Web3 executives comment on disappearing NFTs, data center shortages and other issues of the week.
Disappearing/reappearing NFTs highlight risk with centralized cloud networks
“After Nike’s CloneX collection went dark on Thursday, we worked closely with the Nike RTFKT team to hurriedly upload the files to ar.io after Cloudflare cut service a day earlier than expected.
“While we are pleased to say we were able to save all 30,000 of these NFTs, over 19,800 CloneX digital avatars have reportedly reappeared via Cloudflare’s servers, causing confusion among the community.
“This is adding to what is already an increasingly difficult situation for the Nike RTKFT team. More importantly, it reveals exactly what’s at stake when NFTs — and all digital assets — rely on temporary networks.
“This blackout underlines the fragility of the centralized cloud networks most of us rely on. And the truth it has revealed is this: if the backbone of your asset ownership can crumble overnight due to a simple payment or server issue, you never really owned it.
“Actual digital asset ownership requires permanence, not permission from a network that hosts them. Our assets should be uploaded to a secure location that is censorship-resistant, immutable, and immune to outage. Then — and only then — will this fragile rental model be replaced with a permanent solution where absolute ownership truly exists.”
– Phil Mataras, CEO of decentralized permanent cloud network ar.io
The perils of centralized infrastructure
“News that AWS is joining Microsoft in pulling out of new data centers when demand for AI is growing exponentially is testament to the enormous inefficiency this model presents for scaling the global internet.
“Despite claims that their reneging on buildouts and leases represent temporary ‘pauses’, firms like Microsoft and AWS may be coming to realize that centralized infrastructure models simply can’t adapt fast enough.
“Indeed, Microsoft CEO Mustafa Suleyman recently admitted in an interview that the firm was holding back on developing AI software to benefit from the work of AI first movers. And now, with increasingly efficient AI processing coming out of China, the firm may be rethinking its data center model, too.
“The AI era needs infrastructure that can match its speed and scale, and decentralized systems are the only models built for that future. Planning, financing, and building massive data centers is slow, rigid, and increasingly mismatched with the explosive growth of AI workloads that are reportedly “melting” these providers’ GPUs.
“In contrast, a decentralized, market-driven approach solves this problem: capacity can be deployed more efficiently where and when it’s needed without waiting years for centralized megaprojects. Market incentives drive faster scaling, better resource allocation, and greater resilience — no heavy central planning required.
“The future of AI infrastructure lies in open, permissionless networks, where supply meets demand dynamically and globally, not through outdated hyperscaler models that are struggling to keep up.”
– Kai Wawrzinek, co-founder of Impossible Cloud Network
New private credit fund a boost for real-world assets
“Gauntlet, Securitize, and Morpho partnering to bring Apollo’s private credit fund, ACRED, on-chain is a strong and encouraging signal for the growth of the real-world asset (RWA) sector, and a clear hint at where the ecosystem is heading. It shows that tokenization of RWAs is now evolving beyond bonds and T-bills, and this is exactly what we need.
“If we want to build a decentralized financial system that can rival current systems, we need diversification, and the ACRED launch is a good start for the RWA sector. The DeFi utility created by this launch is a real innovation. Simply holding and trading tokenized RWAs on-chain is fine, but earning yield on them, as ACRED offers, is the key to attracting a wave of new investors into DeFi.
“Indeed, as the explosive growth of the DeFi RWA sector is showing, the biggest potential for RWAs in DeFi is the vast liquidity they can bring into the system. When they are used as collateral, tokenized RWAs become fuel for DeFi platforms such as Aave, Compound, or Curve Finance, and this fuel enhances stability.
“Gauntlet, Securitize, and Morpho have brought a truly innovative and useful product to DeFi. Soon, we will see many more RWA assets enter the ecosystem, particularly stable and reliable assets like real estate and gold, and this expansion will give DeFi protocols real economic weight and, importantly, long-term sustainability.”
– Kevin Rusher, founder of RWA borrowing and lending ecosystem RAAC
More on tokenized, RWA private credit
“The tokenized real world asset (RWA) private credit sector is – almost without anyone’s notice – bringing billions into crypto at a rapid pace.
“While the industry has been tracking the rapid growth of the predominantly US Treasury-backed BlackRock BUIDL fund, the RWA private credit sector has nearly doubled from $7.9 billion in May 2024 to close to $13 billion today.
“Aside from the megalithic $233 billion stablecoin sector, this makes private credit the biggest tokenized RWA sector by a country mile, with the $6.5 billion tokenized US Treasuries sector its closest competitor.
“The growth of tokenized private credit is not only a lucrative development for crypto, though. High-yielding private credit is typically only available to high-net-worth investors. However, the tokenization of these funds, which is opening significant extra yield opportunities for managers, will also open this asset class to a broader base of investors.
“Onboarding mainstream investors and users should be the key goal of any project in the Web3 sector. And RWAs, like credit and bonds, which are familiar and trusted by most, are an obvious and appealing way to do this.
“The liquidity that private credit and other RWA sectors are going to bring into crypto is going to have an enormous impact on the entire industry, and very soon.”
– Charles Wayn, co-founder of web3 growth platform Galxe
Justice Department’s loss is Web3’s gain
“The Tornado Cash ruling is a historic win for immutable code, decentralization, and the right to develop and use uncensorable infrastructure. It also serves as vindication for a development team that has been persecuted.
“But the bigger message here shouldn’t be missed. Beyond Tornado Cash, it’s about everything we build and store online. Structures that depend on centralized and censorable services will always be one policy change, one administration whim, one legal gray zone away from collapsing. If they’re not anchored immutably, they’re fragile.
“We’re in an age where control over data and code is power. If you’re building something that matters — applications, records, history, etc. — it needs to live where politics, bad actors, or corporations can’t reach it. And this isn’t because you have something to hide, it’s because you have something to protect.
“There’s a deeper principle at stake here, too. True decentralization isn’t just about resisting censorship, it’s about protecting human creativity, knowledge, and collaboration. Systems that allow data to exist independently of any single point of control aren’t just more secure, they’re freer. The future belongs to protocols that can’t be unplugged.”
– Mataras