Cloudflare to Access Crypto Using Ethereum Validator Nodes
Internet services and DDoS protection company, Cloudflare has announced a new strategy regarding its Web3 experiments. The company revealed it will run Ethereum validator nodes to scale the internet by using proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus technologies. This will ostensibly allow the company to access the energy efficiency and consistency of this technology.
Leading Content Delivery Company Cloudfare to Push Web3
Cloudflare is one of the leading content delivery and DDoS mitigation companies. It has announced a new Web3 push that leverages Ethereum’s upcoming proof-of-stake network. The company proclaims it will be running Ethereum validator nodes as part of its experiment in order to assess the viability of the scaling technology in the future.
The company has stated that blockchain technologies could be part of the story of the internet in the long run and that these experiences might help in the decentralisation of such networks. It explained:
"For the Ethereum ecosystem, running validator nodes on our network allows us to offer even more geographic decentralisation in places like EMEA, LATAM, and APJC while also adding infrastructure decentralisation to the network."
Cloudflare specified these actions will be conducted in the coming months before The Merge, the change of consensus mechanism the Ethereum network aims to execute later this year.
Proof-of-Stake Preference
Cloudflare has clarified 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 volumes less than a proof of work miner.” About proof-of-work-based networks, like Bitcoin, Cloudflare said:
"Proof of work networks are wasteful. 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.
This consensus mechanism is the one used by Filecoin, a decentralised storage network that uses incentives to maintain the files of the participants. This may hint at the possibility of the inclusion of this network in the set of experiments that the internet company will be conducting in the future.
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