Exclusive Interview with Polkadot Founder Gavin: From Multi-chain Network to World Computer, Decrypting JAM Computing Platform and Web3 Innovation Path

Interview: Freya, PANews

Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews

In the development process of blockchain technology, Gavin Wood has made a significant contribution. As the founder of Polkadot, co-founder of Ethereum, and the proposer of the Web3 concept, Gavin Wood is undoubtedly a iconic figure in the blockchain field. In 2025, a critical year for Polkadot's transformation, Gavin Wood, with the latest technological achievement - JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine), kicked off his Asia tour. At the event in Hangzhou, PANews conducted an exclusive interview with this Web3 industry leader, delving into the technological innovation of Polkadot, ecosystem development, and his unique insights on the future of Web3.

Gavin Wood's career is full of legends. From a computer science Ph.D. at the University of York in the UK to a core developer of Ethereum, and then to founding Polkadot and leading its transformation into a multi-chain ecosystem, every step he takes profoundly influences the development trajectory of the blockchain industry. However, Gavin Wood is not just a technical geek; he is also a part-time DJ who loves music. In an interview, he admitted that although his current focus is almost entirely on the development of JAM, he still hopes to pick up his DJ identity again and find balance and inspiration in music. This dual passion for technology and art also makes Gavin Wood stand out in the blockchain field.

In the interview, Gavin Wood detailed several technical breakthroughs made by Polkadot during the year, including the optimization of asynchronous backing, a new SDK release cycle, and a significant increase in the decentralization of validators. In particular, he mentioned that the Polkadot ecosystem's "Spam Mining" performance benchmark proves its leadership in scalability. In addition, the Web3 Foundation has invested 10 million DOT funds for the development of the JAM ecosystem, aiming to cultivate JAM development teams around the world and promote the implementation of this revolutionary computing platform.

The launch of JAM marks Polkadot's transition from a multi-chain network to the 'world computer.' Gavin Wood emphasized that JAM is not just a smart contract system, but a highly versatile computing platform capable of running conventional software and achieving massive computational power. This technological breakthrough elevates blockchain from the concept of 'distributed ledger' to a whole new level, providing infinite possibilities for future decentralized applications.

When it comes to the future of Web3, Gavin Wood said that achieving a truly sovereign internet for users is still a long process, but he is confident in Polkadot's role in this process. In addition, Gavin Wood also shared his views on the future of the crypto industry. He believes that despite some short-term speculation in the industry, projects that are truly dedicated to solving technical challenges will eventually stand out. He encourages newcomers and entrepreneurs to stay curious, be brave to experiment, and deeply understand the design intentions and use cases of blockchain technology.

The following is the text of the interview:

Key achievements and ecosystem status

**PANews: What are the key achievements of Polkadot this year? Which developments have exceeded expectations, and which ones are relatively unsatisfactory?

Gavin Wood: 2024 is indeed a turning point, shifting from cutting-edge research to product optimization and stability improvement. The main improvements involve two aspects: speed optimization, such as Asynchronous Backing; and development stability optimization, such as adopting a new SDK release cycle, with a long-term support (LTS) version released every three months and regular maintenance every two years.

By the end of 2024, we successfully demonstrated the 'Spam Mining' performance of the Polkadot ecosystem, and this performance benchmark test proved that the project is far ahead of other blockchain projects in terms of scalability.

In addition, the decentralization of verification nodes has also been significantly improved, although this is more dependent on the guidance of the technical framework rather than mandatory enforcement.

As for which developments are not satisfactory enough, there are currently no particularly outstanding shortcomings. Each of our optimizations is proceeding as planned and achieving the expected results.

**PANews: Web3 Foundation has invested 10 million DOT funds in the development of the JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine) ecosystem. How will these resources be allocated? Is there any specific area (such as DeFi or gaming) that will receive priority support?

Gavin Wood: The goal of the 10 million DOT funding is to incentivize JAM implementation, rather than the broader ecosystem development. With this funding, we hope to establish a decentralized JAM development team, so that JAM's development no longer solely relies on Web3 Foundation and Parity, but expands globally.

Our goal is to cultivate dozens of JAM development teams, create hundreds of JAM experts, so that they can not only develop JAM implementations, but also build services based on these implementations. This is a complex protocol, and the complexity of modern blockchain protocols is increasing, so it requires talents who deeply understand the protocol to drive the landing of innovative applications. Therefore, the focus of this fund is not to support specific areas such as DeFi or games, but to focus on building a strong technical infrastructure and a reserve of professional talents.

Funds allocation will be based on a milestone system, with a total of 5 important milestones set. The final milestone is particularly critical, requiring an independent external security audit to ensure that the implemented code is ready for deployment in a real blockchain environment.

