Long live Web3

• We all admire the core principles of Web3 — decentralization, fairness, transparency, and freedom. That’s why many people were drawn to this industry, including me.
• When I was running Bitcoin & Ethereum meetups here in Sydney back in 2015, I was so excited and inspired by the HOPE and the idea that, for the first time in human history, we have a living and breathing, self-evolving, self-healing ecosystem without a middleman. Finally, we can demonstrate democracy and freedom using technology and innovation. It was beautiful.
• But look at our Web3 industry now. The same Web2 story repeats.
• More than 82% of critical Web3 infrastructure such as dApps, Web3 services, Web3 frontends, databases, APIs, and even validator nodes are hosted in centralized clouds like AWS/GCP.
• When Ethereum moved from PoW to PoS, it introduced a new problem. More than 70% of Ethereum nodes are running on AWS & GCP today.
• If you look at the largest, most active RPC providers in the entire Web3 space, not just Ethereum, they are centralized and privately owned. Their tech is proprietary. Most RPC providers are just privately owned PaaS/SaaS.
• Many Web3 projects, developers and founders choose the public cloud like AWS and GCP for convenience. But if AWS hosts the majority of the Web3 infrastructure, where is the decentralization? What is the purpose of building dApps and solutions on DLTs?
• We should call it AWS3, not Web3.
• And what about the underlying assets themselves? One of the largest Bitcoin and Ethereum custodians are Blackrock and Vanguard, the very same entities that own the largest shares of Amazon and Google.
• For years, between 2010 and around early 2018, communities, founders, and protocols fought tooth and nail to prevent centralization. But look at what’s going on in Web3 today.
• We are building Web3 SaaS companies and mini Web3 S&P500s. To me, there isn’t much difference.
• Some may say consensus algorithms, PoS, or sharding will make the difference, but if the validators are the ones responsible for verification, maintaining the security and the integrity of the blockchain/network, and if the majority of the validators are on AWS, centrally owned, aren’t the choke points obvious?
• The other issue is that most of the L1s/L2a and DLTs are backed and managed by foundations. So what is the difference between the Apache Foundation offering open-source software in web2 world compared to the Solana Foundation maintaining the Solana Network? Other than the Solana Network having a token, what is the main difference? I don’t see any.
• Having a private company or a non-profit foundation means having shareholders and directors. Having a bank account means having account holders and signatories. Having agreements between teams with the foundation means people and accountabilities are tied to a country or state.
• When Web3 foundations provide the core resources like funding and human capital, to me that is the choke point and it is the same structure.
• Some Web3 protocols have CEOs, and C-level executives. The traditional management structures inherently centralize power and rely on middlemen, creating choke points for the project and making their decentralized USP worthless.
• In fact, it would be misrepresenting facts, or worse, false advertising. Many Web3 projects should change their taglines.
• Early Web3 spirit was to bring back the original vision of the Internet, but look at what’s happening now. Same structure, same story.
• To me, the problem is much, much worse. Most people aren’t aware of the danger.
• Beyond our Web3 world, almost all our digital services and infrastructure rely on the cloud and some form of IT infrastructure that is owned by a private corporation. We can’t ignore the cloud. It’s everywhere.
• Even though we feel the Web3 industry is big compared to the current Web2 industry, we are just small. I know we don’t want to admit it. But for me, most Web3 projects are still experiments, including Ethereum.
• Cloud & Data is one of the 3rd largest industries. This $4+ trillion industry is monopolized by 4–5 corporations, and we are supposed to trust them?
• Large corporations like Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Meta, and Microsoft not only control social media; they own 96% of the entire world’s data and IT infrastructure — the very same companies hosting the majority of Web3 infrastructure today.
