Microsoft, Tencent and 16 other tech giants join Infura’s decentralized network

Microsoft, Tencent and 16 other Web2 tech giants have forged partnerships with Consensys as part of their push to decentralize the Infura network. Cointelegraph reports.

The agreement aims to bolster the network’s resilience to censorship and prevent outages affecting Web3-services, including the MetaMask wallet.

Infura is currently centralized, controlled by Consensys. The solution to the single point of failure should come with the launch DIN, planned for the fourth quarter of 2023.

One of the main features of the new decentralized network is ‘failover support’ in the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. In the event of a disruption, traffic can be redirected to one or more DIN partners, ensuring higher uptime in the long run.

In addition, developers of dapps will not have to rely on a single service provider.

A group of new companies is working with Infura as part of the so-called ‘federated phase’ of the DIN — a temporary testing period during which the network remains centralized.

In the future it will move to a DAO model or another structure that guarantees each partner an equal say in governance of the network.

The current roster of network partners is not closed and may be expanded to include other ‘highly reliable’ internet infrastructure providers.

Infura is one of the main API providers in the Ethereum ecosystem. The platform is used by more than 430,000 developers. It underpins projects such as Uniswap, MakerDAO and MetaMask.

In April 2022, MetaMask users faced outages caused by Infura issues.