Polkadot's Gavin Wood on Building a Layer 0 to Underpin the Entire Blockchain-Based Economy

Section 1: Gavin Wood 0:10 Minutes

Gavin Wood’s crypto journey started with Ethereum – he was one of the eight original founders and the project’s CTO in the early days. Today though, he’s busy building Polkadot, a chain that is attempting to improve where Ethereum falls short. After years of development, the ecosystem’s first applications are finally coming to life as it lays the foundations to become a layer zero, where multiple layer 1 chains and their decentralized applications can flourish. Where does Gavin’s story begin?

• One of the original founders of Ethereum
• Founder of Polkadot
• A scalable, interoperable and secure network protocol
• First polkadot applications are taking shape.

Section 2: Gavin Wood 12:27 Minutes

Gavin was at the heart of Ethereum during its development years up to the launch of its mainnet. But, in 2016 he chose to branch out and founded Parity Technologies, one of the main clients of Ethereum, and later on, he came up with the idea for Polkadot. What motivated him to start a new blockchain, rather than keep building Ethereum?

• Gavin was with Ethereum through its development until 2016
• He left and found Parity Technologies, a main client of Ethereum
• Later, he founded Polkadot, a whole new blockchain.
• But, why not continue building on Ethereum?

Section 3: Gavin Wood 33:03

Substrate, parachains, Kusama… the Polkadot ecosystem can be complex and confusing. In this section Gavin explains how each piece fits together. The main point is that Polkadot aims to give developers the flexibility to build decentralized applications as they see fit, and in a scalable infrastructure.

• Substrate, parachains, Kusama… Polkadot is awash with a complex ecosystem.
• How does the ecosystem function with all of these moving parts?
• Are they flexible enough for scalable development?

Section 4: Gavin wood 1:06:19

Gavin wants to turn Polkadot into a multichain powerhouse where financial systems and web apps can run and interact seamlessly. It’s the base for a web3 future, a concept Gavin has been passionate about since before it was cool, and one he still believes in.

• Gavin aims for a multichain platform.
• Seamless financial systems and web apps.
• An interoperable web3 future that Gavin strives for.