Max Rebol Explains Why Polkadot is the AWS Equivalent for Web3

Max Rebol, Polkadot Ambassador, navigates multiple critical roles in the Polkadot ecosystem as Harbour Industrial Capital CEO, where he leads a VC fund exclusively backing Polkadot projects, and as co-founder of PolkaPort East, the foundation’s Hong Kong growth initiative.

In a recent interview with BeInCrypto following Consensus Hong Kong, Rebol shared insights from his unique position bridging Eastern and Western crypto industries. With over 15 years in Asia and a background at Morgan Stanley, he leverages “tradfi” experience and blockchain expertise to identify promising opportunities across the Polkadot ecosystem.

His comments come as the JAM Tour, launched by Gavin Wood in 2025, makes its way through Asia. The tour showcases Polkadot’s revolutionary upgrade to a decentralized multi-core supercomputer through technical presentations and developer engagement events.

Consensus Hong Kong just wrapped up. How did Polkadot leverage this significant industry event?

“Polkadot had a significant presence at Hong Kong Consensus. We organized the Protocol Village for Polkadot, which showcased our ecosystem. The highlight was Gavin Wood, Polkadot’s founder, delivering a major presentation about JAM, our upcoming major upgrade. As PolkaPort East, we managed the entire Polkadot representation. It was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate Polkadot’s technical progress to the global community.”

Many investors are still trying to understand what differentiates Polkadot from other Layer 1 blockchains. Can you explain its unique architecture and advantages?

“Polkadot’s story begins with Gavin Wood, who’s the founder and face of Polkadot. He was a co-founder of Ethereum and did the heavy lifting from a technical perspective in its early days.

He wrote the yellow paper with all the technical specifications, programmed the first EVM, and even invented Solidity. At some point, Gavin and Vitalik disagreed about how to take Ethereum forward, particularly around scaling. That’s when Gavin left and started Polkadot with this rollup-centric approach to scaling, which we call parachains.

Unlike Ethereum, which added rollups later as an emergency fix, Polkadot was designed for this architecture from day one. This creates significant advantages: our parachains can talk to each other directly, while Ethereum’s L2s always have to go back to the main chain and then back up, creating bottlenecks. Polkadot has already resolved internal contradictions that Ethereum still struggles with, balancing scaling with economic security in a more elegant way.”

Dr. Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum and creator of the Polkadot ecosystem, demonstrates JAM technology during the Hong Kong stop of his global JAM Tour on February 17, 2025.
Source. PolkaPort East Gavin Wood’s presentation on JAM generated significant buzz during the Consensus. What exactly is JAM, and how will it transform Polkadot’s capabilities?

“JAM is a major performance upgrade to Polkadot, not a separate project as some people mistakenly think. It makes Polkadot, which is already incredibly scalable, even more scalable while still being fully decentralized and secure. It’s an abstraction layer of the relay chain that creates coherency across the system. What’s innovative about JAM is its approach to optimization – kind of like modern CPU architecture. It acknowledges that not all parachains are used 100% of the time, so it creates a smarter system where frequently used processes are positioned closer to the core for faster execution.

Unlike vertical scaling approaches that just pack everything onto a single chain, JAM enables horizontal scaling while keeping validator requirements accessible. Anyone in their basement can run a JAM validator on standard hardware with a modest investment, maintaining true decentralization while dramatically improving performance.”

Beyond the technical improvements, investors want to see real-world adoption. What concrete examples can you share of enterprises or governments actually using Polkadot today?

“Polkadot is essentially the AWS for Web3 – a computation platform on which you can run literally anything that needs decentralized computation. One fascinating example is Mandala Chain in Indonesia, which we recently invested in. They’re working directly with the Indonesian government on their aggressive Web3 roadmap, implementing blockchain-based health records and driving licenses.

Citizens access their data through wallets and control who sees it. What’s remarkable is these developing countries are often skipping centralized server infrastructure entirely, moving directly from paper-based systems to Web3 solutions. It’s part of a broader digital ID initiative where citizens use decentralized credentials across various government services – real-world adoption beyond the speculative trading seen elsewhere.”

That government use case is compelling. Are there other sectors where you’re seeing Polkadot gaining traction with practical applications?

“PEAQ Network, a DePIN project we invested in that recently became a unicorn, enables micro-payments between machines. They allow car owners to monetize data their vehicles generate about traffic and weather without revealing identities.

Companies purchase this data to train AI models. What makes this powerful on the blockchain is independence – Tesla and Volkswagen would never use each other’s proprietary platforms, but both can utilize PEAQ’s neutral infrastructure.

Another example is Mythical Games, founded by one of Call of Duty’s core developers. They’re building triple-A games with blockchain-based in-game item trading, including official NFL and FIFA games that will reach hundreds of millions of players. They previously built on Ethereum and various L2s but moved to Polkadot due to scaling constraints, as our technology can handle their massive user base more efficiently.”

With so many blockchains claiming to have solved the trilemma of security, scalability, and decentralization, how would you summarize Polkadot’s unique approach to this challenge?

“I think Polkadot has a smarter approach when it comes to solving the blockchain trilemma. For us, security and decentralization are not negotiable – that’s where we aim to be as close to 100% as possible.

Where we work on solving the trilemma is on the axis of scalability, and that’s where JAM comes into play. Unlike vertical scaling approaches that just pack everything onto one chain and waste computational resources, we’ve designed systems where resources are allocated intelligently. That’s why anyone can run a JAM validator on standard hardware with a modest investment, keeping the network truly decentralized while achieving the performance needed for billions of users.”

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