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.

The blockchain is similar to a new git branch. In the first phase of this branch, infrastructure such as cryptography, P2P networks, and consensus algorithms are added. These infrastructures can be used to build Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other L1 networks.

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

合约交互：Web3.js / Ether.js → Viem

Storage: IPFS → BNB Greenfield

Block Explorer: Etherscan → Blockscout

钱包：扩展钱包 → 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

In fact, you only need to pay the gas fee for deploying the contract. Since the infrastructure is complete enough, even a small development team can quickly integrate infrastructure services and realize the expected functions. Almost all infrastructure service providers will provide free plans for developers, which are enough to support and verify your early ideas.

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:The blockchain infrastructure at this stage provides the same user experience to consumers as Web2 services. Users do not need to understand how blockchain works to use various applications, which can bring users better distribution of benefits, ownership of digital resources, privacy, and anti-censorship capabilities.

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

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