AWS Outage Exposes Crypto Infrastructure Centralization
An AWS outage in the US-EAST-1 region on October 20, 2025, triggered a major DNS glitch that took down Infura and leading services such as Coinbase, MetaMask, and multiple Layer-2 networks (Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, Base, Linea and Scroll). Within minutes, Ethereum RPC access failed, halting transactions and DApp interactions despite Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana block production remaining intact. The incident exposed crypto infrastructure centralization: 37% of Ethereum nodes rely on AWS and three cloud providers control over 63% of global market share, making DNS and API gateways single points of failure. Similar to April’s AWS outage that disrupted Binance and KuCoin, this latest AWS outage underscores repeated centralization risks. Decentralized or multi-cloud strategies (Filecoin, Arweave, Akash Network, ICP) offer greater resilience but face cost and complexity barriers. Traders should monitor potential shifts toward resilient infrastructure as user confidence may waver.
Neutral
While the AWS outage halted transactions and DApp interactions across major Layer-2 networks, it did not affect Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana block production. As a result, trading activities resumed once infrastructure was restored and prices remained stable, indicating limited immediate market impact. However, repeated centralization failures may undermine long-term confidence and drive demand for decentralized solutions, potentially influencing infrastructure tokens. Overall, the event is neutral for ETH and major assets, with a watchful eye on future infrastructure resilience.