Gavin Wood In-Depth Conversation: From Ethereum to Polkadot, How JAM Reshapes the World Computer

In the development of the blockchain industry, few figures have had as profound an impact on the evolution of the ecosystem as Gavin Wood. As a co-founder of Ethereum, the creator of Polkadot, and the proposer of the Web3 concept, he has not only witnessed the transition of blockchain technology from concept to practice but also led the industry toward new directions. In 2025, a pivotal year, Gavin Wood will embark on a global tour to present the latest technological achievement—JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine)—drawing a new blueprint for the next decade of blockchain.

Key Breakthroughs in 2024: Gavin Wood Reviews Polkadot’s Technical Progress

In a recent in-depth interview, Gavin Wood revealed that 2024 marked a critical turning point for Polkadot, shifting industry focus from cutting-edge research to practical application optimization and stability enhancement. He sees this shift as both inevitable and necessary—only by transforming theoretical results into reliable products can the ecosystem truly mature.

On the speed optimization front, the introduction of Asynchronous Backing significantly improved Polkadot’s transaction confirmation efficiency. Meanwhile, Polkadot adopted a new development strategy, releasing a Long-Term Support (LTS) version every three months and regularly performing maintenance updates, providing developers with a more stable foundation for building.

More notably, Polkadot successfully validated its “Spam Mining” performance benchmark at the end of 2024, directly demonstrating that Polkadot’s scalability far surpasses other blockchain projects. Simultaneously, the decentralization of validator nodes also made significant progress, with all these developments proceeding as planned and delivering results beyond expectations.

JAM Revolutionary Breakthrough: From Distributed Ledger to World Computer

When discussing the essence of JAM, Gavin emphasized a key conceptual shift—blockchain is evolving from a “distributed ledger” into a “world computer.” This is not merely a change in terminology but signifies a fundamental upgrade in the types of tasks blockchain can perform.

Ethereum’s advent brought the important innovation of smart contracts, but before JAM, blockchain was still confined within a ledger-like framework. JAM breaks through this limitation; it is not just a simple smart contract system but a highly versatile computing platform capable of running conventional software and achieving massive-scale computation.

In terms of performance, according to Polkadot’s modeling data, JAM’s computational capacity will be increased by 10,000 to 1,000,000 times compared to Ethereum’s current level. Gavin Wood emphasized that they used the “Toast Mini Supercomputer” for rigorous measurements to ensure the accuracy of these figures, rather than relying on simple model extrapolations. If these data are validated in practice, JAM will truly be a milestone in blockchain technology.

The Web3 Foundation has invested $10 million worth of DOT into JAM’s ecosystem development, aiming not to support specific DeFi or gaming industries but to establish decentralized JAM development teams, cultivating dozens of teams and hundreds of experts. This decision reflects the reality of JAM as a complex protocol—the increasing complexity of modern blockchain protocols requires talents who deeply understand the protocol’s essence to drive innovative applications.

Proof-of-Personhood and Identity Challenges in the Generative AI Era

Gavin Wood’s “Proof-of-Personhood” plan will be implemented in 2025. This scheme leverages zero-knowledge cryptography to address a core issue faced in the age of generative AI—how to ensure that the entities we interact with in the digital world are truly human.

The fundamental problem is that humans are biological beings, not digital natives. Our interactions with the digital world via smartphones, computers, and other devices are actually communications between software. With the rapid development of generative AI, machines can now communicate, create, and even understand complex concepts in a human-like manner. In this context, it’s easy for people to be misled into mistaking automated systems for real humans.

Proof-of-Personhood aims to rebalance the human-machine interaction in the digital realm. Although the manifestation of this problem varies across societies, it will ultimately become a global challenge. Implementing this mechanism will help establish a basic truth in the digital world: enabling users to accurately determine whether they are interacting with a real person or a machine.

Polkadot 2.0’s EVM Compatibility: Competing with Solana and Ethereum

In the competitive landscape, Gavin Wood has adopted a more open and inclusive strategy. Previously, multiple parachains within the Polkadot ecosystem offered EVM compatibility but operated as separate ecosystems. In Polkadot 2.0, this situation has changed—Polkadot will natively support EVM-compatible smart contracts and run them directly within the $DOT environment.

