This is Eric Golden and my guest today is EG Galano, co-founder of Infura. EG launched Infura out of ConsenSys in 2016 to meet a growing need for blockchain infrastructure providers. Our discussion covers the challenges of running an Ethereum node, how Infura convinced developers to trust a centralized service provider, and why Infura plans to decentralize in the near future. Please enjoy this conversation with EG Galano.

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.

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Show Notes

[00:02:08] - [First question] - How he first got involved with Ethereum and wound up at ConsenSys

[00:04:57] - What made the idea of smart contracts so special and first got his attention

[00:06:21] - The original inspiration behind building Infura

[00:08:31] - What life was like trying to build on top of Ethereum before Infura

[00:10:19] - Overview of what a node is and what it’s like to run one 

[00:11:49] - When the time came to outsource instead of handling infrastructure internally

[00:14:15] - How Infura was initially received and whether or not blockchain participants and builders felt it went against their decentralized philosophies 

[00:19:48] - Going from an open source project to a monetized platform 

[00:22:49] - How their premium offering was received and which developers made them second guess themselves

[00:24:14] - The story of Uniswap and how Infura influenced and impacted their success

[00:27:52] - How the buying and trading of an NFT with MetaMask interacts with Infura

[00:32:01] - Whether or not building applications on blockchains is more similar to on-premise servers than building on the cloud

[00:34:08] - His thoughts about their market share and possible system fragility 

[00:35:39] - How their mission incentivizes them to help and support their competitors 

[00:39:14] - What he’s worried about that could go wrong when decentralizing infrastructure

[00:41:11] - Jai Ramaswamy - Crypto Regulation and Enforcement

[00:43:58] - Thoughts about decentralization, the benefits of it, and where Infura is headed

[00:48:11] - Describing the future of Infura in a non-technical way 

[00:49:32] - The trigger that lead to making an immediate pivot in their trajectory

[00:53:44] - What he’s most excited to see built in the six months and six years

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