Who Is Gavin Wood? The Polkadot Founder Who Coined Web3 and Took Back the CEO Seat

Gavin Wood is the founder of Polkadot and the CEO of Parity who asked in July 2025 for a native stablecoin backed by DOT, and the dotUSD that Polkadot's voters approved in early October 2026 mints against USDT. Before Polkadot, Gavin Wood co-founded Ethereum, wrote its Yellow Paper and coined the term Web3.

Referendum 1944 passed with 98.49% of conviction-weighted votes and executed in early October 2026, 449 days after Wood pitched the stablecoin at the Web3 Summit in Berlin. Its first phase mints dotUSD against USDT, and DOT collateral waits for a second phase that carries no date. The same proposal says centralised stablecoins like USDT "carry kill switches".

Gavin Wood at a Glance

Who Is Gavin Wood?

Gavin Wood is a computer scientist who helped build Ethereum and then founded Polkadot, a network of connected blockchains that share the security of one central relay chain. His own site calls him a "Free-Trust Technologist" and lists five projects he founded, from Ethereum to Polkadot.

DOT is Polkadot's token, staked to secure the network and used to vote on referenda such as the one that created dotUSD. Phemex's academy page on what Polkadot is and how the DOT token works covers the network itself.

Gavin Wood's Career

Gavin Wood came to crypto with a master's degree and a doctorate in computer science, and before Ethereum he consulted for Microsoft Research on embedded domain-specific languages.

He read about Bitcoin in 2011 and was "largely uninterested", by his own account, until he looked again in early 2013. A mutual friend introduced him to Vitalik Buterin that year.

In January 2014 Gavin Wood coded the first functional Ethereum client, released as "PoC-1", and co-founded the project. He then wrote the Yellow Paper, which his site calls "the first formal specification of any blockchain protocol", and co-designed the Ethereum Virtual Machine and its gas model. A Phemex explainer on what Ethereum is and why it still ranks second covers the network he helped specify.

His site also credits him with conceiving and designing Solidity, the language Ethereum developers use to write smart contracts.

The word Web3 is his too. Wood set out the idea in an April 2014 post on what he called Web 3.0, a "post-Snowden" web where agreed information goes on "a consensus-ledger". His site says he came up with the term "Web3" itself. The Phemex guide to what Web3 is and how trustworthy it is covers how crypto uses the word.

Why Did Gavin Wood Leave Ethereum?

Gavin Wood left the Ethereum Foundation after about two years as its CTO. Anyone asking why Gavin Wood left Ethereum gets one answer from his own site, and it's the list of things he built next, with no other reason given.

He founded Parity Technologies, first called Ethcore, with several other Ethereum alumni and also founded the Web3 Foundation. Polkadot came out of that pair. Wood proposed it and then created and launched it with both organisations, and his site describes the result as "a heterogenous scalable multi-chain".

His site lists Kusama among his projects too. The Polkadot Wiki says its first use was as a "canary network", a live pre-production chain where changes run before they reach Polkadot. The Phemex explainer on Kusama as Polkadot's playground for developers walks through how it works.

Is Gavin Wood Still With Polkadot?

Yes, Gavin Wood is still with Polkadot, and he has run Parity as its CEO again since late August 2025.

He stepped away from the CEO role in 2022 to focus on protocol research and design. If you've seen stories from 2022 saying Wood left Parity, they describe that step-back.

On 13 August 2025 Parity published "Back at the Helm", in which he said he'd resume as CEO in late August. His co-founder Björn Wagner stepped down after three years in the job. Wood's reason was timing, since "the architectural groundwork is laid and the market is ready".

A second note on Parity's blog, dated 29 July 2026, narrowed the job. Wood wrote that he would lead "the technical side of delivery directly" after Pierre Aubert moved on as VP of Engineering. He added that "an able team" runs the business around him.

Since the return, DOT has fallen more than twice as far as Bitcoin. Phemex's DOT perpetual closed at $4.275 on the day Wood announced it and at $1.238 at its early-October 2026 close, down 71.04% against Bitcoin's 33.05% over the same dates.

What Is Polkadot's dotUSD?

dotUSD is Polkadot's native stablecoin, and the Gavin Wood Polkadot news behind it starts with a speech he gave in Berlin.

At the Web3 Summit on 16 July 2025, Wood put Polkadot's yearly security spend at $500 million, DL News reported. He proposed cutting it to "a little over $100 million". He also called for a native stablecoin so the network could "pay fiat" without the same cost to DOT, and he indicated DOT would back it.

Referendum 1944, the dotUSD proposal, went on chain on 7 September 2026. The Polkadot Community Foundation put it forward "in an administrative capacity", and the text says builders and developers across the ecosystem contributed to the draft. It passed with 4.63 million conviction-weighted DOT voting aye against 70,810 nay and executed in early October 2026. You can read the full text and tally on Subsquare's page for Referendum 1944.

Phase 1 is "already built and on chain", in the proposal's words. It lets users mint dotUSD "one-to-one against USDT" up to a cap. The proposal funds the first DOT and dotUSD pool from the treasury, with $2.5 million of USDT minted into dotUSD and $2.5 million of DOT. DOT collateral arrives only in Phase 2 with vaults and an oracle. The text gives that phase no date.

The shortfall is in the proposal's own argument. Its case for a native stablecoin is that it locks DOT as collateral and drives value back to the token, and Phase 1 locks none.

Until the vaults ship, dotUSD is a dollar token with Polkadot's name on it and USDT underneath. A Phemex primer on the types of stablecoins and how they trade sets that fiat-backed design apart from crypto-backed ones.

DOT fell 2.59% on the day the referendum executed and rose 13.58% the next day, the third-largest gain among the 135 Phemex perpetuals with a move that day. ATOM rose 17.20% and NEAR 9.53% on the same day, so the move ran across the sector.

DOT futures on Phemex use leverage, and a leveraged position is closed automatically if losses reach its margin.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Gavin Wood?

Gavin Wood is the founder of Polkadot and the CEO of Parity Technologies, a role he resumed in August 2025. He co-founded Ethereum and wrote its Yellow Paper, and his own site credits him with coining the term Web3.

What is Gavin Wood doing now?

Gavin Wood runs Parity Technologies as CEO, the role he took back in August 2025. In a July 2026 note he wrote that he'd lead the engineering work himself after his VP of Engineering moved on. His aim is to harden proofs of concept into open-source software people can use.

Is Gavin Wood an Ethereum co-founder?

Yes, Gavin Wood's site says he coded the first functional Ethereum client in January 2014 and co-founded the project. He was the Ethereum Foundation's CTO for about two years and wrote the Yellow Paper, the protocol's first formal specification.

Did Gavin Wood coin the term Web3?

His own site says he came up with the term. He first published the idea in April 2014, in a post describing Web 3.0 as a web where agreed information lives on a consensus ledger.

Is dotUSD backed by DOT?

Phase 1 dotUSD is backed by USDT, minted one-to-one up to a cap. DOT backing arrives with the vaults of Phase 2, which Referendum 1944 describes without a launch date.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves substantial risk. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.