Where did Polkadot come from?

Gavin Wood, Robert Habermeier and Peter Czaban founded Polkadot in 2017. Each of the founders have had extensive careers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. Wood was one of the original co-founders of Ethereum and is widely credited with writing most of the code for the first version of Ethereum in 2014. He also coined the phrase “web3”. Czaban is the technology director of the Web3 Foundation while Habermeier was on the team of Ethereum core developers in 2015. 

Together, they aimed to create a blockchain ecosystem that could seamlessly connect different blockchains while maintaining security and scalability.

“We were just thinking about how to create the next version of Ethereum if we had a green field to design upon,” Wood explained their initial thinking behind Polkadot in a video on Youtube. 

The development and governance of Polkadot is managed by two entities, namely the Web3 Foundation and Parity Technologies. The Web3 Foundation is a Swiss-based organisation and oversees the research, development and promotion of Polkadot. Parity Technologies is a blockchain development company founded by Wood, and plays a significant role in building and maintaining the Polkadot software.

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