Polkadot creator calls for free crypto transactions to make Web3 a 'public good'

Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum, Polkadot, and Kusama, believes that for Web3 technology to achieve its true potential, cryptocurrency transactions should be free of fees.

Speaking to Cointelegraph at the Web3 Summit in Berlin, Wood shared his vision of making Web3 accessible to everyone, stating, "My biggest hope is that we can really make [Web3] free for everyone."

Wood's latest initiative, a tattoo-based Web3 individuality solution called "proof-of-ink," is part of his efforts to promote a cost-free Web3 ecosystem globally.

Wood also revealed that he and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin initially considered removing the Ether (ETH) token from the Ethereum network. "Vitalik and I were talking about the possibility of basically getting rid of Ether, the currency. Something that now appears to be unthinkable," Wood said.

However, the founders eventually decided to keep Ether as a means to prevent spam and raise funds for further development.

Wood argued that developers must work toward separating Ether from the Ethereum network to onboard billions of Web2 users to Web3. 

"It will be hard to divorce Ethereum from Ether in an effective way that makes it sufficiently responsive to the sort of applications that we will need to produce and deploy on Web3," he noted.

Wood highlighted Polkadot’s JAM chain, which is advancing toward making cryptocurrency transactions nearly free. He pointed out that a more permanent solution for eliminating fees might lie in developing "Web3 individuality," which could remove the need for transaction fees and anti-spam mechanisms.

Polkadot creator said in a recent interview with Bullish CEO Tom Farley that he believes there is a lack of desire to create projects with long-term value—those that will remain relevant and useful a decade from now. Instead, he sees many focusing on short-term gains, building quickly to sell, often to buyers who simply pass it along, driven more by hype than by substance. 

Wood admits this is just his theory, not backed by hard economic data, but he believes this mindset is polluting the market and leading to large investments in Layer 1 blockchains that may not have any meaningful future.

Interestingly, Wood argued that Ethereum, and possibly even Bitcoin, may not be exceptions to the rules governing which blockchains will survive. However, he believes that Bitcoin, as the first cryptocurrency and primarily a store of value, could be an outlier because of its unique position in the market.