Will Blockchain make the same mistake as the internet?
The decentralization movement has picked up renewed momentum since the arrival of Bitcoin more than a decade ago. At that time, early cypherpunks could download the Bitcoin Core client and begin participating in one of the most exciting computer science advances in history. Now, ten years on, a much broader audience is running later versions of the same software. To abstract this process even further, hardware products like Casanode, Bitseed, and AVADO have made it even easier to decentralize your Internet experience.
In the following post, we’ll investigate some of the ideologic reasons for running a full node on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other blockchain networks. Later on, we’ll also dig into the relation to privacy, as well as the possibility to even earn a bit of crypto for running a node.
Internet Pioneers
Many blockchain enthusiasts often forget about the first push for a decentralized internet in the late 1960s. What we now consider the Internet first began as a government-sponsored project and was never intended to have a single point of failure.
It was a niche network, but as it gained steam, it earned the attention of more and more developers until it became ready for commercial use in the 1980s. Then came the Netscapes and Yahoos and a great competition of different companies eager to become the definitive Internet company.
Of course, we know what happens after that. Some of it is indeed positive, but, as of late, our ideas of what the Internet is supposed to be needs some reexamination.
The early vision of decentralization has now been reduced to a handful of honey pots of information. Whether it be privacy breaches à la Facebook or data leaks from Fidelity, it’s becoming more and more clear that aggregating information in one place is incredibly dangerous. In the case of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, for instance, authorities built a strong case that Facebook was successfully leveraged for political ends during the 2016 election in the United States. As the stakes are raised, so must our awareness of the problem.
The problem is manyfold, of course, but much of it has to do with how value is accrued for Internet companies. In an investment thesis for Union Square Ventures, Joel Monegro astutely points this out. He writes, “The previous generation of shared protocols (TCP/IP, HTTP, SMTP, etc.) produced immeasurable amounts of value, but most of it got captured and re-aggregated on top at the applications layer, largely in the form of data (think Google, Facebook and so on).”
So as much as we love to hate FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google), the current business model for a successful business venture incentivizes centralization. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee described our current Internet as something “anti-human” and the society “demonstrated that the Web had failed instead of served humanity, as it was supposed to have done, and failed in many places.”
Herein lies the promise of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.
The Promise of Tokenization
Tokenization has already proven itself as an incredibly powerful business model for open source development. Crypto teams all over the world have capitalized on this by offering crypto bounties for engineers who can find bugs in their technology. After that, the tokenization of things like data, storage, voting rights, and financial services has revealed an entirely new Internet stack.
Tokenization can also incentivize users to run a full node for their favorite blockchain network. By offering miners a lucrative reward for verifying transaction validity, Bitcoin has proven that highly-secure, decentralized technologies are economically viable. Of course, the industrial-grade equipment now needed to turn a profit have pushed away the hobbyists of yesteryear. But that doesn’t mean running a Bitcoin full node isn’t helpful.
In a Medium post, Bitcoin Core developer Jameson Lopp outlined how full nodes ensure privacy, security, and a healthy network. He writes, ”From a macro perspective, full nodes keep the network honest. The more entities who are actively running nodes to audit their economic interactions, the more robust the network is against attacks.”
Whether for altruistic or economic reasons, running a full node is essential in maintaining a robust and decentralized network. There are, however, some practical drawbacks to consider.
Hardware Full Nodes
To run a Bitcoin full node, users need to download the entire blockchain. For those with specialized computers, downloading the 197-gigabyte digital ledger doesn’t pose many problems. Pruning, or reducing the size of older blocks, is another alternative to cut down on this. But the technical ability needed is likely beyond the average user.
Fortunately, the rise of hardware products solves many of these problems while also serving all the advantages of decentralized networks. It saves critical disk space on your computer and abstracts away the technical details of setting up your node.
At current, offerings from Bitseed and Casa Node are focused exclusively on the Bitcoin Core client. These are terrific options for hobbyists who want to support this vision. But moving to a blockchain-agnostic product, like AVADO, allows you to take control of which network you want to sponsor. Perhaps it’s the Bitcoin network, but it could also support Ethereum, IPFS, or any other distributed system that requires a node.
As Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains emerge, running a staking node on an emerging network could also become economically viable.
By configuring your AVADO node to support Cosmos, for instance, users would be rewarded with the native cryptocurrency, ATOM. More and more projects will likely follow suit as network security, which is ensured by a high number of active nodes, is critical for the success of a crypto project.
Zaki Manien, one of the lead engineers behind Cosmos, wrote in a post that “one of the most important milestones for the success of the Cosmos Network is the emergence of a diverse group of validators to maintain and secure the network.” PoS networks offer a perfect example of how, unlike the current model, individuals supporting the infrastructure of a blockchain-based Internet will be compensated.
Not only that but with a hardware node, this compensation can be enjoyed across all demographics. An external, physical node product that is constantly running allows anyone, not just developers, to simply plugin and begin supporting the next generation of the Internet.
Will you join the movement and #RunYourOwnNode to prevent that Blockchain will follow the path of the Internet and simply is another tech layer for the FANGs? Tell us on Twitter https://twitter.com/Avado_DServer
About AVADO:
AVADO provides dedicated Hardware to run your own node. A plug and play solution that is easy to handle and maintain. Producing the best hardware, user experience & support for running a node at home.
We are proudly based in the Cryptovalley — Switzerland.
