The Index Podcast DoubleZero: Building a Faster, Safer & Censorship-Proof Internet with Austin Federa
What if blockchain networks could process transactions hundreds of times faster than they do today? This fundamental question led Austin Federa to leave his position at the Solana Foundation and co-found Double Zero, a revolutionary project building what might be the future of the internet itself.
Austin reveals the surprising limitations of our current internet infrastructure that most people never consider. While engineers at Solana had built validator clients theoretically capable of processing a million transactions per second, the public internet simply couldn't support those speeds. Even more concerning, the entire internet is controlled by approximately 20 tier-one ISPs worldwide, creating both performance bottlenecks and potential censorship vulnerabilities.
Double Zero's solution is breathtakingly ambitious yet practical: create a parallel infrastructure using dedicated fiber connections that enable direct routing between nodes. By September 2023, they had connected 50 different fiber links across 18 global locations, offering 20-100 times the bandwidth capacity of typical blockchain nodes. What makes this approach unique is the consortium model, bringing together 11 different companies to contribute existing fiber to the network rather than attempting to build this massive infrastructure alone.
The economic innovations are equally fascinating. Austin explains "proof of utility," their novel reward system based on Shapley values that measures actual contribution to network performance. Unlike traditional cryptocurrency models, if you operate a fiber link that nobody uses, you earn nothing. This creates fierce competition to provide the fastest, most reliable connections.
Perhaps most intriguing is Double Zero's long-term vision: eventually eliminating IP addresses entirely in favor of cryptographic routing. This would remove centralized intermediaries like certificate authorities and DNS servers, creating a more secure and truly decentralized internet infrastructure resistant to spoofing and man-in-the-middle attacks.
As traditional finance increasingly explores blockchain solutions, the demand for high-performance networks will only grow. Double Zero isn't just improving existing technology—it's rebuilding the internet from the ground up. Listen now to understand how this revolution might transform our digital infrastructure forever.