Gavin Wood
Gavin Wood | |
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![]() Wood in 2017 | |
Born | Gavin James Wood |
Education | Lancaster Royal Grammar School |
Alma mater | University of York |
Known for | Co-founder of Ethereum and former CTO of the Ethereum Foundation; co-founder of Polkadot; CWO and Chairman of Parity Technologies; author of the Polkadot White Paper and the Ethereum Yellow Paper |
Scientific career | |
Thesis | Content-based visualisation to aid common navigation of musical audio (2005) |
Gavin James Wood is an English computer scientist, a co-founder of Ethereum, and creator of Polkadot and Kusama.[1][2]
Early life
[edit]Wood was born in Lancaster, England, United Kingdom. He attended the Lancaster Royal Grammar School. He graduated from the University of York with a Master of Engineering (MEng) in Computer Systems and Software Engineering in 2002 and completed his PhD entitled "Content-based visualization to aid common navigation of musical audio" in 2005.[3]
Career
[edit]Before working on Ethereum, Wood was a research scientist at Microsoft.[1] He was one of the founders of the Ethereum blockchain, which he has described as "one computer for the entire planet,"[4] with Vitalik Buterin, Charles Hoskinson, Anthony Di Iorio, and Joseph Lubin during 2013–2014.[5][6] He also served as the Ethereum Foundation's first chief technology officer.[7][8][9] Wood left the Ethereum Foundation in January 2016.[10]
Wood founded Parity Technologies (formerly Ethcore), which developed a client for the Ethereum network and creates software for companies using blockchain technology, with Jutta Steiner, who also previously worked at the Ethereum Foundation.[1][8]
He founded the Web3 Foundation, a nonprofit organization focusing on decentralized internet infrastructure and technology, starting with the Polkadot network.[8]
Support for Ukraine
[edit]Amid the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Wood donated $5.8 million in cryptocurrency to support Ukraine.[11]
Publications
[edit]- Ethereum: A Secure Decentralised Generalised Transaction Ledger[12]
- Polkadot: Vision for a Heterogenous Multi-Chain Framework[13]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Francisco, Danny Fortson in San (25 June 2017). "British coder revealed as brains behind bitcoin rival". The Sunday Times. ISSN 0956-1382. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
- ^ "Ethereum Blockchain Killer Goes By Unassuming Name of Polkadot". Bloomberg.com. 17 October 2020.
- ^ Wood, Gavin James (2005). Content-based visualiszation to aid common navigation of musical audio (Ph.D). University of York. Archived from the original on 11 July 2022. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
- ^ "Ethereum: the competitor to Bitcoin which could transform entire industries". New Statesman. 12 April 2016. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
- ^ "Ethereum Regains Title as Second Most Valuable Cryptocurrency Behind Bitcoin". Fortune. Archived from the original on 8 January 2018. Retrieved 31 December 2021.
- ^ Post, Claire Brownell Financial (27 June 2017). "Vitalik Buterin: The cryptocurrency prophet | Financial Post". Financial Post. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
- ^ Paumgarten, Nick (15 October 2018). "The Prophets of Cryptocurrency Survey the Boom and Bust". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
- ^ a b c Shieber, Jonathan (1 November 2017). "The future of Blockchain infrastructure, with Gavin Wood and Jutta Steiner". TechCrunch. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
- ^ Jain, Aman (17 August 2021). "Founders' Fork: The Ethereum Architects Now Locked in Battle". Entrepreneur. Archived from the original on 18 August 2021. Retrieved 19 August 2021.
- ^ Wood, Gavin. "The last Blog Post". Ethereum.org. Ethereum Foundation. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
- ^ MacKenzie Sigalos (3 March 2022). Ukraine has raised more than $54 million as bitcoin donations pour in to support the war against Russia. CNBC. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ Ethereum Yellow Paper
- ^ Polkadot White Paper