Is blockchain decentralized enough? This middleware provider doesn’t think so

A decentralized platform that provides infrastructure services for DApp developers and users says its goal is to deliver safety and stability.

According to Apron, the world remains reliant on the centralized artifacts of the Web 2.0 era — and its network is designed to serve as the foundational layer for the next generation.

While the team acknowledges that Ethereum has contributed to DApps exploding in popularity, they say operating nodes on this blockchain is both expensive and energy intensive — prompting a centralized support structure to emerge.

Apron Network is designed to shake things up by improving the infrastructure service ecosystem of the Web 3.0 world. Based on the Substrate framework, it can serve as a parachain of Kusama, and delivers solutions that power the effective development of DApps and DeFi developers.

Apron’s service marketplace matches infrastructure service providers with DApp developers — and provides rankings for each of the options available. 

‘The Polkadot of middleware’

Apron says that its goal is to become the middleware of blockchain — and pave the way for cross-chain collaboration and scalability. 

The platform has been conducting technical docking with Seascape, Stafi, Dora, SubDAO and a plethora of other projects, and is establishing cooperation with the likes of Polkadot, Kusama, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Huobi’s Eco Chain (HECO.) Partnerships have also been secured with Phala, Kylin, IOST, DEGO, Darwinia, Litentry, Bifrost and Math Wallet.

Earlier this month, Apron successfully developed and launched a set of node services on Binance Smart Chain and the HECO testnet and mainnet — filling a gap in the ecosystem’s node services while simultaneously delivering free tools for developers.

A seed round and private sale has already been completed, which was “led by a group of visionary VCs in the field.”

Apron says that it aggregates everyone who has the ability to set up their own nodes — meaning developers can choose whoever they want to work with, even if it’s several at the same time. Meanwhile, node service providers can benefit from a full software development kit so they can easily set up their server on the network.

The inspiration for Apron

Apron’s creation was in response to last November’s Infura outage. This caused several platforms that rely on this Ethereum node service — including MetaMask, Coinbase, CryptoKitties and Compound — to experience disruption.

Ethereum’s developers had upgraded the code, but service providers that had failed to implement the update included Infura — technically resulting in an unannounced hard fork.

In a recent Medium blog post, Apron Network explained: “This incident still sounded the alarm for the decentralized Web 3.0 world. Relying on centralized services will bring great risks.”

Apron applied for Web3 Open Grants when the idea for the project was born and has now received funding, receiving promising feedback from the foundation’s experts.

The future

Looking ahead, Apron says that its goal is to become a decentralized alternative to Infura that will support multiple chains — Ethereum, Polkadot and Bitcoin among them. Plans are also in place to integrate an array of services, including messaging and data storage.

The team believes that middleware platforms can deliver greater levels of convenience, and decentralized services have the power to make entire networks more secure. Giving DApp developers the freedom to select high-quality service providers will also result in a more stable experience for the end user.

Apron cited research that suggests middleware is the largest market in the information industry — and pointed to figures that suggest revenue was set to hit $33.7 billion in 2020, with annual growth rates of 7%. As time goes on, the project hopes that it will become a formidable force in the blockchain infrastructure service field — delivering full-chain ecology, security guarantees, instant availability and comprehensive technical support.