Why Consortiums Are the New Data Silos

Blockchain data is not open. While blockchains are public ledgers, the infrastructure to index, query, and serve this data at scale is not. This creates a critical dependency on centralized providers like The Graph or proprietary RPC endpoints.

Consortiums are the new silos. Projects like Aevo's shared sequencer or Layer 2 coalitions form closed data-sharing clubs. These permissioned data cartels replicate the walled gardens of Web2, trading decentralization for operational efficiency.

The cost is composability. When data access requires a membership key, innovation becomes gated. A dApp on one L2 cannot seamlessly verify state from another without trusting a consortium's attestations, breaking the trustless interoperability that defines crypto.

Evidence: The Graph's hosted service indexes over 30 chains, but its decentralized network serves less than 20% of queries. This centralization bottleneck proves that data availability and data accessibility are distinct, unsolved problems.

Permissioned access creates walled gardens. A consortium chain controlled by a select group of validators, like a bank consortium's blockchain, is a proprietary network. Its data and state are not universally accessible, breaking the fundamental promise of a shared, global ledger.

Interoperability becomes a business negotiation. Connecting a consortium chain to a public chain like Ethereum requires a custom, permissioned bridge, not a permissionless one like Across or LayerZero. This reintroduces the same gatekeeping and counterparty risk that DeFi eliminates.

Composability dies at the border. A smart contract on a public chain cannot permissionlessly read or write to a consortium's state. This fragments liquidity and innovation, preventing the automated, trustless money legos that define protocols like Uniswap and Aave.

Evidence: The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance's (EEA) specifications focus on private transactions and member-only consensus. This architecture is incompatible with the permissionless validator sets of public L2s like Arbitrum or Optimism, which process over 2M transactions daily for anyone.

Consortiums reintroduce gatekeepers. Projects like Espresso Systems and Lagrange create shared sequencing layers, but governance over these networks determines data access and ordering rights, mirroring the centralized control of traditional cloud providers.

Data becomes a club good. While a shared sequencer for Arbitrum and Optimism reduces MEV, the consortium's validators form a new permissioned cartel. This creates a single point of failure and censorship, contradicting the decentralized ethos of the underlying L2s.

Interoperability fragments. A consortium for Ethereum L2s and another for Solana creates parallel, incompatible data universes. This is the modular stack's silo problem, where shared security within a clique impedes communication across cliques, requiring bridges like LayerZero or Axelar to reconnect them.

Evidence: The Total Value Bridged (TVB) metric shows users pay a premium to escape silos. Over $10B is locked in cross-chain bridges, a direct tax on the fragmentation that consortium architectures perpetuate.

Consortiums centralize for performance. The argument for groups like Banks and TradFi consortia is that controlled membership enables high throughput and regulatory compliance. This mirrors the logic of private databases, sacrificing decentralization for speed.

They fragment liquidity and state. A consortium chain for derivatives and another for payments creates isolated data environments. This defeats composability, the core innovation that powers protocols like Aave and Uniswap across public Ethereum.

The permissioned model fails. History shows consortiums like R3 Corda struggle with adoption beyond closed groups. They become expensive, proprietary systems that cannot interoperate with the open financial internet, unlike public L2s like Arbitrum or Base.

Evidence: The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance has over 500 members but has not produced a dominant financial application. Public Ethereum and its L2s process over $2B in daily DEX volume; consortiums process zero.

Consortiums are proprietary silos. Private data networks like those from Chainlink or Pyth, while performant, create vendor lock-in and fragmented liquidity. Their closed governance and permissioned node sets directly contradict the credibly neutral ethos of public blockchains.

Public mempools are the antidote. Open data layers like EigenLayer, Espresso, and Astria treat data as a public good. They enable permissionless innovation where any sequencer or rollup can access and build upon a shared state, unlike a consortium's walled garden.

The network effect flips. A consortium's value accrues to its token holders. A public data layer's value accrues to its applications, creating a stronger, more defensible flywheel. This is the same dynamic that made Ethereum's L1 more valuable than any single app built on it.

Evidence: The DeFi Stack. The entire DeFi ecosystem from Uniswap to Aave relies on public, composable smart contracts. A future with intent-based systems (UniswapX, CowSwap) and cross-chain states (LayerZero, Hyperlane) requires this same public data primitive, not a patchwork of private APIs.