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Polkadot grew out of Gavin Wood’s work after Ethereum. Wood studied software engineering at the University of York, earned a PhD in computer science in 2005, worked as a Microsoft technical consultant, and joined Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum team in 2013. As CTO, he wrote the Ethereum Yellow Paper, created Solidity, and in 2014 proposed the idea of Web3, a decentralized internet controlled by users.

In January 2016, Wood left the Ethereum Foundation and founded Ethcore, later renamed Parity Technologies, with developers including Jutta Steiner and Aeron Buchanan. In October 2016, he published the first Polkadot white paper. The project proposed a heterogeneous multi-chain network in which specialized blockchains connect through a relay chain that provides shared security and interoperability.

In 2017, Wood and Peter Czaban created the Web3 Foundation in Switzerland. From 15 to 27 October 2017, Polkadot held its first ICO and raised about $145 million in ether. Ten days later, on 6 November, a Parity wallet bug froze 513,774 ETH across 587 wallets. About 306,000 ETH, roughly $98 million, and two-thirds of the ICO funds belonged to the Web3 Foundation. However, the team said the remaining funds were enough to continue development.

In 2019, Web3 Foundation sold 500,000 DOT in a private round and launched Kusama as a faster test network for Polkadot code. In May 2020, Polkadot launched its Relay Chain, followed in August by a DOT redenomination at 1 old DOT to 100 new units. In November 2021, early parachains such as Acala, Moonbeam, and Astar joined after slot auctions. Cosmos, with IBC, remained a major rival for interoperability. In November 2022, Web3 Foundation said the SEC had accepted DOT’s functional transformation from security to software.