Infura, the world's leading Web3 API provider from ConsenSys with more than 430,000 developers globally, today announced its plan to launch a Decentralized Infrastructure Network to complement the existing offering.
The decentralized protocol will be a community of highly engaged infrastructure providers participating in an open source ecosystem that can together overcome the limitations of the existing marketplace. The decentralized protocol will exemplify the promise of Web3, ensuring that millions of future users across the world can seamlessly access the information and services they need without outages and downtime due to a single point of failure. It is planned to be launched in the first half of 2023.
The demand for decentralized alternatives to the world's current centralized systems and services continues to grow quickly. Data hacks and outages in the status quo hurt users. Decentralizing access to blockchain APIs is a vital step to improve network uptime and importantly, give people sovereignty of their personal data.
“Decentralization has always been the overarching goal of ConsenSys. Now that we are seeing natural product market fit, our product teams are decentralizing what we do and how we do it. A Decentralized Infrastructure Network via Infura is the natural continuation of that goal,” said Joseph Lubin, CEO of ConsenSys.
Providing a more decentralized option
Infura launched its service in 2016 with the goal of reducing friction for Web3 developers and simplifying access to the Ethereum and IPFS networks. Since then, Infura’s Ethereum API has enabled over 430,000 developers to build products ranging from blockchain-based games, decentralized finance applications, NFT marketplaces, and DAOs. Infura provides the core infrastructure backend for popular Web3 products such as MetaMask, the Ethereum Name Service, and Layer 2 scaling solutions. The Web3 developer community started on Ethereum, but it has expanded to several new and complementary networks. Infura recognizes the rise of a multi-chain world is inevitable and this is why Infura supports an increasing variety of blockchain APIs.
“Infura was founded on the belief that the Web3 developer community can create a world where economic freedom, shared truth, and digital security are guaranteed to everyone on the planet. Today we’re announcing an important evolution that aims to underscore these values and affirm our commitment to being the world’s leading blockchain development suite for Ethereum and other networks. A Decentralized Infrastructure Network was always an inevitable part of our future,” added Eleazar Galano, co-founder of Infura.
Infura provides the critical infrastructure behind leading DeFi applications, sustainable Layer 2 networks, and other creative use cases being built on Ethereum and other networks. Infura’s infrastructure backend has been battle-tested with years of experience managing high-throughput requests for thousands of customers, but as a single service provider, it will never be perfect.
The future launch of a Decentralized Infrastructure Network will complement its current service, offering the possibility of increased resilience and greater collaboration in the ecosystem.
A long-term vision to help create a new public good with new network roles
The new decentralized protocol will be implemented in incremental stages, and over time, it will help ensure:
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A robust community of infrastructure operators who will be able to handle high-throughput requests similar to a multi-cloud database – without a single point of failure.
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The long-term viability of Web3 through scalable collective governance and data sovereignty that meets the needs of the demanding, digital-native users, while ensuring ownership, security, and transparency.
Qualified infrastructure providers can now apply to an early access program to be a test operator on the new network through this link.
ABOUT CONSENSYS
ConsenSys is a leading Ethereum and decentralized protocols software company. We enable developers, enterprises, and people worldwide to build next-generation applications, launch modern financial infrastructure, and access the decentralized web. Our product suite, composed of Infura, Quorum, Codefi, MetaMask, MetaMask Institutional, Truffle, Diligence and our NFT platform, serves millions of users, supports billions of blockchain-based queries for our clients, and has handled billions of dollars in digital assets. Ethereum is the largest programmable blockchain in the world, leading in business adoption, developer community, and DeFi activity. On this trusted, open-source foundation, we are building the digital economy of tomorrow.