Cysic founder Leo Fan argued at Consensus Hong Kong 2026 that blockchain tasks that rely closely on hyperscalers akin to Google Cloud and Microsoft’s Azure danger undermining the decentralized spirit of cryptocurrencies.
Huang’s feedback got here after Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson outlined Midnight, Cardano’s privacy-focused undertaking, and introduced partnerships with corporations akin to Google and Telegram. Hoskinson stated Midnight plans to launch its mainnet on the finish of March.
Hoskinson defended the collaboration with hyperscalers, arguing {that a} single layer-1 blockchain can not deal with the computational calls for wanted for a world privateness safety system.
“If individuals are spending $1 trillion constructing knowledge facilities, why not use what they spent $1 trillion on as a substitute of making an attempt to construct a very totally different community,” he stated, referring to main cloud suppliers.
Midnight Basis CEO Fahmi Syed stated the community will debut with 10 federated nodes as a part of a “accountable” path in direction of decentralization. Google Cloud is certainly one of our early collaborators offering infrastructure help.
Justifying a single level of failure
Hoskinson stated Midnight is designed to dump heavy computational workloads, notably these associated to privateness and zero-knowledge cryptography, to cloud suppliers akin to Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. He added that applied sciences akin to multiparty computing and confidential computing enable suppliers to supply {hardware} capability with out accessing the underlying knowledge.
Hoskinson stated throughout a stage demonstration that Midnight processed 1000’s of transactions per second with Microsoft Azure powering its backend compute layer.
Nonetheless, Huang argued that counting on hyperscalers for core computing nonetheless poses structural centralization dangers.
“Despite the fact that the validators seem distributed, even when they’re all operating in the identical knowledge middle, it’s nonetheless a single level of failure,” Huang instructed CoinDesk. “Blockchain is about eradicating single factors of failure. That is a contradiction if the infrastructure is centralized.”
Cysic operates a distributed computing community targeted on zero-knowledge proof technology. He stated one buyer has lowered proof technology time from as much as 90 minutes on AWS to about quarter-hour utilizing Cysic’s distributed {hardware} community.
“Relying on the state of affairs, it might present higher efficiency,” Huang stated. “We do not have to beat them immediately, however we are able to compete.”
How ought to we outline decentralization?
Midnight doesn’t outsource its blockchain to Google or Microsoft. Primary networks run their very own nodes, and Hoskinson emphasised that hyperscalers present {hardware} capability somewhat than governance or protocol management.
He described Midnight as a impartial coordination layer that may dynamically route workloads between cloud suppliers, claiming that its encrypted computing and delicate computing atmosphere ensures that suppliers “simply ship the {hardware}.”
Fan criticism focuses on one other layer of the stack.
Despite the fact that knowledge could also be encrypted and workloads could also be migrated between suppliers, counting on a small variety of world infrastructure operators concentrates energy on the compute layer, particularly as demand for GPUs and knowledge middle capability will increase, Huang stated.
This disagreement is much less about whether or not Midnight is centralized in a strict technical sense, and extra about how decentralization ought to be outlined.
Hoskinson’s method prioritizes crypto neutrality over {hardware} possession. Fan stated decentralization wants to increase to the computing layer itself.
Fairly than calling for a whole rejection of hyperscalers, Hwang advocated a hybrid method.
“Restrict your use of huge distributors,” he says. “Combining them with a decentralized community makes the system extra strong. Do not hand over on decentralization, as a result of that is the character of our group.”
As blockchain networks pursue enterprise adoption and world scale, the schism between constructing parallel infrastructure and integrating with huge tech may outline the subsequent part of cryptocurrencies.