Technological innovation and future planning

**PANews: Your proposed "Proof-of-Personhood" plan will be implemented in 2025, aiming to address the identity verification challenges of the generative AI era using ZK. How will this mechanism impact the entire industry?

Gavin Wood: First of all, it is important to clarify that this system aims to solve the issue of "individuality" rather than "identity". As more and more of our lives move online, the digital world faces a fundamental challenge: how to ensure that the entities we interact with are indeed real human individuals.

The complexity of this issue lies in the fact that humans are biological beings, not digital natives. We interact with the digital world through devices such as mobile phones and computers, but in reality, it is the software that communicates, not the humans themselves. This situation has become more severe against the backdrop of the rapid development of generative AI technology. AI systems can now engage in human-like communication, speaking, writing, understanding text, and even creating images and music, understanding image content. This technological advancement, combined with the deepening of societal digitization, has brought unprecedented challenges.

Compared to the time before the 1900s, it was difficult for people to be imitated or impersonated because digital systems did not exist. Now, we are easily misled into mistaking automated systems for real humans. This is the core issue that identity verification mechanisms need to address.

This technology aims to rebalance the balance of human-machine interaction in the digital world. Although the extent of this issue varies in different societies, it will eventually become a global challenge. The implementation of personal identity verification mechanisms will help establish a fundamental truth in the digital world: enabling users to accurately determine whether they are interacting with a real person or a machine.

PANews: What essential improvements has JAM brought compared to early parallel chain architectures?

Gavin Wood: JAM represents a major evolution of the blockchain. Although technically it is just an improvement on the existing technology of Polkadot (apart from the JAM virtual machine, most of the technology already exists in Polkadot), its impact on what blockchain can do is revolutionary.

Blockchain was originally referred to as the "Distributed Ledger," a common term in the financial industry used to describe its function. However, blockchain is much more than just a ledger, especially after Ethereum introduced smart contracts, giving it stronger computing power. However, traditional blockchains were still limited to a "classified ledger" model, while JAM aims to create a true "World Computer," not just an intelligent contract system, but a highly versatile computing platform capable of running regular software.

In terms of performance, our modeling shows that the computing power of JAM will increase by 10,000 to 1,000,000 times compared to the existing level of Ethereum. Of course, models are prone to inaccurate conclusions, and many blockchain projects have issues with exaggeration. However, Polkadot's performance has been validated in a real-world environment. We used the 'Toast Mini Supercomputer' for rigorous measurements to ensure the accuracy of these modeling data. If the data is correct, JAM will truly achieve massive computing power and become an important milestone in blockchain technology.

**PANews: How do you see Kusama in the future? **

Gavin Wood: Kusama was initially designed as a "canary" test network for Polkadot, with the main purpose of providing an experimental space for new features and upgrades of Polkadot to verify their feasibility and stability. From this perspective, Kusama has indeed fulfilled its mission well.

But now, Kusama should break through its original positioning, focus on exploring more cutting-edge areas while maintaining its experimental nature. Especially in the following directions:

• Zero Knowledge Cryptography
• Identity Verification (Proof-of-Personhood)
• Other sectors with innovative potential

In addition, Kusama has 10 million DOT at genesis, these resources should be used wisely to support future development.

**PANews: Compared to Solana and Ethereum, how do you think Polkadot can better attract developers and users?

Gavin Wood: In the past, there were multiple parachains in the Polkadot ecosystem that provided EVM compatibility, but they were independent ecosystems with their own tokens and teams. This situation changed in Polkadot 2.0 - Polkadot will natively support EVM-compatible smart contracts and run them directly in the DOT environment.

This is an important transition for Polkadot, although not as radical as JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine), it still has strategic significance. It positions Polkadot as a high-performance and scalable smart contract platform, supporting Solidity and Ethereum-compatible technologies. In addition, trustless bridging solutions such as Hyper Bridge and Snow Bridge within the Polkadot ecosystem will enable seamless interaction with EVM-compatible networks.

Polkadot's PVM (Polkadot Virtual Machine) is highly versatile and can be compatible with almost any virtual machine, as long as it does not require special runtime support. For example, MoveVM may be suitable for PVM, and SVM (Solana Virtual Machine) also clearly meets this standard. This is also the reason why Polkadot is transitioning to PVM - its openness allows any language that meets determinism and self-contained characteristics to run on it.

In terms of competitive landscape, Polkadot has not deviated from its original path, but has chosen a more flexible way to adapt to market demands. The Ethereum ecosystem has accumulated a large number of developers, so Polkadot should take a more inclusive attitude, rather than sticking to WebAssembly and its unique development approach, but to cater to market demands, support languages and tools that developers like.

