As an emblematic figure in blockchain, Gavin Wood is no ordinary observer of the crypto ecosystem. The co-founder of Ethereum and creator of Polkadot, this British technologist has shaped entire segments of the industry since 2014. In a recent interview with the Empire podcast, Wood delivers an uncompromising analysis of the current state of the sector he helped build. His verdict is harsh: the crypto industry, mired in speculation, has strayed from the original ideals of Web3.
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Behind his apparent criticism lies a much deeper vision: that of Web3 conceived as an alternative social operating system, capable of restoring sovereignty and transparency to citizens. While the sector seems obsessed with quick financial returns, Wood reminds us of what was, according to him, the fundamental promise of this technology: a paradigm shift in our relationship with institutions and information.
Between scathing criticism of speculative projects, presentation of his new technical ambitions with JAM, and fundamental reflection on the opposition between Web3 and centralized AI, Wood offers us a fascinating dive into the mind of one of the most influential architects of the blockchain ecosystem.
😶🌫️ The Great Bifurcation: Between "True Builders" and "Hype Sellers"
Wood begins his analysis with a quote he attributes to Gandhi: "There are two types of people in the world: those who do the work and those who take the credit." This dichotomy, according to him, perfectly applies to today's crypto industry. On one side, a handful of teams sincerely working to advance the original ideals of Web3; on the other, a majority focused on creating "hype" with the sole purpose of attracting capital and increasing the value of their tokens.
This drift is not trivial for the co-founder of Ethereum. It constitutes a betrayal of the founding principles of the movement he helped launch. "I wrote the Web3 manifesto," he implicitly reminds us, signaling that his vision differed radically from what crypto has become today.
His most virulent criticism targets projects focused on meme coins and speculative finance, which he bluntly describes as "Mickey Mouse economy" and "unlicensed casinos" dominated by insider trading. When the podcast host mentions popular projects like Solana, Wood responds straightforwardly: "I think they're very talented at making themselves money." A formula that summarizes his perception of an industry that has substituted quick personal enrichment for the mission of social transformation.
Wood proposes a simple framework to distinguish real utility: if a functionality was useful enough to be implemented even without blockchain, then its adaptation to blockchain brings authentic added value. Conversely, uses that would not exist without blockchain (like meme coins) reveal their purely speculative nature. He cites Mythos (Mythical Games) as a virtuous counter-example, which uses Polkadot to guarantee players direct ownership of their in-game assets, a use case that would be relevant even without blockchain, but which gains sovereignty through it.
🔮 The Original Web3: Beyond Crypto, a New Social Contract
To understand Wood's disappointment, we must return to his original vision of Web3, a term he popularized long before it became a marketing buzzword. For him, Web3 is not simply a new technological iteration, but an alternative to traditional social systems that are losing trust.
"What we need are systems that can allocate resources in a transparent and effective manner for the benefit of those that are paying into them," he explains, pointing to the gradual decline in trust in traditional institutions, particularly in the United States. In this perspective, blockchain technologies would be less financial tools than alternative governance infrastructures, capable of replacing certain functions traditionally devolved to public services.
This vision clearly distinguishes Wood from many players in the sector. He regularly insists: "I don't consider myself a 'crypto guy', I consider myself a Web3 practitioner." This nuance is not cosmetic—it reflects a deep ideological positioning on the purpose of the technologies he develops.
Two key concepts emerge from his vision: sovereignty and transparency. Economic sovereignty, in particular, constitutes according to him a major advantage of Polkadot compared to Ethereum. Where Ethereum forces users to pay in ETH for each transaction, Polkadot allows projects to design their own independent economy, without imposing an underlying token on their users.
🛠️ Polkadot: Technical Successes, Adoption Failures
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Wood candidly analyzes the successes and failures of Polkadot, the project he launched after leaving the Ethereum ecosystem. On the success side, he cites scalability coupled with generality and resilience—where Bitcoin had prioritized resilience and Ethereum generality, Polkadot would have succeeded in adding scale without sacrificing the other two attributes.
But the main failure he acknowledges concerns adoption: "What really held us back was the fact that there wasn't a sort of central crucible, a sort of mixing pot where people could try it out before actually to get there." In other words, Polkadot's barrier to entry proved too high for developers, unlike Ethereum which allowed for easy "tinkering" on the platform.
This self-criticism reveals the permanent tension in Wood's design: between technical rigor and accessibility, he has clearly prioritized the former, sometimes at the expense of the latter. This is precisely what he seeks to correct with his new initiatives, such as the Polkadot Hub and especially JAM.
