While the crypto ecosystem has made significant advancements in decentralizing blockchains, recent incidents like the Cloudflare outage underscore the critical need to decentralize frontend and storage layers as well, according to blockchain infrastructure platforms.
"Decentralizing blockchains through consensus, a robust set of validators, and smart contracts is essential, but it represents only one side of the equation," an EthStorage spokesperson explained. "True resilience requires rethinking the whole stack — not just the blockchain layer." They emphasized that critical components such as Remote Procedure Call, Domain Name System, API, indexing, and storage should also be decentralized.
This comprehensive approach, termed "end-to-end decentralization," aims to prevent protocols from being taken down by a single point of failure, EthStorage stated.
Several prominent crypto protocols, including Blockchain.com, Coinbase, Ledger, BitMEX, Toncoin, Arbiscan, and DefiLlama, were affected by the Cloudflare network outage on Tuesday. This incident impacted a significant portion of internet traffic.
This event followed a similar disruption caused by an Amazon Web Services outage just one month prior, which also affected a substantial number of crypto protocols.
Platforms such as EthStorage, Protocol Labs (via IPFS and Filecoin), and Arweave are actively developing decentralized HTTP and storage solutions. These solutions are designed to enhance the resilience of crypto protocols against internet failures.
Filecoin commented on the Cloudflare incident, noting, "Outages like yesterday show how much traffic flows through a handful of centralized networks." They further elaborated that "Relying on a single cloud provider creates limits for any society that depends on stable access to data."
EthStorage pointed out that many crypto protocols opt for Web2 infrastructure for their frontend and supporting layers due to convenience and familiarity.
Common assumptions are that decentralized alternatives are slower, more expensive, harder to maintain, and less user-friendly. However, EthStorage asserts that these perceptions are "outdated."
Another factor contributing to the reliance on centralized components is the prioritization of a smooth launch and user base growth. EthStorage explained that "Since users don’t usually see the infrastructure underneath, there’s little immediate pressure to decentralize. As a result, decentralization becomes an ‘optional later step’ instead of a core architectural requirement."
Gradual Decentralization is Achievable
For crypto protocols that still incorporate centralized components, EthStorage offers a positive outlook, stating that full decentralization can be achieved incrementally.
"Achieving full decentralization across every layer of the stack doesn’t have to happen overnight. What matters is that projects intentionally align their roadmap with this direction — gradually removing centralized dependencies across execution, storage, and access as the project matures."
They added, "Incorporating this direction into their roadmap ensures that, over time, they move toward a resilient and fully decentralized architecture that cannot be taken down by any single vendor outage."
Vitalik Buterin's Stance on Decentralization
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently reinforced the importance of prioritizing decentralization. In his "Trustless Manifesto," he advised builders to "never sacrifice decentralization" in the pursuit of broader adoption.
Buterin, along with Ethereum Foundation researchers Yoav Weiss and Marissa Posner, highlighted that protocols compromise trustlessness from the moment they integrate a hosted node or a centralized relayer. They noted that while seemingly minor, each new checkpoint introduces a potential chokepoint.