Do Ankr and Pocket Solve Web3’s Node Centralization Problems?

Key Insights

• The Remote Procedure Call (RPC) layer serves as a prime candidate for censorship. As such, decentralized alternatives to centralized node infrastructure providers are essential for sustaining a permissionless Web3 ecosystem.
• Ankr and Pocket are node infrastructure protocols aiming to offer decentralized alternatives at reduced costs with near zero downtime. However, their off-chain relay distributor mechanisms are centrally operated, creating a single point of failure.
• Pocket Network grew from 4,300 to over 37,800 nodes in the last year, servicing over 1 billion daily relays, a 125x increase YoY. In contrast, Ankr only has 345 centrally operated nodes but relays 3.1 billion public RPCs every day.
• Despite relaying nearly 3x more RPCs than Pocket, Ankr suffers similar centralization problems as Infura and Alchemy with no plans to resolve them.
• Pocket aims to replace its centralized relay distributor with a decentralized on-chain mechanism in its upcoming V1 release.

Many decentralized applications rely on centralized node infrastructure providers to serve data via Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) from the blockchain. This creates a single point of failure that can be used to restrict access to various protocols, posing a risk to the entire Web3 ecosystem. The risk of centralized RPC providers resurfaced last week when the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the popular Ethereum-based mixer, Tornado Cash.