Vision of Web3 and Outlook for DOT ETF

PANews: How far is the industry from a truly user-centric internet? What changes have occurred in Polkadot's role?

Gavin Wood: Since the concept of Web3 was proposed in 2014, achieving a truly sovereign Internet for users is still a long process. Although this process is longer than initially expected, this transformation was never going to be completed in the short term.

Polkadot was originally conceived as a heterogeneous, scalable multi-chain network, largely akin to the future direction of Ethereum over the next four to five years. While some may point out specific differences between the two, fundamentally, Polkadot's original goal is the vision that Ethereum now hopes to achieve.

However, with the launch of JAM, Polkadot's focus has shifted from interoperability to scalability and composability. While a multi-chain architecture still holds value, JAM provides developers with greater freedom, allowing them to not be confined to specific patterns. Polkadot has now transformed from a heterogeneous scalable multi-chain network to a 'world computer' focused on scalability and composability. This transformation not only enables it to support heterogeneous L2 blockchains, but also makes the deployment and execution of smart contracts more efficient.

**PANews: Nasdaq submitted a 19b-4 amendment for the DOT spot ETF at the end of February 2024, and the market generally expects the DOT spot ETF to be approved in 2025. What impact do you think this will have on the Polkadot ecosystem?

Gavin Wood: The Web3 Foundation has done a lot of work in the previous regulatory environment, aiming to prove that DOT does not belong to the securities category. Apart from the then SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, the overall dialogue with regulatory agencies has been positive and constructive, and has received a considerable level of support. However, there are currently two main uncertainties:

• The current government management has been replaced, which may lead to a change in regulatory attitude
• The financial market itself is an extremely complex system, and the impact of any policy changes is difficult to predict accurately.

Regarding the impact of ETF approval on the ecosystem, I think the financial market is as unpredictable as "black magic". In such a chaotic and complex system, it is difficult to accurately estimate the specific impact of any single action.

Newcomer/Entrepreneur Advice

**PANews: How do you view the future of the cryptocurrency industry? For newcomers, how can they develop their careers in this industry?

Gavin Wood: It depends on their goals. If the "cryptocurrency industry" refers to the "token industry" or "cryptocurrency industry", then this industry is going downhill, and quickly. More and more projects are not trying to solve real technical challenges, but instead supporting fraudulent projects and driving over-centralized development, while lacking consideration for broader security.

What is even more disappointing is that some decision-makers are making decisions that allow some industry participants to profit from public funds. This is not beneficial to the development of the industry. However, I still believe that projects that are truly committed to solving technical challenges and can be successfully implemented will ultimately surpass speculators who only focus on short-term gains.

2025 may not be a particularly optimistic year. But for students who are truly dedicated to innovation and willing to face challenges, this is still an era full of opportunities. Although they may not receive much attention, or necessarily enough financial support, we will still see some significant technological breakthroughs in the next 18 months.

PANews: What advice do you have for entrepreneurs?

Gavin Wood: The key is to truly create value, maintain an experimental spirit, and drive innovation. It is important to deeply understand the design intent of the blockchain system as well as its practical application scenarios, rather than blindly following the trend. Some projects hope to deploy applications on the blockchain without understanding why they need blockchain. There are also teams that want to create a blockchain without clearly defining its necessity.

True innovation comes from deep thinking and continuous experimentation. Bold attempts, even if nine out of ten experiments fail, it doesn't matter, because the experience of failure is equally valuable, and an occasional success may bring unexpected breakthroughs. Many great discoveries often stem from curiosity and interdisciplinary thinking.

Taking the example of physicist Richard Feynman, who won the Nobel Prize for his quantum physics research, the starting point of this research was actually a casual observation in a restaurant. He noticed that a spinning plate always wobbles slightly in the air, and he didn't understand why this phenomenon occurred. This seemingly trivial question ultimately led to significant scientific discoveries.

Therefore, stay curious, explore bravely, and do not underestimate the power of interdisciplinary thinking. True innovation often comes from those who dare to ask questions and delve into their answers.

**PANews: As a part-time DJ, do you still often perform as a DJ? How do you balance between your interest and work?

Gavin Wood: Currently, I have almost no time to DJ. However, I hope to carve out some time in the near future to get back into it. But for now, my main focus is on the development and coding of JAM, as well as advancing the Proof-of-Personhood project.

Nevertheless, I believe that maintaining balance in life is still very important. I am grateful to be able to spend some time with my family, and they also understand my need to travel, such as this tour in China. At the same time, I also believe that artistic creation is a great way of self-expression. For me, mathematics and coding are also to some extent part of art, but I do love music and hope to find more time for myself this year.