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Ethereum RPC as a Service

Ethereum RPC as a Service

  • Google Cloud announced Blockchain Node Engine, a hosted RPC node for Ethereum. RPC is the primary way that you query data on the blockchain. AWS offers a similar product, AWS Managed Blockchain. Essentially these are just fully synced Ethereum nodes running Geth, the Go Ethereum client, and de facto implementation of the spec
  • Not to mention, enterprise RPC providers are one of the more profitable and real web3 businesses. There's Alchemy (10.2Bvaluation,Feb22),ConsenSys(10.2B valuation, Feb **22), ConsenSys (7B valuation, Mar **22), and Quicknode. The numbers might be inflated from the last cycle, but these companies have actual revenue. Maybe the markets aren't growing as prominent anymore, but it's a key infrastructure piece that isn't going anywhere
  • However, while I don't think AWS is a dumb pipe, I'm skeptical of their ability to deliver here because the developer experience is currently so terrible (vs. traditional development). Not to mention the reputational risk to their old-school enterprise customers
  • Of course, maybe the best version of this business looks more like an API business where you are the sole infrastructure provider offering access to your network