It has been more than 10 days after Andre Cronje announced his departure from most of his projects.
People are very surprised. One because AC, godfather of DeFi, why he left. And another, the decision of terminating these 25 apps ( include YFI, Chainlist, etc. This well-known defi platform). Especially we always called this industry or platform decentralized, why this happened because of centralized a problem.
Here is the conception. In blockchain, chain’s part is really decentralized, projects wherever they based on, ETH, SOL, BNB. Their backend code is implemented in a smart contract, that’s decentralized. No one can stop smart contract or consensus mechanism. But front end part? Usual not.
AC projects face these centralized front end problems. When he decides to leave, he can shut down these sites himself. And if the codes are not open source, people have to development a new compatible front end to operate these projects. Thank god, AC open source the code. And I’m happy to see that many devs choose to fork the code to build a fork apps themselves to continue the projects.
Of course there are many projects are irresponsible. They scam, shut down the front end and leave. Left a massive problem to the community. And also something because of too much reliance on centralized servers.
How do we fundamentally solve these risks?
——Decentralize your front end
Here are 2 steps to make the front end completely “decentralized”.
1. Deploy the site on IPFS, make it unstoppable accessibility
IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) is a distributed network. Its content-addressable storage feature ensures file accessibility more efficiently meanwhile ensuring the file storage security.
When you deploy your site on IPFS and pin it on IPFS nodes, you get rid of the problems of centralized servers (outage, data security, etc.). And to some extent, the accessibility of IPFS sites is better. For some browsers that do not integrate IPFS, users can enjoy 4EVERLAND or cloudflare’s dedicated gateway to rapidly access the site on IPFS. There will be no difference in experience on a site on AWS. In addition, once you deploy your site on IPFS, you will get a CID(content identifier*).* You can access your site with all of public gateways of IPFS.
For example
https://ipfs.io/ipfs/bafkreiavlschrn5r3iraxw3ezs5tnamhe4de5stwp4b6ts7skchosqycie
Here is a link with CID, with IPFS public gateways support, you will find once the site or files deployed on IPFS, there will be nearly 100 links I get to access to it. That means to some extent, It is really unstoppable! We know that any centralized restrictions on files stored on IPFS will make no sense.
And you should know that, these more than 90 public gateways just for compatible with Http. You can access content directly from IPFS nodes through any browser that has integrated IPFS without any gateway support. The number and scale of IPFS nodes are much larger than these public gateways. Because of IPFS itself dedicated logic of storage and gateway. Your files will be completely decentralized storage and access. By this way, your front end is Decentralized! Uniswap, Aave, and a lot of well-known platforms already deploy their site on IPFS.
And here is another step or concept to make the front end completely “decentralized”.
2. Open source your front end’s code, encourage more devs to deploy your site on IPFS. Building countless front ends.
Chainlist is a really good example. When AC decides to shut down chainlist.org, lots of front end devs or projects announce they fork the code and deploy a new ‘Chainlist’, so you can find kinds of domains that link to the same function—— Chainlist. Because of this, Chainlist is an absolutely decentralized platform.
Why can't projects do that? You can open source your code and encourage your community to deploy and maintain the front end. You can set up incentives here, where a front end owner can earn a commission for his promotion. Contribute to earn, that’s Web3.
Of course, I accept that enough openness may bring some risks, There may be phishing sites or scams, But we can set up audit mechanism to avoid this kind of situation, for example, project officials can establish a verifiable standard CID, the front ends deployed by the community can ensure the consistency of CID to ensure that there is no change in the front end code. At the same time, through the new deployment, the front end code will be pinned on more IPFS nodes to ensure the stability of the front end of the project. Or do it by the simplest way——just invite trusted partners or community volunteers to do it.
When a project deploys the front end to IPFS, better to have an open source front end and get the community involved. It will be absolutely decentralized and accountable.
Write at the last
In blockchain, we always talk about “decentralized” things, chain, governance, Web3, etc. But as we find time and time again, we always face centralization problems that could have been avoided, do we reflect?
Decentralize your front end, to be a responsible and trustworthy project, for your community, to avoid something maybe further happening.
By the way, we have already deployed 4 projects from AC, and all of them are on IPFS.
https://chainlist.4everland.app/
https://solidly-exchange.4everland.app/
https://multibridge.4everland.app/
And you can find more IPFS based outstanding projects sites here.
https://www.web3-portal.org/#/
Welcome to deploy your site on IPFS here.
Max, BD&Partnership of 4EVERLAND