Polkadot founder Gavin Wood delivered a speech at the National Taiwan University today, introducing the next-generation protocol of Polkadot - JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine). The aim is to transform Polkadot into a Web3 cloud, making it easier to develop, deploy, and scale decentralized applications. (Background: Polkadot founder Gavin Wood: Satoshi Nakamoto's number in Polkadot is 149, much higher decentralization level than Ethereum and Solana) (Background: Polkadot experienced a big dump of 50%, and founder Gavin Wood decided to become a DJ?) Co-founder of Ethereum and Polkadot, Gavin Wood, brought his global tour to Taiwan and visited the National Taiwan University today to deliver a keynote speech on 'JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine)'. Here is a summary of the speech shared by Gavin Wood in the first person: The Divergence and Long-term Vision of the Web3 Industry Before discussing the JAM protocol, I would like to talk about the broader context and delve deeper into Web3 and its industry development. We can see that this industry has been 'forking' for a long time, but now it is becoming more evident that it is evolving in two different directions. On one hand, some projects (like Polkadot) focus on long-term goals, dedicated to true decentralization while ensuring stability and scalability. For example, dropping trust points through light clients to avoid 'random trust points' in the decentralized ecosystem. Moreover, cross-chain bridges often become attack vectors, and these are core issues we need to address to ensure long-term viability. On the other hand, some choose shortcuts, using Web3 technology merely for simple tokenization, abandoning the elements that truly make Web3 reliable and resilient. They sacrifice the core values of Web3 such as verifiability and trustlessness for scalability and user-friendliness. Polkadot belongs to the former category, and therefore significant growth may not be seen in the short term. Only through long-term thinking can we build a truly practical system that remains valuable in the future. The True Meaning of Web3: Less Trust, More Truth Web3 is not simply synonymous with Non-fungible Tokens or Decentralized Finance. As early as 11 years ago, I mentioned in the definition of Web3 that the essence of Web3 is to establish 'secure social operating systems'. These systems are often decentralized to drop reliance on trust, and they must be verifiable to ensure security. Additionally, they should be self-sovereign, interoperable, and maintain their original purpose. This also involves the concept of 'less trust, more truth'. Trust itself is not a bad thing; it is 'forced trust' that is the problem. In the past, in small societies (such as a village of 50 people), everyone knew each other and did not need to rely on third-party trust mechanisms. However, as society scales up, we have had to rely on institutions, organizations, or governments to act as intermediaries of trust. This model has revealed many problems, as seen in the 2008 financial crisis, exposing the collapse of the trust system. The solution Web3 offers is to reduce the need for trust through technology and establish more transparent and verifiable systems. The Essence of Blockchain and Decentralized Computing Blockchain is essentially a form of decentralized computing. Unlike traditional computers, blockchain has no physical existence; it is a computer system on the network operated by distributed nodes. This is the difference between decentralization and distributed systems: decentralization means these nodes are operated by different economically independent entities, not just distributed computing. For example, Google or Facebook may be technically distributed, but their control remains centralized in a single entity's hands, which is different from the concept of true decentralization. The Evolution of Blockchain and Polkadot Historically, the evolution of blockchain has gone through several stages: BTC (Bitcoin) - extremely focused on a single use case (payment system). Ethereum - introduced blockchain into general computing (smart contracts) but still constrained by computational resources and scalability. Polkadot - establishing a scalable cloud computing system that allows different blockchains to interoperate and share security and resources. The core value of Polkadot is to provide the highest quality 'block space', meaning better computing performance, higher decentralization level, and greater energy efficiency. Through the parachains structure, Polkadot can offer higher throughput than other blockchains while maintaining decentralization and security. JAM: The Next Evolution of Polkadot JAM is the next-generation protocol of Polkadot after an upgrade, approved by the community as the future direction of Polkadot. This specification, known as the Grey Paper, is similar to the Yellow Paper of 2014 but further defines a new generation of decentralized computing systems. Changes brought by JAM include: Enhancing the overall performance of Polkadot Strengthening the architecture of the Web3 cloud platform Introducing a new type of Virtual Machine PVM (Polkadot Virtual Machine) to provide a more efficient execution environment Allowing more flexible computation and state access, reducing the persistent state partitioning issues faced by blockchains. Technical Details of JAM JAM adopts a new computing model called the 'reactor chain', which provides higher consistency and better state management. Its core includes: Shared data storage layer (Data Lake) that enables all computing units to read and write to a unified data storage space. High-performance coprocessors that provide parallel computing capabilities to accelerate execution efficiency. Real-time synchronization mechanism (Synchronization Layer) that achieves global coherence every 6 seconds, significantly reducing the problems caused by state partitioning. Additionally, JAM introduces a new way of calculating computing resources, no longer charging based on 'transactions' but on 'computing time'. This makes the entire blockchain system more like a cloud computing platform rather than a traditional blockchain. The Ultimate Form of Web3 The ultimate goal of JAM is to address the structural problems of current Web3 and provide a truly scalable decentralized computing environment. Its features include: True Turing Completeness - not limited by block size and transaction model, allowing seamless execution...
