Vitalik Buterin, one of the co-founders of the Ethereum blockchain, said decentralized applications (DApps) have the potential to alleviate internet infrastructure failures, such as when internet service provider Cloudflare suffered a major outage in November.
In a post on X on Thursday, Buterin said Ethereum needs to work harder to achieve its mission of “building the world's computer to serve as the central infrastructure for a freer and more open internet.” According to the co-founders, it started with DApps that “run without fraud, censorship, or third-party interference” and can be used at scale on the blockchain.
“It's an application where a user wouldn't even notice if Cloudflare went down or if all of Cloudflare was hacked by North Korea,” Buterin said. “Applications that maintain stability over the rise and fall of corporations, ideologies, and political parties. And applications that protect privacy. All of these are for finance, and for identity, governance, and other civilized infrastructures that people want to build.”
sauce: Vitalik Buterin
Cloudflare's outage in November, which resulted in about 20% of the platform's websites being down, was caused by a software glitch. According to the company's after-action report, the number of “capability files” used by the bot management system in response to the cyber attack grew beyond normal limits.
Related: Cloudflare outage shows why cryptocurrencies need end-to-end decentralization
Similar to the outage caused by Amazon Web Services in October, many crypto platforms were affected by the same outage, leading many to question the reliability of centralized internet infrastructure. Websites like Coinbase, Blockchain.com, BitMEX, and Ledger have gone offline.
Buterin and Ethereum Foundation researchers Yoav Weiss and Marissa Posner wrote in a manifesto published on November 11 that “decentralization is eroded by convenience, not capture. It automatically and continuously moves towards dependence on trust.”
Buterin floats idea for Ethereum on-chain gas futures
The Ethereum co-founder is a regular on social media, offering his views on the cryptocurrency industry and technology through his blog and other media. In early December, he argued that the crypto market needs a “good, reliable on-chain gas futures market” that gives users certainty about blockchain transaction fees.
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