Gavin James Wood is a software developer and computer scientist from England who is best known for co-founding Ethereum and Polkadot. He also created Solidity, the computer language vital for creating smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. As one of the richest people in the crypto space, Gavin Wood has an estimated net worth of $450 million.
Background
Wood was born in April 1980 in Lanchester, United Kingdom. As a kid, he was fascinated by game theory and economics. His neighbor Sean was the one who introduced him to programming when he got his first computer at nine years old.
He went to Lancaster Royal Grammar School and earned a Master of Engineering (MEng) in Computer Systems and Software Engineering from the University of York in 2002.
Wood finished his Ph.D. in 2005. Before entering the crypto business, he worked as a consultant for Microsoft Research. The majority of the world’s first C++ language workbench was planned and built by him.
Co-Founding Ethereum
Gavin wasn’t interested in cryptocurrency at first but a mutual acquaintance connected him with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. This was when he learned about the potential of cryptocurrencies. Wood created Solidity, a programming language for generating smart contracts.
Gavin also served as the first Chief Technology Officer of the Ethereum Foundation. He left the group in 2016 to pursue other opportunities within the crypto industry and it didn’t take him long to find a new project.
Creating Polkadot
In October 2015, he co-founded Parity Technologies, a company that builds blockchain infrastructure for Web 3.0. He started the Web3 Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to decentralized internet technology and infrastructure. The Polkadot network was their first project and he launched Kusama in 2019, a Polkadot early phase experimental application framework.
Polkadot uses proof of stake instead of proof of work and it allows developers to establish their own blockchain that can communicate with other ledgers, establishing a system of parachains.
Crypto Holdings
His engineering and blockchain knowledge has led to the successful launch of a number of blockchain-based software products. Wood disclosed that the Polkadot treasury currently has 18,936,300 DOT tokens sitting dormant. However, he never revealed how much of it he personally owns.
But it’s only reasonable to believe that he holds a considerable amount of crypto to secure his future. At the time of writing, DOT is trading around $6 after reaching over $50 in November 2021. Gavin’s wealth has taken a huge hit with the crypto bear market.
Personal Life
Gavin Wood is one of the people suspected to be Satoshi Nakamoto. However, others such as Hal Finney and Adam Back are better candidates. Some believe he is Satoshi purely because he’s a very private person. Wood has remained tight-lipped about his private life and has never mentioned anything about a wife or family in any of his interviews.
