Cloudflare to Support Ethereum and Proof of Stake Validators

Four years after the internet infrastructure giant Cloudflare’s initial experiments in web3, they announced their next series of tests to help advance the its state-of-the-art technology.

These experiments will be aimed at finding new ways to help solve the scale and environmental challenges that face blockchain technologies today. Cloudflare is also committed to balancing technology with impact, which is where the problem with the Proof of Work (PoW) consensus lies.

The main problem with PoW is the fact that it is extremely electricity-intensive. This is why Cloudflare believes the next generation of consensus protocols will most likely be based on Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanisms.

Cloudflare, thus announced on May 16 that they are starting with experiments for the next generation of web3 networks that are embracing PoS, starting with Ethereum, specifically “The Merge”. The Merge will see Ethereum’s transition from PoW to PoS.

Cloudflare made this announcement on their website after stating that “we are going to support the development and deployment of Ethereum by running Proof of Stake validator nodes on our network.

This means that Couldflare will launch, and fully stake, Ethereum validator nodes on the Cloudflare network. These nodes will serve as a testing ground for research on energy efficiency, consistency management, and network speed.

This will do wonders for the environmental impact of crypto mining as a PoS validator uses a fraction of the electricity compared to PoW.

At this stage, Cloudflare estimates that the entire Ethereum network could use as little as 2.6 megawatts of power. This means Ethereum will use 99.5% less energy after the merge has taken place in 2022.

Cloudflare concluded their announcement by stating that this is just the start of their commitment to help build the next generation of web3 networks.