On October 20, 2025, the Amazon Web Services (AWS) US-EAST-1 region suffered a major outage lasting nearly three hours, from approximately 07:55 UTC to 09:35 UTC, due to a DNS bug in its DynamoDB service. This disruption froze thousands of applications globally, including in the crypto and web3 sectors, reigniting debates over decentralization.
Key platforms like Coinbase Advanced halted operations entirely, locking users out of accounts and trades. Base, Coinbase's Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain, experienced severe transaction slowdowns, while Solana faced intermittent node failures, Ethereum's decentralized apps (dApps) encountered API disruptions, and Polygon reported partial outages in its scaling solutions. The outage underscored how single points of failure in centralized cloud infrastructure compromise web3's vision of unstoppable applications.
Evgeny Ponomarev, co-founder of Fluence, emphasized: "The recent AWS outage is a reminder that web3’s promise of decentralization can’t rely on centralized backbones. Every outage like AWS’s shows the cost of centralization, not just in downtime but in trust."
In response, Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) are gaining traction as a resilient alternative. DePIN models, such as those by Fluence, Akash Network, Aethir, and io.net, connect independent providers in peer-to-peer marketplaces, verifying compute resources on-chain. This approach can reduce costs by up to 85% compared to hyperscalers and allows seamless workload migration during failures. Fluence's network, for instance, operates about 11,000 virtual CPUs and 70 terabytes of memory across nine providers, serving clients like Antier Solutions and NEO Foundation.
A second AWS outage on October 29, 2025, further highlighted systemic risks, affecting RPC endpoints, APIs, and exchange frontends. Services like Infura, Alchemy, and QuickNode, which rely on AWS, caused connectivity issues for MetaMask, Uniswap, and NFT marketplaces. Solana was noted for high resilience with minimal stake in AWS, but centralized access layers remain a critical fragility, potentially leading to liquidity gaps and flash crashes during volatility. The World Economic Forum projects the DePIN category to grow to $3.5 trillion by 2028, signaling a shift toward more diversified, open-source infrastructure.
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