Gavin Wood Unveils Polkadot's Next Steps, JAM and Project Individuality

Gavin Wood, a British computer scientist, played a key role in building Ethereum. He co-founded the project and served as its chief technology officer before leaving to create Polkadot.

Wood's work on Ethereum included proposing and developing the Solidity programming language for writing smart contracts and creating the Yellow Paper, which formally defined the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

He left the Ethereum Foundation in January 2016 due to funding issues or frustration with slow progress. Wood then co-founded Parity Technologies with Jutta Steiner and released the Parity Ethereum client.

Polkadot, his new project, links separate blockchains through a central Relay Chain, providing shared security. Polkadot 2.0 is live, replacing two-year parachain auctions with Agile Coretime. Wood also introduced JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine), a modular design that swaps WebAssembly for the Polkadot Virtual Machine.

Today, Wood leads Parity as it moves JAM toward a 2027 production target and develops Project Individuality for privacy-focused identity. He is also building a proof of personhood system using zero-knowledge proofs and Bandersnatch Ring VRF.