• Yes, right now they control 70–80%, but they will keep going until they reach a similar number to the Web2 world, like 90%+. So what’s going to happen to Web3 and our decentralization ethos?
• If governments or regulators want to shut down a Web3 service, they simply tell AWS or Google to shut it down.
• Amazon AWS, Google, Meta, and Microsoft own the largest data centers in the world, they subcontract fiber connectivity, and 5G networks, own the largest social media platforms, and even bully smartphone manufacturers to add their services by default.
• They collect data in an unprecedented manner. They know about weather, traffic, species, space, finance, and health. Anything they should know, they know. Maybe they know more about you and me than our loved ones. Isn’t that scary?
• The most valuable commodity is no longer gold or oil. It’s data. That’s why they spend billions building apps and services to collect our data. They spend millions on lobbying for laws that favor them.
• With their social media platforms, they can spread certain political or ideological views and beliefs to you and everyone who is using them.
• At a fundamental level, these corporations have read and write capabilities for the fabric of our society.
• Yes, they try to normalize it by using clever messaging, “it’s a compromise, you get to connect with your friends and family, we just collect your data, no harm.”
• I’m not completely against these corporations. They brought so many good things to the world. We are more connected than ever before.
• But we shouldn’t be naive about the flip side of these concentrated powers.
• Yes, corporations may have ethical and legal obligations to do the right thing, and maybe governments have plans for the worst case, but I don’t believe it’s that simple. Because there is a fundamental flaw in the whole structure.
• What concerns me the most is that these very same companies also happen to have the biggest AI capabilities today. And they are all in a race to prove who is bigger and better. It is often about Wall Street narratives and quarterly earning reports, rather than innovation or healthy competition.
• This is not just bad for business; it’s bad for everyone.
• Last month, the entire world came to its knees with the CrowdStrike incident. That was just a simple software bug. The tip of the iceberg. But what if something more complex happened?
• These large monopolies have billions in resources to deploy and build technologies that no one can compete with.
• The AI competition is extremely hot. For Google, Meta, and Microsoft, it is survival. Because it’s about showing who is better and who is the winner. If earning reports are good, Wall Street is happy, and everyone is happy.
• What’s exactly happening behind their closed doors?
• Speaking of secrecy, to this date, we still don’t know what happened at OpenAI back in November 2023, why Sam was kicked out, why he was rehired, and what were the underlying issues.
• We are talking about the largest AI ecosystem in the world, and we have no idea what went on.
• Google, Meta, and Microsoft are at war. During war, people cut shortcuts and make mistakes. It is inevitable that even if the risk is 1%, the impact would be in millions, if not billions. It could be thousands of times worse than the CrowdStrike incident.
• Who is actually watching these corporations, if they are doing the right thing or not?
• Who is even capable of challenging them if they are doing things that they shouldn’t be doing?
• Unfortunately, these corporations have more authority and influence than some countries. For some, they are the economy. They are the GDP.
• Most of these large players’ technologies are private, proprietary, and kept in secrecy.
• In the food industry, regulators look at what manufacturers put on their product labels and allow a 20–30% margin for errors. Food manufacturers can get away with many things, maybe they get fined.
• How about the software industry? How many regulators are allowed to look at the OpenAI secret research and oversee it? In my opinion, in the software industry, corporations have up to a 100% margin for errors.
• In history, empires and kingdoms ruled the world. They have three things in common: Centralized power, Monopoly, and Secrecy.
• So are we really far off from the Roman, Ottoman, and Mongolian empires?
