It's time to face the "centralization" issue brought by Infura

Author: Rhythm BlockBeats

On March 4, a user expressed on social media that they were unable to use the MetaMask wallet in Venezuela. Upon investigation, it was found that the issue was due to problems with the API service provider Infura.

Infura responded that while adjusting certain configurations in compliance with new sanction directives from the U.S. and other jurisdictions, some settings were misconfigured, leading to service disruptions in certain regions. As Infura's parent company and a user of Infura's services, MetaMask also encountered issues due to this error, resulting in temporary inaccessibility for users in some areas.

This is not the first time Infura has caused disruptions affecting the Ethereum ecosystem. Although this issue has been discussed for years, in light of Ethereum's vastly expanded ecosystem today, some problems should be revisited. Especially during turbulent times, the so-called "decentralized" Web 3.0 world is beginning to show entry barriers due to inter-country issues, which is quite embarrassing.

We do not deny the significant value of Infura, but could we alleviate this problem by exploring other options?

What is Infura?

To put it professionally, Infura is an IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) product aimed at lowering the barriers to accessing Ethereum data. In simpler terms, Infura is a platform that allows your DApp to quickly connect to Ethereum without the need to run a local Ethereum node.

From a programmer's perspective, Infura is a Web3 provider backed by a load-balanced cluster of API nodes.

To understand it even more simply, Infura is a public Ethereum node that can access all data on the Ethereum blockchain. The advantage of this node is that Infura provides external services; project teams or trading platforms could deploy their own nodes to achieve the same functionality as Infura, but it is cumbersome and costly. Thus, Infura's services found a market.

In the entire Ethereum network, there is a need for a utility that can lower entry barriers and simplify access to Ethereum data. The most important of these is the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) product, and Infura is a leader in this area, providing a set of tools for cross-industry developers, DApp teams, and enterprises to connect their applications to the Ethereum network and other decentralized platforms.

Infura was developed by developer Michael Wuehler as an Ethereum infrastructure and initially operated independently. In 2019, it was fully acquired by ConsenSys and became a business unit under it. Infura was free to use at its launch. It later introduced a subscription service, with fees ranging from $50 to $1000 per month. However, for developers or projects with smaller needs, Infura remains quite friendly. Developers can create three projects for free on Infura and submit 100,000 requests daily using Infura's API services.

What is the use of Infura?

Infura's Chief Systems Engineer Nicola Cocchiaro said, "Our mission is to facilitate access to Ethereum and the opportunities it provides." They have indeed achieved this mission, exceeding expectations.

Many well-known projects on Ethereum (such as MetaMask, Aragon, Gnosis, OpenZeppelin, etc.) utilize Infura's API to connect their applications to the Ethereum network. As the largest API provider in the Ethereum ecosystem, Infura indeed makes it much more convenient for developers.

The most famous part of Infura's infrastructure is the hosted Ethereum client network, which supports both the mainnet and testnet over HTTPS and WSS through client-compatible JSON-RPC. Ethereum nodes are just part of the Infura stack, and they also offer IPFS services, although the attention on that is naturally not as high due to the vast difference in ecosystem.

Projects and Companies Using Infura

On Infura's official website, Rhythm found that many familiar companies and projects utilize Infura's services. For example, the Ethereum light wallet MetaMask connects to Infura's remote infrastructure using a zero-client approach, serving millions of users. (Note: In addition to using Infura's services, MetaMask also runs its own nodes.)

For projects like CryptoKitties that prioritize scalability, Infura collaborates with developers across the ecosystem to maintain smooth network operations.

Of course, many trading platforms also use Infura's services, such as Upbit and Bithumb. Some decentralized protocols, like 0x and MyCrypto, also rely on Infura to broadcast transaction data and smart contracts to the Ethereum mainnet.

Some client cases listed on Infura's official website

Concerns About Over-Reliance on Infura

Currently, there are 6,300 nodes in the entire Ethereum network. Infura once stated in 2018 that the number of nodes accessing the Ethereum network through Infura accounted for 5-10% of the total nodes. As the cost of maintaining nodes continues to rise, this proportion is likely to be even higher now.

This is not the first time Infura has encountered problems. In November 2020, Infura was not running the latest version of the Geth client, and certain special transactions triggered a bug in that version of the client, causing Infura to go down.

This incident is considered one of the most serious Ethereum incidents since The DAO. Although it was not an issue with the Ethereum network itself, the chain reaction caused by Infura's downtime nearly resulted in a temporary paralysis of the Ethereum network: mainstream trading platforms were unable to deposit or withdraw ERC-20 tokens, and MetaMask was unusable, among other issues.

Smaller issues have also persisted. In February of this year, platforms like OpenSea and Uniswap experienced problems again due to a surge in traffic that caused Infura to crash. Infura has clearly become the foundation of this $320 billion building.

As early as 2018, developers expressed concerns about Infura. Afri Schoedon, an Ethereum developer at Parity Technologies, stated that the Ethereum network cannot rely on Infura to handle 10 billion requests daily. Schoedon believes that over-reliance on Infura will increase the centralization of the protocol.

In addition to project teams or users setting up their own nodes, there are many other projects we can choose from, such as Alchemy or the highly regarded Pocket Network. While this may not completely eliminate the impact of Infura's failures, it can at least mitigate them.

We are not denying Infura's value; Infura is very important to Ethereum. However, if more node incentive programs or solutions to reduce node operating costs emerge, Ethereum could become even more perfect, perhaps even surpassing ETH 2.0.