CoinDesk’s Money Reimagined

Layer Zero, Web 3: Gavin Wood on Polkadot and the Future of the Internet

“Web 3” is not just a buzzword, it is an increasingly important step in the evolution of the internet.

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ABOUT

This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io and Quantstamp.

Joining “Money Reimagined” hosts Michael Casey and Sheila Warren is Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Parity Technologies, which produces Polkadot. More recently, Wood founded the Web3 Foundation, an organization aiming to fund development teams building the decentralized internet.

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First, Wood walks through the founding ideals of Polkadot, including its focus on decentralization, interoperability and efficiency. He next explains the technologies Polkadot introduced to meet the ideals and help accelerate experimentations into the future Web 3.

Wood views the transition from Web 2 to Web 3 not as an optional step, but a necessary one, adding, “We cannot afford to base our infrastructure on fundamentally flawed centralized technologies.” The current internet’s flaws in centralization and privacy concerns will be challenging to overcome in the next iteration of internet technologies, but Wood is optimistic that with the right incentives, these new solutions will be created that align with the needs of users.

How long until this vision of a better web is actualized?

This episode was produced and edited by Michele Musso with announcements by Adam B. Levine and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Our theme song is “Shepard.”

HOSTS

Michael J. Casey

Michael J. Casey is Chairman of The Decentralized AI Society, former Chief Content Officer at CoinDesk and co-author of Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age. Previously, Casey was the CEO of Streambed Media, a company he cofounded to develop provenance data for digital content. He was also a senior advisor at MIT Media Labs's Digital Currency Initiative and a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management. Prior to joining MIT, Casey spent 18 years at The Wall Street Journal, where his last position was as a senior columnist covering global economic affairs.

Casey has authored five books, including "The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money are Challenging the Global Economic Order" and "The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything," both co-authored with Paul Vigna.

Upon joining CoinDesk full time, Casey resigned from a variety of paid advisory positions. He maintains unpaid posts as an advisor to not-for-profit organizations, including MIT Media Lab's Digital Currency Initiative and The Deep Trust Alliance. He is a shareholder and non-executive chairman of Streambed Media.

Casey owns bitcoin.

Michael J. Casey
Layer Zero, Web 3: Gavin Wood on Polkadot and the Future of the Internet