Crypto Stories: Gavin Wood discusses why he decided to code Ethereum

Published at: Feb. 11, 2022

Among the original founding fathers of Ethereum (ETH) is Gavin Wood, who joined a group led by Vitalik Buterin that set out to build Bitcoin's competition. Wood is the computer scientist who wrote the first smart contracts for the Ethereum blockchain back in 2014. In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Wood admitted that at the time, he just needed a job.  

A self-described "technologist at heart" he knew coding was his calling, and made the "obvious" switch from building LEGO bricks to writing blocks of code from an early age.

He first discovered Bitcoin via The Silk Road, the online black market that ran from 2011 to 2013. The cryptocurrency originally "took his fancy" for being "a purely algorithmic mechanism for human cooperation and interaction," that according to Wood, "allows for the creation of social structures that we haven't seen yet."

He realized there might be a job opportunity for him and started networking. After a meeting with Johnny Bitcoin, Wood was hired with the task of helping Buterin take Ethereum from white paper to a functioning blockchain. His hope in creating Ethereum was to affect change in society for the better.

"This is technology that is being used to build the new world - the world that's going to drive human civilization for the rest of this century at least."

Related: Crypto Stories: Vitalik Buterin talks creating Ethereum in previously unreleased 2014 interview

The video ends with words by Wood from another interview at a July 2014 conference in Hong Kong, in which he suggested to Cointelegraph that economic institutions could be substituted by Ethereum. Almost eight years later, economic and financial institutions are indeed being disrupted not just by Ethereum but by the constantly evolving blockchain and cryptocurrency technology. 

Wood ended up leaving the development team at Ethereum to eventually found Polkadot (DOT), a sharded multi-chain protocol, and Kusama (KSM), used as a test network on the Polkadot chain.

Tags
Ethereum
Youtube
Interview
Coding
Related Posts
FTX CEO: SushiSwap probably wasn’t a ‘long-planned heist’
In the wake of the sudden departure of Chef Nomi, the original founder of SushiSwap, FTX exchange CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was left to sort out the mess. Cointelegraph interviewed Bankman-Fried about his Sushi-related adventures and his vision for the future of the project. Bankman-Fried became the holder of the keys to SushiSwap on Sep. 6, just over a week after the launch of the project. Chef Nomi handing these keys over was as sudden for him as it was for the rest of us, he said: “I was asleep on a beanbag and I heard a shout from someone [saying] …
Blockchain / Sept. 9, 2020
Are we there yet? Here’s why one analyst says its not ‘altcoin season’
Few traders would argue against the fact that Bitcoin (BTC) is in a bull market, but there is less consensus on whether the market is in the midst of an "altcoin season." A quick view of Crypto Twitter shows the schism between traders who are certain we are halfway through alt season and those who believe it has yet to begin. Typically, traders rely on a wide swath of indicators and metrics, like Bitcoin’s total market capitalization versus the total altcoin market cap, Bitcoin’s dominance rate, and whether low-cap altcoins have rallied by a certain percentage. As is the nature …
Blockchain / April 19, 2021
Vitalik Buterin Reveals Ethereum 2.0 Roadmap to Cointelegraph
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin discussed plans for Ethereum 2.0 during an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph on Feb.19 at the Stanford Blockchain Conference. Buterin explained that the major development for ETH 2.0 over the course of this year is the launch of Phase 0. He said: “Phase 0 is the first phase of the Ethereum 2.0 launch. This will release the proof-of-stake network, which will come online this year.” While the official launch date of Phase 0 is still unknown, Buterin explained that Phase 0 is close to having a multi-client testnet and audits of the existing code. He noted: “A …
Ethereum / Feb. 21, 2020
Glassnode Co-Founder Says On-Chain Data Can Spot Bitcoin’s Tops and Bottoms
Blockchains produce huge amounts of data and it seemed that only data scientists and blockchain research firms like Chainalysis and CipherTrace were making use of it. Recently, crypto investors like Willy Woo and Philip Swift have begun to incorporate on-chain data into their rigorous Bitcoin analyses and the results have been astounding. Despite these efforts, on-chain data remains something of an enigma amongst crypto investors. To clear up the confusion, Cointelegraph decided to sit down with Rafael Schultze-Kraft, the co-founder of on-chain market intelligence platform Glassnode. Cointelegraph: Let’s start with having you tell us a little about yourself and what …
Bitcoin / Sept. 28, 2019
Nouriel 'Dr. Doom' Roubini: '99 Percent of Cryptocurrencies are Worth Zero'
The interview has been edited and condensed. Nouriel Roubini is a New York-based economist that famously predicted the 2008 financial crisis when only a few considered there might be a threat to the existing course of events at the time. A Harvard alumnus and now a professor at NYU Stern School of Business, Mr. Roubini has always been critical of the crypto and blockchain industry. Oct.11, 2018 he testified at the Congressional hearing on Capitol Hill, Washington D.C., warning U.S. senators about “the mother or father of all scams and bubbles," — crypto. We met with Mr. Roubini during BlockShow …
Blockchain / Oct. 14, 2018