As Polkadot plummets by 50%, Gavin Wood decides to become a DJ

Original Title: Gavin Wood on why Ethereum remains 'unchanged,' Polkadot, and moonlighting as ++a++ DJ

Author: Liam Kelly, DL News

Translation: Lyric, ChainCatcher

• Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood was interviewed by DL News amid a 50% drop in Polkadot.
• After investing heavily in marketing, Polkadot is facing strong backlash from users.
• Gavin Wood discussed his other identity—being a DJ.

Earlier this year, after a five-week developer boot camp in Hong Kong, the students of Polkadot celebrated with a party. At the graduation ceremony, members of the DeFi network saw a familiar face behind the DJ booth—Gavin Wood, co-founder of Polkadot and one of the architects of Ethereum.

At 44 years old, Gavin Wood is returning to his original passion—music—after playing a key role in building the DeFi ecosystem for a decade. Wood told DL News, "If you see any articles related to DJ Wasabi, that's me."

Searching for a New Direction

The backdrop to his move is that Polkadot has been struggling to find a breakthrough.

According to employees, in 2023, Parity Technologies, the company building the Polkadot network, laid off nearly a third of its 385 employees due to funding shortages. Polkadot was once one of the top ten cryptocurrency projects by token value. This year, its DOT token has dropped by 50%, while ETH has risen by 5%, and competitor Cardano has fallen by 45%. In July, Polkadot faced more criticism, with detractors condemning its decision to spend $87 million in the first half of the year. Nearly half of that was spent on marketing campaigns, including $400,000 to create an animated Polkadot logo on the cryptocurrency website CoinMarketCap. Former core developer Seun Lanlege stated on X, "It's insane that Polkadot's treasury wasted so much money on the wrong marketing."

A representative from Parity stated that the marketing expenses stemmed from the project's governance system. The representative told DL News, "The spending on marketing plans is a direct result of on-chain financial expenditures decided by community votes."

As Wood transitions to being a DJ, many in DeFi may wonder if he has stepped away from his daily work. Although Wood is the chief designer at Parity, he downplayed concerns and minimized his role in the project. He said, "My position is much lower."

"I am a Scientist"

During the Web3 Summit in August, Wood was interviewed by DL News at Funkhaus in Berlin. Here, Wood shared his views on blockchain design and technology. "I want to experiment. I am a researcher, a scientist, and a scholar; curiosity is my main driving force here." He said, "The biggest problem for Polkadot is that Ethereum has stagnated to some extent." In fact, Wood is adept at pursuing unusual adventures. He is preparing to launch a "personality" system later this year that will tattoo machine-generated QR-like patterns onto people's bodies.

Wood's career began at the intersection of computer science and music.

In 2005, Wood completed a five-year PhD program at the University of York, researching how computers listen to music. He also created visual representations of the music heard by machines. His thesis demonstrated what Dave Brubeck's classic jazz piece "Take Five" would look like from a computer's perspective.

Wood has also been involved in tech projects. He worked as a researcher at Microsoft and taught geometry at a Catholic school in Italy. He sold lighting systems to nightclubs and bars in London and then attempted to launch a Microsoft Word plugin to automate tedious tasks for lawyers. Soon after, he met Vitalik Buterin, Jeffrey Wilcke, and Charles Hoskinson, who were developing Ethereum. For Wood, Ethereum was essentially a weekend project he worked on while developing the Word plugin in early 2010.

Inventing Ethereum

He wrote one of the first Ethereum clients in C++, a software application that allows developers to interact with the blockchain. Wood helped invent Ethereum's programming language, Solidity, and co-authored the "Ethereum Yellow Paper," the first formal document outlining the purpose and operation of the Ethereum network. He told DL News, "I also brought more design and engineering aspects; I want to say it’s almost an artistic nature."

Although Wood became a cornerstone of decentralized finance by co-creating a blockchain system, solidifying his position in the cryptocurrency space, he feels Ethereum lacks vitality. He said, "Compared to the vision that Vitalik and I proposed in 2014, the Ethereum protocol has hardly changed."

In 2016, Wood went independent, co-founding Polkadot with Robert Habermeier and Peter Czaban. The idea was to create a more efficient and affordable network to support dApps and smart contracts. "The biggest problem for Polkadot is that Ethereum has stagnated to some extent," he said. "I want to continue to evolve." The project raised $144 million through an initial coin offering in 2017—a form of cryptocurrency crowdfunding where people invest real money in exchange for the network's native tokens. It officially began producing blocks in 2020. During the 2021 boom, its total value soared to $54 billion, with DOT becoming one of the top ten cryptocurrencies.

Improving "Cumbersome" Cross-Chain

He also launched a blockchain to address key bottlenecks faced by Ethereum, namely the second-layer blockchain (which aggregates transactions into low-cost proofs and then sends them to Ethereum's mini-blockchain), which is now common on Ethereum.

From day one, Polkadot introduced a similar design called parachains. Any project that chooses to build and launch its own parachain on Polkadot can easily interact with other Polkadot-based projects. For second-layer networks based on Ethereum, users must interact with cumbersome cross-chain bridges to transfer funds between networks.

Wood stated that Polkadot is closer to Ethereum's early vision. "Back when all fields were still blank, second-layer networks were no longer a dream. The dream pushed by Ethereum core developers five years ago looks a bit like Polkadot."

"I am an Experimenter"

In April of this year, he further built on this vision with an upgraded version of Polkadot called JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine). JAM will allow anyone to build a parachain instead of requiring builders to auction for a parachain. This upgrade is not just technical. Its launch coincides with Polkadot's attempt to revive the glory of 2021. However, breaking free from the long-standing challenges of DeFi is not easy. Employees stated that due to excessive executive compensation, Parity not only needed to lay off a large number of employees but also handled the layoffs awkwardly. The company announced the layoffs a week before heading to Mallorca but did not disclose specific personnel. One Parity employee called it "a surreal, prank joke." Wood's absence from the beach vacation angered and confused many. In July, Parity completed its restructuring and is currently hiring new employees. A representative from Parity stated that its job postings list 11 vacancies.

Now, Wood's next project may once again attract attention, which he calls "proof-of-ink." At the Web3 Summit, Wood explained how the Polkadot blockchain generates unique tattoo patterns. These patterns can prove that a person is who they claim to be online without revealing other information. This seems to address a common issue in cryptocurrency known as Sybil attacks (where one user creates multiple identities).

Wood showcased a QR code on his bicep. Before its launch at the end of 2024, he is also researching other designs. "I really don't want this to be interpreted as some sort of tattoo identification system." The practice of tattooing identity markers on the skin may provoke strong reactions, especially in places like Germany. Wood is angered by this implication.

"I have spent a long time emphasizing that this has nothing to do with identification," he told DL News. "It's about personality. I have spent a long time emphasizing privacy, which is about using powerful encryption technology to ensure privacy. I really don't want anyone to say this is a tattoo identification system because that is completely misleading."

The project showcases how Wood consistently follows his intuition, no matter where it leads him, from crypto-related tattoos to performing music as DJ Wasabi. "For me, doing this is not worth it unless it's novel," he said. "I am an experimenter."