Reading this exchange, I’m reminded of Google and its early days ethos of “don’t be evil”.  Today, we couldn’t be further from “doing no evil” as Google, and its centralized control of Internet search, is under attack from all corners: accused of aggressive surveillance techniques, suppression of content, and manipulation of thought and behavior among other things.

Moreover, I wonder if we are taking the steps necessary to ensure that blockchain indexing doesn’t end up in a similar place. After all, much of what we hope to achieve with web 3.0 and public blockchains rides on a decentralized index layer.

We all love Etherscan; most of us loved Google in the beginning too. Etherscan, a dominant first-mover in Ethereum blockchain indexing, provides us with “free” and easy access to hard-to-get blockchain data. So, what’s not to adore? Etherscan is currently a benevolent centralized website, but as blockchain data and our dependencies on it grow, the pressures on Etherscan no doubt will mount and with it our vulnerabilities.

The Graph, another prominent and valued player in the space, sometimes (unfortunately) referred to as the “Google” for blockchains, has been trying to decentralize indexation through its GRT token-driven marketplace of indexers. The reality, though, is that developers still use its hosted service and even within its “decentralized” network a number of points of centralization and potential privacy invasion remain (e.g., API keys). More fundamentally, though, we question whether it’s even possible to decentralize the index layer though a marketplace of blockchain indexers as economies of scale and network effects are the holy grail in the indexing business.

As the Twitter exchange above suggests, some folks appear unconcerned with indexer centralization and its attendant risks due to the public nature of blockchain data. As pointed out by @ChrisBlec, though, the possibility of insidious snooping that we all hate still exists. What’s more, something that we think is overlooked—whether out of necessity or underappreciation or outright ignorance--is that public blockchain data has unique qualities that makes centralized indexing of blockchain data like we have today an even more questionable practice than centralized indexing of internet data.

For the first time ever, thanks to public blockchains, we have a source of permissionless, trustless digital truth—the blockchain itself. Some call the Internet an information machine while the blockchain is a truth machine. Why then are we treating blockchain data like it’s no different or better than Internet data? Blockchain indexers are taking data that’s been consented to, data that’s deemed to be 18-decimal place accurate and immutable, and sharing it in a way that endangers all those properties that we purport to value.

In the case of Etherscan, we are relying on an old-fashioned website. How do we know they’ve not tampered with the data they’re sending us? Is the data they send complete? Who’s to say they won’t deny us the data in the future? The Graph has a mechanism to address disputes such as these through their “fishermen” process, but ask yourself who is the arbiter of the fishermen? And, why do we need an arbiter for fully consented to data to begin with. In short, reintroducing any centralization to facilitate data access makes no sense when the source of truth that we’ve all paid for is already available on a decentralized blockchain.

Both Etherscan and The Graph are taking what is our data, transactions that we paid for to have enshrined on a public blockchain and then serving it back to us at some additional explicit and implicit cost which will likely only increase over time. The Graph charges an explicit pay-per-query fee today; Etherscan for single queries, of course, does not currently charge an explicit fee but who is to say that this won’t change particularly as its currently large database turns in to something even more mammoth. Either way, if we are not careful, today’s blockchain indexers like yesterday’s internet indexers will usurp control--they will take what is our data, what should be a common good and highjack it for private gains. This risk is real and should give us pause.

We, at TrueBlocks, think there is a need in our ecosystem for a different kind of indexing solution. One that is intentionally designed to buttress not undermine what we exalt with public blockchains. One that treats blockchain data as a common good allowing for open, free and private access to verifiably true and complete data independent of any intermediary.

TrueBlocks is such a solution—fully decentralized, low cost and long-term viable. To be sure, like today’s existing indexing platforms it comes with tradeoffs, but a different set.

Instead of “do no evil”, let’s “make evil impossible”.

(For more on TrueBlock’s please see: https://trueblocks.io/)