Cloudflare is an internet service provider and protection company that provides DDoS protection. They have announced a revised strategy for their Web3 experiment. As part of its pledge to increase internet scale using PoS consensus technology, the company announced that it would run Ethereum validator nosdes. The company will be able to benefit from the consistency and energy efficiency of the technology.
Cloudflare: Crypto Entry via Ethereum
Cloudflare, one of the leading content delivery and DDoS mitigation companies, announced a new Web3 push that leverages Ethereum’s upcoming proof-of-stake network. In order to evaluate the viability and future potential of scaling technology, the company stated that it would be operating Ethereum validator nosdes in its experiment.
Cloudflare claimed that blockchain technologies can be an important part of the web’s story in the long-term and that the experiences could help with the decentralization. Cloudflare stated that this is a matter of concern.
Running validator nodes in the Ethereum network can allow us to provide more geographical decentralization for places such as EMEA and LATAM. It also adds infrastructure decentralization.
Cloudflare stated that these actions would be carried out in the months ahead of The Merge which is the change to the consensus mechanism Ethereum networks aims at executing later this year.
Proof-of-Stake Preference
Cloudflare made clear that it supports proof-of-stake networks due to the low energy usage compared to proof-of-work-based counterparts, declaring that “the energy required to operate a proof of stake validator node is magnitudes less than a proof of work miner.” About proof-of-work-based networks, like Bitcoin, Cloudflare stated:
Wasteful proof of work networks. This waste is driven by the fact that proof of work consensus mechanisms are electricity-intensive.
The company also declared that, as part of its commitment to sustainability, “Cloudflare has not and will not run our own proof of work infrastructure on our network.” While Cloudflare will start experimenting with Ethereum first, it also mentioned another consensus mechanism, “proof of spacetime,” in its press release.
Filecoin is a decentralized storage system that employs incentives to preserve the files of its participants. This consensus mechanism is similar to the one Filecoin uses. This could indicate that there is a possibility for the network to be part of future experimentation by the internet company.
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