Conversations between Egan and Polygon Labs began in early August, and quickly progressed from there, Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, told Fortune. “He’s going to be, frankly, very, very impactful on all our payments efforts,” Boiron said.
Stripe is a $91.5 billion payments behemoth whose products include online checkout services and billing software. Over the past year, the fintech giant has leaned heavily into crypto, an effort that Egan helped orchestrate.
Egan had a hand in all of Stripe’s biggest crypto moves. “My role as head of crypto crosses all of these actions: Overseeing product strategy, build, execution, executive relationship, external M&A decision making,” he said.
As Stripe’s crypto footprint grows, Egan’s decision to leave the fintech may prompt onlookers to ask why he’s jumping ship just as his role was rising in importance.
But the incoming chief product officer at Polygon Labs said he thinks “it’s not particularly unusual” for someone working on one segment within a larger corporation to want to dive even deeper into that vertical elsewhere. “It is important to remember at Stripe, there’s a $80-plus billion business that is not necessarily entirely focused here,” he said, referring to the world of blockchain. But he is “all in” on crypto, Egan said.
In other words, Egan said he believes the data shows that everyday users, not just deep-pocketed crypto traders, are transacting on Polygon. “I’m a really big fan of any technology layer, any platform that has like, immediate use, immediate developer attention,” he added.