• A small group of powerful people assumed what was good for society and got to decide how to do it. Kings, pharaohs, empires did things without telling their people. They made the most impactful decisions behind closed doors, regardless of the outcomes.
• So are we better off? I know the world has gotten better, but the societal structures and power distribution look the same to me.
• Instead of kingdoms and governments, today tech giants and assets managers influence the world.
• In the old days, the Ottoman and Roman empires only controlled certain parts of the world, and they kept certain secrets, but if you look at Google, Meta, Microsoft & Amazon, I think they have more influence than all these Empires combined. They have the perfect disaster distribution capabilities.
• What I mean by that: Imagine if a super intelligent AI gets out from the very same corporations (like OpenAI/Microsoft), it is game over for humans.
• Because they have the perfect distribution through social media platforms and smartphones. They own data centers, fiber networks, satellites, and they are everywhere.
• The biggest threat to humanity is not WW3 with Russia vs the US, Iran vs Israel, or another COVID-19 virus — it is this concentrated superpower of data + IT infrastructure and AI.
• These three are the perfect combination for a disaster in my opinion.
• 5–8 years ago it was bad enough that these corporations used to only own world data and world IT infrastructure. But today they also own the largest AI superpower.
• In chemistry class when a few elements are combined together with no reaction, and adding just one extra ingredient, everything explodes. The ownership of the AI superpower by the same corporations is the propane. That is the kaboom.
• Throughout history, we have had perfect alignments for catastrophic events. I think we are in those times. My biggest worry is that this time it could be a planetary killer.
• 2024 AI is a million times smarter than 2022’s AI.
• The general public has no idea, and I think we should talk about this danger. Yes, 2 years ago AI wasn’t too scary. But in the last 2 years, AI matured a few thousand years.
• It used to be that ChatGPT was the sexy tool in town, but with what happened in the last month with AI incidents, we all need to wake up. It could be a checkmate for humans.
• If something 100, 1,000, or 1 billion times smarter than humans emerges, what is our backup? Who is going to protect us? It’s like ants vs humans. In our case the ant is the human. It’s game over!!
• We think we are living in a modern, more democratic society. But is that really the case?
• From a democratic point of view, not a single company or a small group of people should get to decide what is good for society. We should share that right. Big corporations assume they have that right and run with it, but that shouldn’t be the case by default.
• It’s so ironic to me to witness congressmen begging Zuckerberg to make adjustments or ask him to provide additional information.
• If we think governments and regulators are prepared for disasters, we have to think again.
• Now, yes it’s scary and frightening. This is a serious concern. But do we have any solution? I don’t know.
• But I know one thing: we should not ignore it, we should educate ourselves, and do something about it. Even if it’s 0.0001% to address the problem, I will be happy.
• Knowing what I know now, if I didn’t do anything, I would regret it. Global problems need global awareness and collaboration.
• I grew up in Sri Lanka. When I was born, it was a civil war, and when I left Sri Lanka, it was also a war. I witnessed the devastating effects of centralization, corruption, and monopoly.
• I feel privileged to live in Western society, but I feel I have a huge responsibility to do something important, not just have a comfortable life.
• I also know if I go against big players like Google and AWS, I might end up in jail, like what’s happening to many people. If I promote a platform for freedom and democracy, I might face the same drama like what the Telegram founder is going through.
• And if I have a choice to make, altering the outcome of what type of cloud technologies are good for a type 1 civilization, I would go with an open-source decentralized cloud network for our solar system without being owned by a corporation or a government. An open public infrastructure for our solar system.
• But for me it is worth it. I would rather live life to the fullest and follow my heart instead of regretting it when I’m 70.