While this shift is not as radical as JAM, it carries significant strategic importance. It positions Polkadot as a high-performance, scalable smart contract platform supporting Solidity and other Ethereum-compatible technologies. Additionally, the launch of trustless cross-chain solutions like Hyper Bridge and Snow Bridge enables seamless interaction between Polkadot and EVM-compatible networks.

Polkadot’s PVM (Polkadot Virtual Machine) is highly versatile, capable of supporting almost any virtual machine that does not require special runtime support. This openness allows any programming language that meets determinism and self-containment criteria to run on it, which is a core reason for Polkadot’s transition to PVM.

Compared to Solana and Ethereum, Gavin Wood believes Polkadot should adopt a more inclusive approach. Ethereum’s ecosystem has already accumulated a large developer base, so Polkadot should cater to market demands by supporting popular languages and tools rather than sticking to a specific technical solution.

Toward User Sovereignty: Gavin Wood’s Vision for the Future of Web3

Since the concept of Web3 was proposed in 2014, achieving a truly user-sovereign network has been a long process. Gavin admits that this process has taken longer than initially expected, but such a transformation cannot be completed in a short period.

Polkadot was originally designed as an heterogenous, scalable multi-chain network, largely aligned with Ethereum’s future development trajectory over the next four or five years. However, with the launch of JAM, Polkadot’s focus has shifted from interoperability to scalability and composability. While multi-chain architecture still holds value, JAM provides developers with greater freedom, freeing them from being confined to specific models.

Today, Polkadot has evolved from an heterogenous, scalable multi-chain network into a “world computer” focused on scalability and composability. This shift not only enables support for heterogeneous Layer 2 blockchains but also makes deploying and executing smart contracts more efficient.

Regarding the approval of a spot ETF for $DOT in 2025, Gavin Wood notes that financial markets are extremely complex, and the impact of any single policy change is hard to predict accurately. The Web3 Foundation has previously worked extensively under regulatory environments to demonstrate that $DOT does not qualify as a security. However, changes in government regulation could lead to shifts in attitude, adding uncertainty. Currently, $DOT is priced at $1.63, with a 24-hour increase of +2.12%, and a circulating market cap of $2.74 billion.

Advice to Entrepreneurs: Staying True to Technology Amid Short-term Speculation

When discussing the future of the crypto industry, Gavin Wood adopts a pragmatic and candid attitude. He points out that if the “crypto industry” refers to the “token industry” or “cryptocurrency industry,” then this sector is under downward pressure. Many projects have not attempted to solve real technical problems but instead support fraudulent schemes and promote excessive centralization.

Nevertheless, Gavin believes that projects genuinely committed to solving technical challenges and capable of successful implementation will ultimately surpass short-term speculative players. This belief is especially crucial in 2025—although it may not be a particularly optimistic year, it remains an era full of opportunities for entrepreneurs dedicated to innovation and willing to face challenges.

For entrepreneurs, he emphasizes several core principles: first, create real value and maintain an experimental mindset; second, deeply understand the design intent and practical application of blockchain systems rather than following trends blindly. Some projects want to deploy applications on blockchain without understanding why blockchain is needed; others want to create blockchains without clear necessity.

True innovation stems from deep thinking and continuous experimentation. Even if nine out of ten experiments fail, it’s still valuable experience. He cites physicist Richard Feynman—who won the Nobel Prize for quantum physics, which started from his curiosity about a spinning plate’s slight wobble in a restaurant. This seemingly unrelated question led to significant scientific discoveries, illustrating the power of curiosity and interdisciplinary thinking.

On balancing personal life and work, Gavin admits he currently has little time for his beloved DJ activities. However, he hopes to find time soon to return to music creation. For now, his main focus is on developing JAM and advancing the Proof-of-Personhood project. Nonetheless, he believes maintaining balance in life is very important—cherishing time with family and viewing mathematics and coding as forms of art.

Through this in-depth conversation, we see a technical leader with a clear vision for the future—unfazed by short-term market fluctuations, focused on driving genuine technological breakthroughs. JAM, Proof-of-Personhood, and the series of innovations in Polkadot 2.0 all point toward building a truly decentralized, composable, high-performance world computer. For the industry, Gavin Wood’s ideas and practices will undoubtedly continue to lead blockchain development toward deeper and broader horizons.