Ethereum Co-Founder: Why Crypto Has Failed | Gavin Wood
Gm! This week we're joined by Gavin Wood to discuss has the promise of crypto failed? We deep dive into hype vs fundamentals, why crypto needs more utility, why haven't we seen mass adoption, how to fix crypto's product problem & more. Enjoy!
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction
(01:16) Has Crypto Failed?
(03:20) Hype vs Fundamentals In Crypto
(09:21) Ads (ZKSync)
(10:26) Does Crypto Need More Utility?
(13:37) Why Still Work In Crypto?
(18:18) Crypto’s Product Problem
(22:16) Ads (ZKSync)
(23:21) Why Haven't We Seen More Adoption?
(26:37) Polkadot Successes & Failures
(29:48) Crypto's Multichain Future
(35:05) Ads (Falcon x, WalletConnect, Token.com)
(37:18) What Is JAM?
(40:19) Does Crypto Have A Marketing Problem?
(46:35) Crypto’s Next Chapter
(51:27) Crypto vs AI
(01:00:25) What’s The Most Important Thing To Work On?
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Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.
Do We Need Web3? — With Gavin Wood
Gavin Wood is the co-founder of Ethereum and creator of Polkadot. He joins Big Technology Podcast from Davos for a discussion about whether we need Web3 — a new web built with blockchain technology. Joins us for a broad conversation on what inspired Wood to dedicate himself to the Web3, movement, how the technology works in practice, and whether the economic downturn may actually help the crypto movement.
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Polkadot's Gavin Wood on Building a Layer 0 to Underpin the Entire Blockchain-Based Economy
Gavin Wood’s crypto journey started with Ethereum – he was one of the eight original founders and the project’s CTO in the early days. Today though, he’s busy building Polkadot, a chain that is attempting to improve where Ethereum falls short. Gavin wants to turn Polkadot into a multichain powerhouse where financial systems and web apps can run and interact seamlessly. To Gavin, Polkadot can be the base infrastructure for a web3 future, a set of technologies that can guarantee privacy, trustlessness and decentralization, which to him, will be crucial if the free world is going to survive.
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Can Gavin Wood's Polkadot 'Make Blockchain Great Again'? - Ep.202
Gavin Wood, founder of Polkadot, Kusama, and Parity, discusses what he calls the "meta-protocol," Polkadot. In this episode, he talks about:
his vision for Polkadot and the problems he set out to solve when conceiving it
why he considers Polkadot a meta-protocol
the implementation of parachains and parathreads, how they are defined and how they differ
parachain auctions and candle auctions
how DDoS attacks can be prevented on parachains
initial parachain offerings and how they differ from initial coin offerings and avoid the regulatory problems that were so common with ICOs
on-chain governance on Polkadot and how it works
how immediate implementation of proposals that pass consensus will prevent forks
his answer to those who point to Parity's history with security lapses as cause for concern about Polkadot's security
how he sees Polkadot co-existing with Ethereum
whether Polkadot is working toward composability
how the Web3 Foundation and Parity plan to use their collective stake of DOTs within the network
how he plans to address the possibility that DOT could be labeled a security
how he imagines Polkadot will serve the enterprise world and how Polkadot will benefit enterprise blockchains
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Episode links:
Gavin Wood: https://twitter.com/gavofyork
Polkadot: https://polkadot.network
Kusama: https://kusama.network
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Parity's Jutta Steiner and Gavin Wood on Polkadot, Substrate and the Frozen Funds - Ep.119
Jutta Steiner, CEO of Parity, and Gavin Wood, who goes by the title "chief white space officer," describe the network Parity plans to launch later this year, Polkadot, how it aims to solve scalability, interoperability and security and when a developer would choose to build a dapp on Ethereum vs. a parachain on Polkadot. We also discuss another one of their products, Substrate, which enables developers to easily customize blockchains, and perceived competition between Ethereum and Polkadot. Plus, we talk about the frozen funds of Parity and other crypto teams, and why Jutta and Gavin think the community should upgrade in a way that would enable the funds to be unlocked.
Be sure to check out the full show notes on Forbes! http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2019/05/12/how-polkadot-hopes-to-help-blockchains-scale/
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Episode links:
Parity: https://www.parity.io
Jutta Steiner: https://twitter.com/jutta_steiner
Gavin Wood: https://twitter.com/gavofyork
Polkadot light paper: https://polkadot.network/Polkadot-lightpaper.pdf
Polkadot Wiki: http://wiki.polkadot.network/en/latest/
Gavin's 2014 blog post on Web 3: https://gavwood.com/dappsweb3.html
Gav’s keynote on the journey to Web 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH1pEE0W3ug
Chain Fibers article in the Ethereum Wiki: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Chain-Fibers-Redux
Web 3.0 vision:
https://medium.com/@gavofyork/why-we-need-web-3-0-5da4f2bf95ab
More explanation of Polkadot, Substrate, Consensus, Governance, etc.: http://wiki.polkadot.network/en/latest/polkadot/learn/relevant-links/
Upgradeability without hard forks via Substrate
https://medium.com/polkadot-network/never-fork-again-438c5e985cd8
Controversy around Afri Schoedon’s tweet:
https://breakermag.com/exclusive-afri-schoedon-on-his-contentious-split-from-ethereum/
Dothereum: https://twitter.com/dothereum?lang=en
https://www.reddit.com/r/dothereum/
Gavin and Vitalik Buterin discussing competition between Ethereum and Polkadot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=vRqJK16t4-I
Why not to fork for the frozen funds:
https://medium.com/@avsa/avoid-evil-twins-every-ethereum-app-pays-the-price-of-a-chain-split-e04c2a560ba8
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Ethereum and Cryptocurrency (Interview)
Gavin Wood joined the show to talk about Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, The DAO, Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), what could you build with Ethereum, and the future of digital currency. Gavin Wood is Founder of Ethereum, creator of the Solidity contract language, and Founder of Ethcore — the company that created Parity, an open source Ethereum client.
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Featuring:
Gavin Wood – Website, GitHub, X
Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Jerod Santo – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Show Notes:
Fred Ehrsam’s article on Medium — Ethereum is the Forefront of Digital Currency piqued Jerod’s interest for this call
Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference.
Ethereum on GitHub
Parity is a fast, light, and robust Ethereum implementation.
Check out Parity on GitHub
The DAO — Decentral Autonomous Organization
Understanding The DAO Hack for Journalists
Learn how to buy Ethereum on Coinbase
Rent, sell or share anything - without middlemen with Slock.it
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!