With the explosion of different blockchains, the underlying tech that powers them can sometimes be taken for granted. Bitcoin famously put “mining” on the map—an opportunity that is now largely done by large-scale professional operations—but for the other up-and-coming chains, node deployment is critical to their existence.

One company that’s simplifying the node deployment process for companies is NodeOps, which operates across multiple blockchain networks by leveraging artificial intelligence to help create vital web3 infrastructure. 

“What we’re building next is the node orchestration layer that would essentially bring the economic security to any of the protocols and their entire infrastructure,” Naman Kabra, chief executive officer and founder of NodeOps, said to me during a recent interview. “In terms of stats, we have over 25,000 nodes deployed so far and we’ve collaborated with over 35 blockchains and are actively working with a few Layer-1s and Layer-2s that are going to launch in the coming months.”

NodeOps is part of a crowded field of firms that provide nodes as a service. The firms all cater to developers who don’t want to worry about the hardware components needed to deploy blockchain apps. Competitors include heavyweights Alchemy and Infura, as well as Ankr, Coinbase Cloud, Chainstack and Blockdaemon. The firms all typically have a free level of service that allows a certain number of transactions per month, and then increases pricing as transaction volume increases. Infura, for example, charges $1,000 per month for up to 150 million transactions per month. 

Seeing the massive amount of retail interest entering the blockchain space, NodeOps decided to create a one-click layer to make it easier for developers to deploy nodes.

“Celestia was the first project we integrated where you could literally deploy hundreds of your light nodes in a single click,” Kabra said. “We generated our first $100,000 in revenue in the first week and realized it was time to double down.” NodeOps also supports other chains or layer-two blockchains such as Eigen Layer, Cosmos Hub and Nubit, among others, according to its web site.

The company’s mission is to ensure it drives accessibility and efficiency of reliable infrastructure for anyone looking to deploy and power their nodes, and it’s doing so within an industry that looks poised to expand.

“The demand for professional node operation services is expected to increase, catering to businesses and developers who prefer not to handle the complexities of running their own nodes,” David Kroger, senior vice president of financial services firm StoneX said to me over email. “Market consolidation may occur as larger, more efficient operators emerge, potentially making it harder for smaller independent operators to compete. However, efforts to incentivize diverse participation could counterbalance this trend.”

On their own, developers have to “purchase a cloud subscription, install the binaries to the entire manual process, and have a highly dedicated opps person take care of the operations part and maintain it for you,” Dabra said. All that is taken care of with NodeOps, he said. 

On average, NodeOps customers are on its platform for about 18 months, he said. The longer customers subscribe, the lower their costs with NodeOps, so customers are incentivized to stick with the company in perpetuity. Not all blockchain projects are successful—in fact, many of them fail– which is why the lifetime value Kabra mentioned sits around 18 months.

But because NodeOps is in many ways pioneering node deployment through its one-click technology, the company has a waiting list for new customers.

“The reason we kept it duration-driven onboarding for the clients is because we need to understand the appetite of the chain,” Kabra said. “If it’s an early chain that might die in the next year or so, users would tell us they no longer need our services and would request a refund. We don’t want that—we want them to lock in and stick to a particular duration because they’re confident about a particular chain. It’s our responsibility to offer that chain, but it's the users' responsibility to research the platforms.”

DeFi proliferation

Looking ahead, there are challenges and opportunities for node operators, StoneX’s Kroger said. 

“A strong focus on decentralization will drive the need for more individual and organizational node operators to ensure network security and robustness,” he said. “To encourage participation, many blockchain networks are likely to implement more sophisticated incentivization mechanisms, such as higher staking rewards and enhanced profit-sharing models, which has already started to become adopted across different ecosystems.”

Developer incentives are in the works at NodeOps, which is working on creating a permissionless marketplace.

“If you look at what we’ve built, NodeOps is acting like a centralized entity operating and powering these nodes,” Kabra said. “It’s like a permission marketplace—but we want this to be a permissionless marketplace. That’s what we’re building with our orchestration layer.”

Users will be able to subscribe as a vendor on the NodeOps platform and can then start earning incentives—NodeOps’ way of creating a sustainable economy, what Kabra called “a game changer.” In that situation, validators “fight” amongst themselves on the platform for the work—a model in the web2 world akin to an UpWork platform, where freelancers compete for work offered by paying entities.

“You can literally set up the incentive with NodeOps to drive economic security and help you focus solely on your application and financial layers,” Kabra said. “That’s the overall game plan for us.”

Kroger said the proliferation of DeFi platforms and dApps will increase the need for robust node infrastructure because they require robust and reliable performance to keep up with user expectations. 

Focusing on what its customers want is how NodeOps is hoping to differentiate itself from its competitors. 

“Our focus has been on building the best user experience—and we will keep that going,” Kabra said, “but we also want to bring in a stronger infrastructure for other protocols and their ecosystems as well.”

lead image: Naman Kabra