Polkadot Chief Gavin Wood Resigns as CEO of Parity Technologies

Gavin Wood, the co-founder of Polkadot and its canary network Kusama, has stepped aside as CEO at Parity Technologies but remains its majority shareholder.

And Another One’s Gone

Polkadot co-founder Gavin Wood has left his position as CEO of Parity Technologies, the corporate entity behind the Polkadot blockchain. Parity co-founder Björn Wagner will assume the role of CEO.

In a statement released today, Wood justified his decision by explaining that he considers his temperament unsuited to the role of CEO in the long term. 

“The role of CEO has never been one which I have coveted,” he wrote. “I can act at being a CEO well enough for a short while, but it’s not where I’m going to find eternal happiness.”

“Anyone who has worked with me knows where my heart lies. I’m a thinker, coder, designer and architect,” Wood explained. “Like many such people, I work best asynchronously; a great day is taking 10 hours straight to think out some problem, prototype something or collapse some disparate thoughts into an article.”

Polkadot gained popularity between 2020 and 2021 for its innovative ecosystem design. Rather than operating on a single blockchain, Polkadot allows for several blockchains (called “parachains”) to operate independently yet harmoniously with one another by settling transactions on a central “relay chain.” As such, it is considered a sharded blockchain.

Wood was also a co-founder of Ethereum, an affiliation that helped fuel the hype around Polkadot.

Polkadot hype translated into big gains last year for anyone who had the wherewithal to sell at its top in November. However, like most of the crypto market, it has suffered dramatically in 2022. At its peak last November, DOT traded as high as $54; that number, however, has dramatically shrunk over 2022 to just $5.84 today.

Wood joins a long list of crypto execs who have chosen to step away from their positions this year. Notable CEOs in the crypto space who have resigned in just the last few months include big industry players, such as Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, and MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned DOT, ETH, and several other cryptocurrencies