Opinion: The crypto world should continue to build infrastructure, but not overvalued infrastructure

Author: Rickey

Compiled by: Xiaobai Navigation coderworld

Lately, I’ve heard too many people complain about Ethereum’s infrastructure, accusing venture capital firms of investing in a lot of meaningless infrastructure and arguing that excessive infrastructure leads toXiaobai NavigationThe Ethereum ecosystem is not suitable for application development.

This statement is very unfriendly and hard to believe.

We need to clear up some misunderstandings: What is infrastructure really?

Does it have a grand narrative? Is it backed by top VCs? Is it creating a lot of bubbles? Is it full of nihilism? Did you lose your investment? EBOLA?

The actual infrastructure includes:

1. Protocols, EIPs (Ethereum Improvement Proposals), frameworks, tool stacks, and non-application layersBlockchainServe.

2. Used to solve specific problems, improve application efficiency, user experience, decentralization,SafetySex and privacy.

3. The code is open source, acceptCommunitycontributions and reviews.

4. Provide free solutions or even complete public products to application developers.

5. Built by a group of truly idealistic and optimistic people.

BlockchainInfrastructure development

I prefer to describe it in terms of git branchesBlockchainInfrastructure development.

Blockchain类似于一个新的 git 分支。在这个分支的第一阶段，加入了密码学、P2P 网络、共识算法等基础设施。这些基础设施可以用于构建比特币、以太坊及其他 L1 网络。

In the second stage, various Ethereum-based tools, facilities and services have emerged, and developers can use them to build variouswallet, DeFi applications and Layer2 networks. Interestingly, after this submission, an on-chain branch was created. The ultimate goal of this branch is to store user data completely on the chain andcontractTo implement the logic of the application. Developers can implement truly verifiable, composable and interoperable on-chain applications. Currently, we are in the stage of building on-chain infrastructure for this branch, and I think we are on the right track.

What does infrastructure bring us?

1. Reduce monopoly

In a specific area, developers have more choices. Suppose you are the founder of a startup and want to provide transaction data query services for your network. Are you willing to pay a high fee to purchase a company's block scanning service, or choose to deploy a free Blockscout?

2. Improve efficiency

Developers will migrate to more efficient tools and infrastructure. This is how my application technology stack has changed in the past year:

Chain: Tendermint → OP Stack

Development tools: Truffle/Hardhat → Foundry

contractInteraction: Web3.js / Ether.js → Viem

Storage: IPFS → BNB Greenfield

Block Explorer: Etherscan → Blockscout

wallet: Extensionwallet → Coinbase Smart Wallet/AA

3. Enriching application diversity

Provide developers with enough infrastructure so that they can create interesting applications. A few years ago, we mainly built DeFi and NFT-related applications in the Ethereum ecosystem. Now, you can use a variety of infrastructure to build more interesting products and applications:

Cloud Platform: Fleek

Authentication: Privy

Games: MUD, Dojo, Paima

Wallet toolkit: Onchain Kit, rainbowkit

Open source reward: tea

Full-stack ZK proof service: polyhedra

Ethereum’s trustlessness AI:ora

IP: StoryProtocol

4. Reduce application startup costs

实际上，你只需支付部署contract的 gas 费用。由于基础设施足够完善，连小型开发团队也能快速整合基础设施服务，实现预期功能。几乎所有基础设施服务提供商都会为开发者提供免费计划，这些计划足以支持和验证你的早期想法。

5. Accelerating mass adoption

This depends on the changes that infrastructure brings to non-financialized applications and user experience. I think this is also the reason why many developers have shifted from developing consumer crypto applications to developing infrastructure. It’s not that developers are too focused on technology, but they must first solve the friction between efficiency and user experience, and then build applications to verify their feasibility.

We may need to go through several stages before we can achieve trueMass adoption of infrastructure explosion period:There are many different solutions in the same field, such as Layer2's OP, ZK, ZKEVM and Plasma.Infrastructure phase-out period:The market will eliminate those that have no practical significance and rely only onTokeninfrastructure.Infrastructure stabilization period:Some truly valuable infrastructure will survive, and developers will begin to build consumer applications of various categories based on this infrastructure.Mass adoption:此阶段的Blockchain基础设施与 Web2 服务提供给消费者的用户体验相同。用户不需要了解区块链的工作原理就能使用各种应用，这可以为用户带来更好的利益分配、数字资源的拥有权、隐私和反审查能力。

6. Reduce the impact of centralization

Imagine if all our applications use the same infrastructure service, until one day, a country's government shuts it down, or even arrests its core code contributors or CEO, making it impossible to provide services to applications. But our infrastructure services are sufficient, and there are other alternative solutions, so applications will not stop running due to the paralysis of a certain infrastructure.

Continue to build infrastructure

"Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?" These are the words Steve Jobs said to PepsiCo executive John Sculley in an effort to entice him to join Apple.

Now I want to ask you a question:

“Do you want to make and trade Memecoin your whole life, or do you want to build infrastructure and change the crypto world?”

Infrastructure is the driving force of the industry, it brings new narratives and visions, even if it is just a new standard, a proposal or an SDK. Countless builders need stories to strengthen their beliefs and maintain their enthusiasm. Why do we believe in crypto? Why believe in chain? Become the one who builds the cathedral. If you don't think you are building a cathedral, change your job.

The article comes from the Internet:Opinion: The crypto world should continue to build infrastructure, but not overvalued infrastructure

Related recommendations: Crypto Morning News: Friend.Tech team gives up control of smart contracts, OKX will launch CATI (Catizen)

Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm that invested in FTX, will permanently withdraw from the crypto market. Author: Xiaobai Navigation Coderworld Yesterday's Market Dynamics Friend.Tech Team Gives Up Control of Smart Contracts According to The Block, the Web3 social network Friend.Tech development team…