So, what contributions have I made so far? Let me give you a little background on our journey.

• So after I left the Fantom Foundation in 2019, I was thinking about what areas I could contribute to the most that would have the greatest impact in this world, not just within Web3.
• I looked at fundamental problems in tech. Building cloud networks and communication protocols in a decentralized manner was a good start.
• I envision a world where trust is built into the design, not into brands or people who are running it. Instead of relying on a small group of people, we should have technologies that are immutable by design and verified by widely distributed independent verifiers.
• I came up with the 10 commandments to protect the vision and a good architecture. I spent months working with philosophers and tech experts to come up with a decentralized infrastructure that is:

No middleman (no foundation, no VCs, no CEOs, no company, no license)

Immutable by design

Decentralized architecture & self-sustaining

Open Source and owned by a community

• I spent all the money I had on the project. I worked 7 days a week for 4 years with a team of 20–30 to bring this vision to life. We never raised any money, never registered for a company, no foundation, no token.
• We managed to build a small-scale version of the world’s first open-source cloud technology that operates similarly to the Bitcoin network, but instead of P2P value sharing, it can host services like AWS and Google Cloud. More importantly, the services that are running on the network are immutable, meaning no one can shut them down, even our own team can’t do it.
• This innovation, like building a Bitcoin network style cloud network which has no middleman, no CEO, and no company and it is available to anyone, anytime, and accessible from anywhere is a true decentralized ecosystem.
• Openmesh Protocol combines the best features of L1 network programmability and security, the flexibility and scalability of public cloud solutions like AWS, and immutable data and decentralized oracles like Chainlink into a single solution. Our team brings diverse experience from prominent projects, including Fantom, Ripple, AWS, Cosmos, and Aragon.
• OpenmeshP2P: A platform that allows anyone to rent their unused computers to someone anywhere in the world. Openmesh connects providers (individual computer owners, businesses, data centers, and even public cloud providers) to customers, enabling startups, L1/L2 chains, and DAOs to compare and choose from thousands of providers instead of one, saving up to 90% on their infrastructure costs.
• The Openmesh Core is secured by Openmesh Core and a consensus algorithm. The network smart contracts and Openmesh PoS ensure security, privacy, and accountability, similar to the Bitcoin network.
• Instead of having a foundation to support the R&D, we focused on using innovation. OpenmeshDAO an autonomous organization is tasked with managing core R&D, running costs, ensuring that the network remains community-driven and transparent. The OpenmeshDAO main wallet is the central hub for distributing funds, supporting essential activities such as paying for contributors.
• We believe in a network governed by its community of users, developers, and stakeholders. Decision-making processes are designed to be democratic, aligning with the best interests of the network’s health and longevity.
• No distributed network is truly distributed if the network has fewer independent node operators supporting it than those hosted in centralized data centers. The viability of the node operation must be sustainable for anyone to continue running nodes. If the underlying running costs, such as server and electricity costs, exceed their node validation rewards, why would anyone run a validator node? Most node operators are running on the assumption that they will make a return one day, while supporting decentralization is simply wishful thinking. Most Web3 projects use AWS as the go-to cloud provider to host their node operations due to convenience, or they rely on private node operators to manage the servers. As a user, you are renting validator rights and capacities for a fee. All the above should be changed.
• Xnode allows you to run Web3 nodes at up to 80% less cost. Addressing economic viability is huge because now more people will join the movement by becoming validators.
• The other thing is, whenever I meet Web3 people, especially at conferences, I always ask how many years they have been in Web3. Many say years, sometimes even a decade. Then I ask, have you run a Web3 node? Any Web3 node. The common answer is they haven’t.
• Because running a node is scary. It’s expensive, the UX sucks, it requires a big financial commitment, and more importantly, economic viability.
• For example, you run an Ethereum node on AWS for $200 per month. As a validator, you earn ETH in return. If the amount of Ethereum you get in a 6–12 month period is lower in dollar value compared to $200 per month, why would anyone run an Ethereum node?
• What if running an Ethereum node became $10 per month instead of $200? What if taking 40 minutes to set up an Ethereum node takes only 3–5 clicks? What if even a non-technical person can run a node like publishing a website?
• The web-based Xnode Studio allows you to import infrastructure templates, build your infrastructure, connect to a preferred bare metal provider, and deploy it under the bare metal provider that you prefer. Xnode Studio comes with dozens of infrastructure templates as packages/libraries.
• If you get a bigger server, you can run 2 x Ethereum nodes today while running an Openmesh node, and use leftover resources to host your website, deploy a Solana RPC node, and install your trading terminal and analytics engine on the same server.
• This will fundamentally change the participants and infrastructure utilization. I consider today’s Web3 infrastructure to be like dial-up, and if we want to accelerate Web3, then we will need fiber for Web3.
• If we want to improve productivity and quality of living in a city, we need better infrastructure like bridges, schools, roads, and healthcare systems. In the Web3 space, we need the same kind of innovation.
• Xnode is Openmesh’s core platform and solution for developers, Web3 protocols, and entrepreneurs to quickly design, build, deploy, and manage their own infrastructure easily, like building a website. You can build your own decentralized data clouds, compute networks, Web3 nodes as a service, create data connectivity by provisioning data APIs, and build query and analytics engines in mere minutes, instead of weeks or months on a server that you own.
• I want to support the original vision of the internet — a world where data and critical infrastructure, like cloud computing, are open, decentralized, and benefit everyone, not just a chosen few.
• I believe that important technologies like cloud tech should be public assets like hospitals and roads, not owned by corporations or governments that prioritize their own interests.
• This is not solely about technology; it’s about preserving democracy and ensuring the free flow of information for generations to come. We want to bring back the original internet.
• We launched the world’s first decentralized virtual machine called Xnode last month in Paris, and we plan to scale significantly this year.
• OpenmeshDAO is a global initiative to bring together brilliant minds to build open data and open infrastructures that will be pivotal in shaping the next 10–20 years.
• We have over 6,400 members so far supporting the vision, and we are expecting a few hundred thousand by next year.

Long live Web3