Consensys Strategic Director Decentralized Infura to be launched by the end of this year

Consensys Strategic Director to launch Decentralized Infura by year-end

Author: Brayden Lindrea, Cointelegraph; Translation: Song Xue, LianGuai

The Chief Strategy Officer of ConsenSys said that a decentralized version of Infura will be launched at the end of this year, and major Web2 cloud providers will become part of this network.

“We hope to launch something later this year, but there will be a so-called collaborative phase afterwards, which is expected to last for about six months,” said Simon Morris, ConsenSys’ Strategic Director, referring to a trial period where the network is still under centralized control.

Infura is the access point for most DApps to access real-time on-chain data of the Ethereum blockchain, but it has a single point of failure because it is solely controlled by ConsenSys. In November 2020, when Infura went down, MetaMask wallet stopped working, and centralized exchanges and DeFi projects were also affected. Infura has also been criticized by some users for complying with US sanctions on Tornado Cash, but as a US company, ConsenSys has no control over it.

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The progress of establishing a decentralized marketplace consisting of up to five different data providers, who can play a similar role to Infura but are distributed around the world, is going smoothly. Infura itself will become one of the providers in the network.

Morris said that this will make access to Ethereum more reliable and resistant to censorship, as DApps do not need to rely on a single data service provider located in a jurisdiction.

“If different people use different node software on different cloud providers and set up their infrastructure in different ways, then you can start building anti-fragile systems.”

Morris said that the ultimate goal is to build an architecture similar to TCP/IP that is not subject to regulation:

“You can’t regulate TCP/IP, but you can certainly regulate providers. So we’re trying to create a new Web3 architecture, how it evolves…and then what our role is…is to drive this paradigm shift.”

Morris said that both native crypto companies and large Web2 cloud providers are eager to join, but it has not been confirmed whether Google Cloud or AWS are negotiating with ConsenSys.

“They (Web2 and Web3 providers) are all interested in this. I mean, they see it as a novel, potential source of a lot of business in the future.”

He added that the collaborative phase is necessary to eliminate errors and keep the system functioning normally while still under centralized control. Infura is expected to transition to a permissionless data provider marketplace at some point in 2024.

The decentralization of Infura as a blockchain data provider is crucial, as a single court order could shut down the monopoly. This could have serious implications for Web3 wallets like MetaMask, which rely on Infura for data access.

Morris added that the decentralized version of Infura can be managed by decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) or foundations.

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