The major Cloudflare outage, which disrupted nearly 20% of global internet traffic, exposed a critical issue in the crypto ecosystem:
blockchains may be decentralized, but much of their frontend and storage infrastructure still depends on Web2.
Platforms such as Blockchain.com, Coinbase, Ledger, BitMEX, Toncoin, Arbiscan, and DefiLlama were knocked offline during the incident. A similar situation occurred just a month earlier during the AWS outage, impacting dozens of other protocols.
According to EthStorage, the industry has focused heavily on decentralizing blockchains themselves but has overlooked essential layers like the frontend, RPC, DNS, API systems, indexing, and storage.
“Decentralization isn’t just about the blockchain layer. True resilience means decentralizing the entire stack,” the platform told Cointelegraph.
Projects like IPFS, Filecoin, Arweave, and EthStorage are now working on decentralized HTTP and storage solutions to help crypto protocols withstand internet disruptions.
Why Crypto Projects Still Rely on Web2
EthStorage notes that many crypto teams use centralized services out of convenience and familiarity, often assuming decentralized alternatives are slower or harder to maintain — assumptions the company says are now outdated.
Teams also prioritize fast launches and user growth, leaving decentralization as a “later step,” which proves risky during outages.
Still, EthStorage says full decentralization can be achieved gradually if projects build it into their long-term roadmap.
Vitalik Buterin: Never Sacrifice Decentralization
Last week, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a “Trustless Manifesto,” warning builders not to sacrifice decentralization for speed or adoption. Even a single centralized relayer or hosted node, he said, introduces a future point of failure.
The Cloudflare incident serves as a strong reminder of that warning — showing that crypto cannot rely on centralized infrastructure if it wants true resilience.
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