Cloudflare is a leading provider of content delivery and DDoS mitigation services. has announced a Web3 push that uses Ethereum’s upcoming proof -of-stake network. In order to evaluate the viability and future potential of scaling technology, the company stated that it will be running Ethereum validator nosdes as part its experiment.

Cloudflare said that blockchain technology could play a role in the future story of the internet and that such experiences may help to decentralize these networks. The company said:

Running validator nodes on the Ethereum network allows us to provide more geographical decentralization in places such as EMEA, LATAM and APJC, while also adding infrastructure centralization to the network.

Cloudflare stated that these actions will take place in the months ahead of The merge, which is the change of consensus mechanism that the Ethereum network plans to implement later in the year.

Preference for Proof-of-Stake

Cloudflare stated that it supports proofs-of-stake networks because they use less energy than their proof-of work-based counterparts. It declared that the energy needed to operate a proof validator node to validate a proof stake is magnitudes lower than that required to run a proof miner. Cloudflare provided this statement about proof-of-work networks like Bitcoin:

It is wasteful to use proof of work networks. This waste is driven by the fact that proof of work consensus mechanisms are electricity-intensive.

Cloudflare also stated that it will not be running its own proof-of-work infrastructure as part of its sustainability commitment. Cloudflare will experiment with Ethereum first but it also mentions another consensus mechanism, the ‘proof of time’, in its press release.

Filecoin uses this consensus mechanism to keep the files of its participants. This could indicate that this network may be included in future experiments by the internet company.