⚡️ JAM: Rethinking Scalability Without Fragmentation
🔎 Read the full article "JAM: The Cloud Web3 Revolution"
Faced with the emergence of Ethereum roll-ups (Arbitrum, Optimism) and layer 2 chains, Wood sees a confirmation of the multi-chain approach he has been advocating for years. "It's very vindicating," he admits, observing that these projects are finally adopting an architecture similar to Polkadot's. But he also identifies a fundamental limitation in their approach: "persistent partitioning."
This technical concept, central to his critique, refers to the fragmentation of the ecosystem into distinct chains that struggle to interact effectively. "They are trying to split apart the different avenues of use cases into their own chain and by splitting them apart they're keeping them apart indefinitely," he explains.
It's to solve this problem that he's developing JAM, presented as an evolution of Polkadot's architecture. The ambition: to create a coherent and fully synchronous environment that could scale "more or less indefinitely without breaking it up." A direct response to Ethereum's approaches with roll-ups and even to the original design of Polkadot's parachains.
This technical evolution illustrates Wood's constant search for balance: between the pragmatic necessity of a low barrier to entry (like Ethereum) and the ambition of a technically superior infrastructure capable of supporting large-scale applications.
🔑 Web3 vs AI: The Fundamental Opposition According to Wood
One of the most striking passages of the interview concerns the opposition that Wood establishes between Web3 and centralized artificial intelligence. This analysis goes far beyond technological considerations to touch on questions of social and political philosophy.
"Web3 technologies, like technologies broadly governed by the concept of less trust, more truth. AI as a technology really is less truth, more trust," he categorically states. This synthetic formulation summarizes his vision: where Web3 seeks to minimize the need for trust in third-party institutions through protocol transparency, AI concentrates informational power in the hands of a few actors.
Wood pushes the analysis to a sharp conclusion: "A world that trusts one individual for all of its information gathering is a fucked world, right? And that's the world that these AI CEOs want to build, make no mistake. They want to be the dictator of truth."
This fundamental opposition explains why he considers Web3 a necessary counterweight to the rise of centralized AI systems. In his vision, only decentralized technologies can guarantee the survival of a pluralistic informational space against the concentration of informational power.
🕵️♂️ Proof of Personhood: A Neglected Fundamental Issue
Extending his reflection on the risks of AI, Wood addresses a topic rarely discussed with such depth in the crypto sphere: the need for a truly decentralized "proof of personhood" system.
His criticism of WorldCoin, Sam Altman's project aimed at creating a global registry of human identities via iris scans, is unequivocal: "The WorldCoin approach is flawed. It's trust-based." He points out the inconsistency of a system meant to guarantee human uniqueness but relying on a central authority that holds both certification power and collected biometric data.
Wood clearly articulates why such a system is crucial: in a digital universe populated by bots and generative AI, the ability to distinguish humans from automated entities becomes fundamental to preserving the integrity of social interactions. He notably mentions large-scale political manipulations, citing the recent case of thousands of pro-Russian Twitter accounts influencing Romanian elections.
This reflection reveals a constant in Wood's thinking: his concern for the social and political implications of the technologies he develops, far beyond simple financial or technical considerations.
🤖 A Technologist Facing Marketing
The interview also reveals the personal tension Wood experiences between his technical skills and the marketing demands of the industry. "I'm a technologist. I'm pretty good at it," he states, while acknowledging his limitations: "In terms of reaching large crowds with messages of simple messages that are easily understood and may not be very nuanced... not really my gig."
This honesty contrasts with the approach of many crypto project founders, often as comfortable with promotion as with technical design. Wood seems to accept this limitation, preferring to delegate marketing aspects to others while focusing on what he does best: designing sophisticated technical architectures.
He evokes with a certain nostalgia Bitcoin's community development model, where enthusiasts promoted the project out of conviction rather than direct financial interest. This somewhat idealistic vision perhaps betrays a difficulty in fully embracing the marketing realities of an industry that has become highly competitive.
🎯 Conclusion: Web3, a Future Beyond Speculation
Despite his scathing criticism of the current crypto industry, Wood concludes on a resolutely optimistic note. He sees in the current upheavals an opportunity to transform traditional social systems, which he considers outdated and inefficient.
"I think there is an opportunity here for there to be some really important changes where technology can replace these frisky old, oftentimes unjust, highly suboptimal systems with kind of much better, much more transparent, much more agile sort of social operating systems."
This final vision perfectly summarizes Wood's positioning: beyond the media noise and speculative frenzy, he perceives blockchain technologies as tools for profound social transformation. His approach, resolutely anchored in ethical and political principles, contrasts with the financial pragmatism dominating the industry.
At a time when centralized AI monopolizes attention and investments, Wood's alternative vision for an authentically decentralized Web3 recalls the initial ambitions of the blockchain movement. Whether one agrees with his severe criticism of current trends or not, his contribution to the debate on the future of decentralized technologies remains essential for keeping alive the original spirit of Web3—that of technology serving citizen emancipation rather than financial speculation.
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