How do I get users onto my chain? How do I bring liquidity? Must users bridge from other rollups to Ethereum, then to mine? Building infrastructure that helps draw users and liquidity from other rollups is critical.
Avail isn’t just another player in the DA space—we’ve built much more on top. Having worked in this industry for years and studied these problems deeply, we aim to solve them at a fundamental level. Nothing keeps me up at night more than solving these hard challenges. That’s where Avail’s focus lies—and that’s what sets us apart.
From Polygon to Beyond Polygon?
Foresight News: Let’s talk about the future. Beyond mainnet launch, what else should the community look forward to?
Anurag Arjun: We’re actively collaborating with all major rollup stacks to bring them onboard. Shortly after mainnet launch, many high-quality rollups will go live on Avail.
Overall, I see the Avail community becoming a convergence point for all major rollup communities. Right now, rollup ecosystems remain fragmented—even within Ethereum, there are isolated rollup ecosystems. We aim to unify them all. By bringing high-quality rollups together and interconnecting them, Avail will create a massive community representing the future of blockchain.
That’s our true direction. It’s exciting. Honestly, Polygon has grown into a huge company—I could’ve stayed and retired comfortably. But deep down, I believe Avail will be much bigger than that.
We have big ambitions and bold plans. If I didn’t truly believe Avail would reach such scale, I wouldn’t have left Polygon.
Foresight News: As co-founder of both Polygon and Avail, how would you describe the current relationship between Avail and Polygon?
Anurag Arjun: Just before this interview, I joined a podcast livestream with Sandeep, co-founder of Polygon, reminiscing about the early days.
Overall, Polygon now positions itself as an Ethereum-centric Layer 2, building zkVM, CDK, and related tools. Their goal is to deliver a deeply Ethereum-native L2 solution. In that regard, I think they’re doing a great job. There are also other strong teams like zkSync, Starkware, Arbitrum, and Optimism pursuing similar paths.
Avail, by contrast, is fundamentally a fully neutral infrastructure provider supporting all of the above. We work closely with these systems/teams to power their rollups.
Avail serves as important infrastructure for Polygon—Polygon’s rollups can be deployed on top of Avail. We’re also exploring deeper synergies between Avail Nexus and AggLayer to identify collaboration opportunities. But fundamentally, Sandeep and I, along with other Polygon team members, remain good friends—we’re all committed to closer cooperation.
Foresight News: You announced a funding round earlier this year, attracting several prominent VCs. Beyond your personal background, what kind of future do you think they’re betting on with Avail?
Anurag Arjun: It makes me proud that some of Avail’s early investors continue to support us. We’ll have another announcement coming soon, though I can’t reveal details yet.
Typically, Founders Fund rarely invests in blockchain companies—they usually back era-defining ventures like SpaceX and Tesla. Their investment in us reflects the magnitude of our vision.
Technically, I can explain that Avail is a data availability protocol implementing data availability sampling, with composable and interoperable layers built on top. But if you zoom out and ask: What are we really building? What is the industry collectively striving for? I believe we’re building trust systems within blockchain.
Centuries ago, humans lived in small groups with little inter-community collaboration. As technology advanced, the scale of economic and social coordination grew dramatically.
Technology transformed how people connect. How do we build the next-generation trust system? How do we enable more trustless transactions among people? I believe blockchain presents a generational opportunity. It changes how society operates, how trust is established—because trust underpins everything in society. Achieving the next evolution of trust would be revolutionary. I see this as a massive opportunity.
So I think VCs are primarily backing this generational shift. For us, this isn’t a one-, two-, or three-year journey—it’s a lifelong mission.
Responding to Airdrop Allocation Controversy
Foresight News: Avail recently conducted an airdrop, drawing significant community attention. Fairness and transparency are crucial for any airdrop. I noticed you used a “random selection” mechanism—why is that?
Anurag Arjun: Actually, that’s a misunderstanding. Our co-founder also posted a tweet clarifying many points. The airdrop wasn’t random—we put significant effort into its design.
The term “random selection” applied only to rewarding participants in the incentivized testnet. There were two types of participants: Clash of Nodes participants, and those who joined the lightweight client challenge we ran one week before the airdrop announcement. We rewarded 37,000 out of 87,000 Clash of Nodes accounts based on multiple criteria including participation level and node performance. Clearly, this was not random—we carefully evaluated contributors’ efforts.
For the lightweight client challenge, we initially expected around 100,000 clients and planned to reward 5,000 via lottery. But the number reached 1 million, so we increased rewards to 50,000. Yes, this part involved random selection because rewarding all 1 million was impossible. We clearly communicated at the time that this was a short, five-day event—we wanted people to run the clients.
Of course, no airdrop is perfect. Our intention was to bring together users from diverse chains across ecosystems like Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, and Starkware—we called it the “Unification Drop.” We want our community to be everyone’s community.
Foresight News: Some community members feel that incentivized testnet participants received too little, while L2 users who didn’t directly contribute to Avail got the largest share. Why is that?
Anurag Arjun: Testnet participants did receive rewards. But the Avail community is broader than that. We’re not a smart contract blockchain, right? There are no dApps on Avail—rollups *are* the applications on Avail. We need to attract users who already use rollups. For a successful project or community, we must be inclusive. We can’t define community solely as those who participated in the Avail testnet.
Our ambition is to build a massive project and a vast community. So we must attract those users to Avail—that’s precisely the purpose of the “Unification Drop.” It’s a tool to help us achieve inclusivity.
Foresight News: Why not publish detailed airdrop criteria—like exact gas cost thresholds or transaction volume requirements?
Anurag Arjun: Yes, we didn’t publish granular details. We used multiple criteria, applied scoring, and then released the list. We shared some of the criteria in a tweet yesterday.
We could release extremely detailed rules, but the reality is that no matter how we slice it, we could only reward 300,000 users across five major ecosystems—any more would dilute individual rewards. We can’t cover everyone, so someone will always be left out. Yesterday, we shared some criteria and made efforts to filter out whales and sybil accounts. Our overall goal was to include as many genuine users as possible.
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