Opinion: Infrastructure should be encrypted without being felt, but it should not become a bubble factory

Author: Rickey Source: X, @Web3Rickey

Recently, I have heard many people complain about Ethereum's infrastructure, accusing venture capital of investing in a lot of meaningless infrastructure, believing that too much infrastructure has caused difficulties in the industry, and even trying to create opposition between application developers and infrastructure organizations. These people seem to describe the Ethereum ecosystem as a "Niflheim" (a legendary, cold and desolate place) that is not suitable for application development. This statement is neither friendly nor convincing.

1.Clarify misunderstandings, what is real infrastructure?

Does it have a grand narrative? Has it been invested by top venture capital? Has a lot of bubbles been generated? Is it nihilistic? Has it made you lose money? Do you have "EBOLA" (EVM logical confusion syndrome)?

Real infrastructure:

1. They include protocols, EIPs (Ethereum Improvement Proposals), frameworks, tool stacks, and non-application layer blockchain services.

2. They are used to solve some specific problems and improve application efficiency, user experience, decentralization, security, and privacy.

3. Their code is open source and accepts community contributions and reviews.

4. They provide free solutions to application developers, or even completely public products.

5. They are created by a group of truly idealistic and optimistic people.

II.The development of blockchain infrastructure

I prefer to describe the development of blockchain infrastructure in the form of Git branches.

Blockchain is like a new Git branch. In the first stage of this branch, infrastructure such as cryptography, P2P networks, and consensus algorithms are added. You can use these infrastructures to build Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as other L1 networks.

In the second stage, various Ethereum-based facilities, tools, and services appear, which developers can use to build various wallets, DeFi applications, and Layer2 networks.

Interestingly, after this commit, an "on-chain" branch was created. The ultimate goal of this branch is to store user data completely on the chain, and the logic of the application is implemented through smart contracts. Developers can implement truly verifiable, composable, and interoperable on-chain applications. We are currently in the on-chain infrastructure construction stage of this branch, and I think we are on the right track.

3.What does infrastructure bring us?

1. Reduce monopoly

For a certain field, developers have more choices. Imagine if you are the founder of a startup company 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 deploy a free Blockscout?

2.Improve efficiency

Developers will turn to more efficient tools and infrastructure. This is how my technology stack has changed over the past year when building applications:

- Blockchain: Tendermint → OP Stack

- Development Tools: Truffle/Hardhat → Foundry

- Contract Interaction: Web3.js / Ether.js → Viem

- Storage: IPFS → BNB Greenfield

- Block Explorer: Etherscan → Blockscout

- Wallet: Browser Extension Wallet → Coinbase Smart Wallet/AA

3.Enrich Application Diversity

Provide enough infrastructure so that developers can create interesting applications. A few years ago, we mainly built DeFi and NFT-related applications in the Ethereum ecosystem. And now, with the help of various infrastructures, you can build more interesting products, such as: - Cloud Platform: Fleek - Authentication: Privy - Games: MUD, Dojo, Paima - Wallet Toolkit: Onchain Kit, rainbowkit - Open Source Rewards: tea - Full Stack ZK Proof Service: polyhedra - Trusted AI for Ethereum: ora - IP: StoryProtocol left;">4.Reduce the startup cost of the application

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

5.Accelerate large-scale popularization

This depends on the changes that infrastructure brings to non-financial applications and user experience. I think this is why many builders have shifted from developing consumer crypto applications to developing infrastructure. This is not because developers are too focused on technology, but because they must first solve the friction problems of efficiency and user experience before they can build applications to prove feasibility.

In order to achieve true mass adoption, we may need to go through several stages:

- Infrastructure explosion period: multiple different solutions appear in the same field, just like Layer2 has OP, ZK, ZKEVM, Plasma.

- Infrastructure elimination period: the market will eliminate those meaningless infrastructures that only exist by tokens.

- Infrastructure stabilization period: some truly valuable infrastructures survive, and developers begin to build various consumer applications based on these infrastructures.

- Mass popularization: The blockchain infrastructure at this stage is basically the same as the experience provided to users by Web2 services. Users can use various applications without understanding how blockchain works, which can bring users better income distribution, ownership of digital resources, privacy, and anti-censorship capabilities.

6.Reduce the impact of centralization

Imagine if all our applications rely on the same infrastructure service, until one day, the government of a certain country shuts it down and starts arresting its core code contributors or CEO, making it unable to provide services to applications. But because our infrastructure services are diverse enough and there are other alternative solutions, applications will not stop running because of the paralysis of a certain infrastructure.

Fourth,Continue to build infrastructure

"Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or change the world with me?"This is what Steve Jobs said to Pepsi executive John Sculley to entice him to join Apple.

Now, I want to ask you:

"Do you want to make and trade meme coins for the rest of your life, or do you want to build infrastructure and change the crypto world?"

Infrastructure is the engine of the industry, it brings new narratives and visions, even if it's 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 encryption? Why believe in the chain? Why believe in a decentralized future? Be the one who "builds the cathedral". If you don't think you are "building a cathedral", you should find a job that is not in the cryptocurrency field.