A decentralized version of Infura will launch by the end of this year, with major Web2 cloud providers becoming part of the network, said ConsenSys chief strategist.
“We’re planning to launch something later this year, but then there’s going to be what they call a federation phase, which they expect to last around six months,” Simon Morris, head of strategy at ConsenSys, told Cointelegraph. weeks, referring to the trial period during which the network remains under centralized control.
Infura is the access point for most DApps to live on-chain data on the Ethereum blockchain, but since it is only controlled by ConsenSys, it provides a single point of failure. November 2020, MetaMask Wallet stopped After Infura went down, centralized exchanges and DeFi projects were also affected. Infura has also been criticized by some users for complying with U.S. sanctions against Tornado Cash, but as a U.S.-based company, there is nothing ConsenSys can do about it.
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Launched in 2016, Infura has a single mission: to make it easy for Web3 developers to access Ethereum and build the future they want to live in.
Infura is the first blockchain API service of its kind.
— Infura (@infura_io) September 16, 2022
Work is well underway to create a decentralized marketplace of up to five different data providers, which could play a similar role to Infura but spread across the world. Infura itself will be one of the providers in the network.
Morris said this will make access to ethereum more reliable and censorship-resistant, as DApps don’t need to rely on a single data service provider located in one jurisdiction.
“If different people set up their infrastructure differently on different cloud providers with different node software, then you can start building antifragility into (the system).”
The ultimate goal, according to Morris, is a TCP/IP-like architecture that cannot be supervised:
“You can’t police TCP/IP, but of course you can police the provider. So we’re trying to create a new Web3 architecture, and how it evolves (…), and then our role in it (…) is driving this paradigm shift.”
Morris said that crypto-native companies and large Web2 cloud providers are eager to join, but did not explicitly confirm that Google Cloud or AWS are in talks with ConsenSys.
“They (Web2 and Web3 providers) are interested. I mean, they see this as a novel, potential source of a lot of future business.”
related: Web3 Startups Line Up: Consensys Startup Plans to Partner with Cointelegraph Accelerator
He added that the federation phase is necessary to iron out bugs and make the system work properly while still under centralized control — whether by Consensys or the new agency has yet to be determined. Expect to transition to a license-free data provider market sometime in 2024.
The decentralization of Infura blockchain data providers is critical as a single court order could shut down the monopoly. For Web3 wallets like MetaMask that rely on Infura for their data, this could have serious implications.
Morris added that a decentralized version of Infura could be managed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) or foundation.
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