A current outage at Amazon Internet Providers (AWS) froze hundreds of purposes and reignited debate about web3’s reliance on centralized cloud suppliers.
The disruption uncovered how deeply crypto platforms nonetheless depend upon Web2 infrastructure for techniques meant to function with out interruption.
How a Centralized Outage Crippled Decentralized Techniques
On October 20, 2025, the AWS US-EAST-1 area went darkish for practically three hours because of a DNS bug in its DynamoDB service, freezing hundreds of purposes worldwide. The outage, which started round 07:55 UTC and was resolved by 09:35 UTC, stemmed from a latent software program defect that created an empty DNS report, requiring handbook intervention to repair.
The AWS outage triggered a series response, disrupting main tech platforms like Lyft, Peloton, and Roblox. The crypto and web3 business additionally skilled widespread disruption. Coinbase Superior, a key buying and selling platform, halted operations fully, leaving customers locked out of their accounts and unable to execute trades.
Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain, skilled extreme slowdowns, with transaction throughput dropping dramatically as AWS-hosted infrastructure failed. Different ecosystems weren’t spared: Solana noticed intermittent node failures, Ethereum’s decentralized apps (dApps) confronted API disruptions, and Polygon reported partial outages in its scaling options.
This occasion known as into query the elemental promise of blockchains to create purposes that may function repeatedly with out counting on any single server, firm, or authorities. The failure revealed how single factors of failure proceed to compromise web3’s imaginative and prescient of unstoppable purposes.
“The recent AWS outage is a reminder that web3’s promise of decentralization can’t rely on centralized backbones. Every outage like AWS’s shows the cost of centralization, not just in downtime but in trust,” stated Evgeny Ponomarev, co-founder of Fluence.
Decentralized Compute Exhibits Promise Amid Technical Hurdles
Decentralized Bodily Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) introduces a brand new mannequin for provisioning compute assets. As an alternative of relying on centralized information facilities, DePIN connects a worldwide pool of unbiased suppliers by way of a peer-to-peer market.
Every server contributes compute, storage, or GPU capability that’s verified on-chain for transparency. Management is distributed, not owned, and the system scales organically as new individuals be part of.
This construction replaces huge, single-region information facilities with a distribution throughout hundreds of unbiased servers. If one fails, the workload could be seamlessly migrated to different servers or information facilities.
This distributed mannequin additionally drives a big price benefit. By tapping into idle international compute capability, DePIN suppliers obtain larger effectivity, typically reporting prices which might be as much as 85% decrease in contrast with main hyperscalers. As an example, Fluence is one among a number of initiatives creating decentralized compute networks beneath the DePIN mannequin.
The platform connects verified data-center suppliers that meet frequent compliance requirements, permitting builders to run workloads throughout distributed CPU and GPU assets as a substitute of relying solely on centralized clouds. Fluence’s community presently helps general-purpose computing by way of digital CPUs and GPU-based processing for AI and high-performance duties.
In response to firm information, it operates about 11,000 digital CPUs and 70 terabytes of reminiscence throughout 9 suppliers. Purchasers utilizing the community embrace Antier Options, NEO Basis, and Nodes.Backyard.
Different DePIN initiatives resembling Akash Community, Aethir, and io.web are pursuing related approaches for distributed infrastructure, masking cloud marketplaces and large-scale GPU aggregation. Collectively, these efforts replicate an rising shift towards a extra diversified compute layer for web3.
Proper now, DePIN is reimagining bodily infrastructure, together with telecom and transportation networks, vitality grids, and extra. Because it was said within the current a16z 2025 State of Crypto report, the World Financial Discussion board initiatives the DePIN class will develop to $3.5 trillion by 2028.
Whereas DePIN can not but match the instant international scale of a hyperscaler, its open supply foundations make it much more adaptable. By constructing on open requirements, workloads can transfer throughout a number of suppliers with minimal friction. Builders acquire actual portability as a substitute of being locked right into a single vendor’s API or billing mannequin.
In observe, decentralized networks like Fluence are already displaying how open supply infrastructure can join unbiased suppliers into one interoperable cloth that behaves like a cloud, but stays totally transportable and clear.
Evgeny defined:
“The goal is not to replace AWS overnight but to make migration simple and choice real,” stated Evgeny Ponomarev, co-founder of Fluence. “When compute runs on open protocols across many providers, outages stop being systemic failures. They become local events the network can absorb”
This open, cross-provider cloud mannequin gives a path towards resilience that centralized architectures can not match. As DePIN matures, it might redefine the baseline for reliability by making the cloud itself open supply and the act of migration so simple as redeploying code.
