A decade after co-founding Ethereum, Gavin Wood remains committed to his vision of a decentralized internet.

Through Polkadot, the blockchain network he founded, Wood is advancing Web3 beyond cryptocurrency.

At the Polkadot Jam Tour, where he engaged with developers worldwide, Wood spoke in Hong Kong ahead of Consensus, the city’s first hosting of the major crypto conference by CoinDesk.

His focus is on improving Polkadot’s scalability and enabling standard software to run directly on the blockchain.

“As Web3 becomes a more accepted part of the scenery that banks operate in, that regulators operate in, we will probably see increased integration [with financial systems],” Wood told the Post after his speech at Cyberport on February 17. However, he downplayed stablecoins, saying, “I think there’s a lot of interesting use cases for Web3, and I think stablecoins are actually one of the less interesting ones.”

Wood also questioned the idea of centralized Web3 hubs, emphasizing that blockchain projects like Polkadot thrive on decentralized collaboration.

“Blockchain is a very internet-native technology and just naturally quite decentralised,” he said.

Despite restrictions on cryptocurrency in mainland China, Polkadot has strong developer communities in Asia.

Hong Kong serves as a key hub, with projects like FIFA Rivals, a blockchain-based football game, and Mandalachain, which aims to bring public services onto the blockchain in Indonesia.

Wood, who coined the term Web3, sees it as a way to build transparent and trustworthy systems. “Web3 is about building systems that do what they say on the tin,” he said, adding that privacy solutions should not rely on centralized authorities.

With growing financial sector interest and shifting global politics, Wood believes Web3 is gaining momentum.

“I wouldn’t be in this ecosystem for 11 years if I didn’t think that what we’re building is quite a lot better, is categorically more reliable, more robust, more resilient.”

Vanguard News