Ten Years After EVM: JAM as the New Industry Consensus

In 2013, Gavin Wood was an independent developer in London who started programming at the age of 8 or 9. Now, a decade later—his EVM has become the language of the entire blockchain ecosystem. In 2024, he is launching JAM (Join Accumulate Machine), and he believes this will be the next paradigm shift for the industry.

The True Power of JAM: It’s Not Just a Chain Upgrade

Many find it confusing: is JAM a proposal to upgrade Polkadot, or just a new blockchain? No. The reality is even broader.

According to its gray paper, JAM combines the best features of two blockchain futures: Polkadot’s cryptoeconomic scalability and Ethereum’s programmable flexibility. But it doesn’t stop there—innovation has reached how modules collaborate within the network.

In traditional blockchains, only computation units are programmable. In JAM, the “collaboration process” and “accumulated effects” between modules can also be controlled through programming. That’s why it’s called—Join Accumulate Machine.

JAM’s main superpower is the safe and distributed scheduling of workloads across the network. Result? Applications are naturally scalable, a solution industry has yet to achieve. And because it supports interconnection among multiple network instances, scalability surpasses the limitations of a single chain.

From Corporate Structure to Decentralized Ecosystem

JAM’s development journey is radically different from Polkadot’s.

From 2013-2015, Ethereum was built within a corporate structure. Salaries, authority hierarchy, corporate responsibility—all top-down: boss→executives→team leaders→rank-and-file, each reporting upward.

JAM is the opposite. Developers here do not receive monthly salaries. Their investment is their own time, energy, and risk. Rewards are future-based, but results must be delivered first. This is the real difference in motivation—the developer bears the risk, not the company.

Gavin himself now only acts as a consultant, answering questions when needed. The momentum comes from 35 independent teams worldwide who are voluntarily committed to the vision. And compared to early Ethereum days in 2015, the passion is the same—everyone is excited to collaborate, willing to read the complex gray paper, and turn the protocol into reality.

“This atmosphere I haven’t felt since 2015,” he says. “It’s the feeling of a true decentralized movement.”

Not a Polkadot Upgrade—It’s the x64 of Blockchain

The best analogy for JAM is historical: the AMD64 instruction set.

In the 2000s, Intel was the market leader in processor design. But when 64-bit architecture was needed, Intel’s proposal was too complex. AMD, then considered a “follower,” created a simpler, more pragmatic 64-bit extension based on Intel’s 32-bit instruction set—AMD64. The market chose AMD’s path. Intel surrendered its own design and adopted AMD’s extension. Since then, the technology became a neutral standard called “x64,” and both Intel and AMD profit from it.

Gavin believes that JAM has the potential to become the “x64 of blockchain.” It’s a highly abstract, independent underlying architecture that any public chain believing in resilience and decentralization principles can adopt.

JAM’s design is deliberately open to governance, token issuance, staking mechanics. The PVM (Protocol Virtual Machine) is a general-purpose instruction set architecture. Chains using it will benefit from scalability and composability, and in the future, can collaborate across networks using the same foundation.

The Big Vision: Unified Security Across Different Tokens

Recently, Gavin has been contemplating a new direction that could change the entire landscape.

If two blockchain networks have different tokens but both use JAM: they can share a single security network while maintaining their own token systems. This is a breakthrough not yet seen in the industry—cross-token, cross-chain security integration.

“It’s not the ultimate form of blockchain, but it’s enough to be revolutionary in the industry,” he says. “I believe JAM’s design is robust enough to support the industry for the next five to ten years, or even longer.”

The Post-Trust Era Problem and the Role of Web3

In modern society, the trust system is rapidly breaking down. In 2014-2015, the term “post-truth era” gained popularity—the idea that people no longer believe in objective truth. But philosophically, this is wrong.

“I always stand by: there is truth, and it’s humanity’s responsibility to find it,” he says.

The current problem is the “post-trust era”: either people doubt everything, or they blindly trust dangerous demagogues. Both extremes undermine society’s rationality.

Now, artificial intelligence exacerbates this problem. The essence of AI is “diminish the truth, strengthen trust”—because we rely on closed organizations that train models and deliver results we cannot fully verify.

Regulation alone is not enough. What’s truly needed is a stronger technical foundation to limit AI’s destructive impact—and only Web3 technology can help here.

The logic is simple:

• AI = less truth, more trust (we rely on organizations and models we do not understand)
• Web3 = less trust, more truth (transparent, verifiable systems)

“In a free society, regulation of Web3 should not be intensified, but acted upon immediately: reduce unnecessary limitations, and provide concrete support to those building Web3 infrastructure,” he says.

Message to New Developers: It’s a Responsibility, Not an Option

For young people joining JAM development—students, newcomers to the industry—Gavin’s message is direct:

Get in early and keep going. Follow your value judgment.

If you believe in free will and personal sovereignty—core ideas from the Enlightenment—you must act. No one else can assume this responsibility for you.

His own journey started from a random beer conversation in London in November 2013. A friend mentioned Vitalik and the new project called Ethereum. Within a few months, he became one of Ethereum’s developers. Following the yellow paper, the protocol specification, and decades of programming without a real break.

“It’s not just about writing code,” he says. “You need to learn communication—engage with investors, present, think about application scenarios, promote. But writing code is the beginning and core of everything.”

Over the past 11 years, he has hardly stopped programming. The longest break was just three months of backpacking in Central America. This is the path he took—and if passionate and capable new developers have the same drive, nothing can stop them from following this path, with JAM as their starting point instead of Ethereum.

Communication Then and Now: Different Ways of Building

The approach to communication in the industry has changed. From 2013-2015, whitepapers and direct developer conversations were enough. Now, JAM employs a more distributed approach—35 teams worldwide, an open gray paper for scrutiny, and a global tour where Gavin directly interacts with actual developers and enthusiasts.

It’s more transparent, more collaborative, and more aligned with Web3 ethos. It’s not a top-down announcement from a company—it’s an invitation to collective building.

“The true power of JAM is not me, but the teams involved in development,” he says. From passion, experience, or belief in commercial value, developers are voluntarily building this system.

The result? An atmosphere similar to early Ethereum—everyone is enthusiastic, committed, and ready to work toward a shared vision. And it’s more powerful than any corporate-driven project because it is organically driven by collective passion.

Ultimately, JAM is not just a technical upgrade. It embodies the Web3 philosophy—decentralized, transparent, collective, and aligned with human values of freedom and sovereignty.