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Polkadot founder Gavin Wood's first Taiwan speech》JAM creates Web3 cloud, Ethereum is just an old product of the past
Polkadot founder Gavin Wood delivered a speech at the National Taiwan University today, introducing the next-generation protocol of Polkadot - JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine). The aim is to transform Polkadot into a Web3 cloud, making it easier to develop, deploy, and scale decentralized applications. (Background: Polkadot founder Gavin Wood: Satoshi Nakamoto's number in Polkadot is 149, much higher decentralization level than Ethereum and Solana) (Background: Polkadot experienced a big dump of 50%, and founder Gavin Wood decided to become a DJ?) Co-founder of Ethereum and Polkadot, Gavin Wood, brought his global tour to Taiwan and visited the National Taiwan University today to deliver a keynote speech on 'JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine)'. Here is a summary of the speech shared by Gavin Wood in the first person: The Divergence and Long-term Vision of the Web3 Industry Before discussing the JAM protocol, I would like to talk about the broader context and delve deeper into Web3 and its industry development. We can see that this industry has been 'forking' for a long time, but now it is becoming more evident that it is evolving in two different directions. On one hand, some projects (like Polkadot) focus on long-term goals, dedicated to true decentralization while ensuring stability and scalability. For example, dropping trust points through light clients to avoid 'random trust points' in the decentralized ecosystem. Moreover, cross-chain bridges often become attack vectors, and these are core issues we need to address to ensure long-term viability. On the other hand, some choose shortcuts, using Web3 technology merely for simple tokenization, abandoning the elements that truly make Web3 reliable and resilient. They sacrifice the core values of Web3 such as verifiability and trustlessness for scalability and user-friendliness. Polkadot belongs to the former category, and therefore significant growth may not be seen in the short term. Only through long-term thinking can we build a truly practical system that remains valuable in the future. The True Meaning of Web3: Less Trust, More Truth Web3 is not simply synonymous with Non-fungible Tokens or Decentralized Finance. As early as 11 years ago, I mentioned in the definition of Web3 that the essence of Web3 is to establish 'secure social operating systems'. These systems are often decentralized to drop reliance on trust, and they must be verifiable to ensure security. Additionally, they should be self-sovereign, interoperable, and maintain their original purpose. This also involves the concept of 'less trust, more truth'. Trust itself is not a bad thing; it is 'forced trust' that is the problem. In the past, in small societies (such as a village of 50 people), everyone knew each other and did not need to rely on third-party trust mechanisms. However, as society scales up, we have had to rely on institutions, organizations, or governments to act as intermediaries of trust. This model has revealed many problems, as seen in the 2008 financial crisis, exposing the collapse of the trust system. The solution Web3 offers is to reduce the need for trust through technology and establish more transparent and verifiable systems. The Essence of Blockchain and Decentralized Computing Blockchain is essentially a form of decentralized computing. Unlike traditional computers, blockchain has no physical existence; it is a computer system on the network operated by distributed nodes. This is the difference between decentralization and distributed systems: decentralization means these nodes are operated by different economically independent entities, not just distributed computing. For example, Google or Facebook may be technically distributed, but their control remains centralized in a single entity's hands, which is different from the concept of true decentralization. The Evolution of Blockchain and Polkadot Historically, the evolution of blockchain has gone through several stages: BTC (Bitcoin) - extremely focused on a single use case (payment system). Ethereum - introduced blockchain into general computing (smart contracts) but still constrained by computational resources and scalability. Polkadot - establishing a scalable cloud computing system that allows different blockchains to interoperate and share security and resources. The core value of Polkadot is to provide the highest quality 'block space', meaning better computing performance, higher decentralization level, and greater energy efficiency. Through the parachains structure, Polkadot can offer higher throughput than other blockchains while maintaining decentralization and security. JAM: The Next Evolution of Polkadot JAM is the next-generation protocol of Polkadot after an upgrade, approved by the community as the future direction of Polkadot. This specification, known as the Grey Paper, is similar to the Yellow Paper of 2014 but further defines a new generation of decentralized computing systems. Changes brought by JAM include: Enhancing the overall performance of Polkadot Strengthening the architecture of the Web3 cloud platform Introducing a new type of Virtual Machine PVM (Polkadot Virtual Machine) to provide a more efficient execution environment Allowing more flexible computation and state access, reducing the persistent state partitioning issues faced by blockchains. Technical Details of JAM JAM adopts a new computing model called the 'reactor chain', which provides higher consistency and better state management. Its core includes: Shared data storage layer (Data Lake) that enables all computing units to read and write to a unified data storage space. High-performance coprocessors that provide parallel computing capabilities to accelerate execution efficiency. Real-time synchronization mechanism (Synchronization Layer) that achieves global coherence every 6 seconds, significantly reducing the problems caused by state partitioning. Additionally, JAM introduces a new way of calculating computing resources, no longer charging based on 'transactions' but on 'computing time'. This makes the entire blockchain system more like a cloud computing platform rather than a traditional blockchain. The Ultimate Form of Web3 The ultimate goal of JAM is to address the structural problems of current Web3 and provide a truly scalable decentralized computing environment. Its features include: True Turing Completeness - not limited by block size and transaction model, allowing seamless execution...