You can deploy a smart contract without asking anyone's permission. You can spin up a validator and join consensus without filling out an application. You can submit transactions to any public blockchain without creating an account or agreeing to terms of service.

Try to index that blockchain's data and serve it to your application? Now you need an API key. Now you're subject to rate limits. Now you're waiting for someone else to decide whether your chain, your contract, or your use case is worth supporting.

The permissionless ethos that defines blockchain at the base layer evaporates the moment you need to read data from it.

Gatekeepers all the way down

Permissionlessness means anyone can participate without requiring approval from an authority. It's foundational to why blockchains work. No one decides who gets to submit transactions. No committee approves which validators can join. The protocol defines the rules, and anyone who follows them can participate.

Indexing infrastructure operates on the opposite model.

Want to access indexed data? Sign up for an account. Agree to terms of service. Choose a pricing tier. Stay within your rate limits or pay for more. Your access exists at the pleasure of the provider. They can change the terms, throttle your usage, or cut you off entirely. You're a customer, not a participant.

Want to run an indexer yourself? You can, technically. But you're not joining a network. You're building parallel infrastructure from scratch, competing with well-funded incumbents who've had years to optimize. The "permissionless" option is to rebuild everything yourself. That's not openness. That's a moat.

Want a specific chain or contract indexed? Submit a request and hope it aligns with the provider's priorities. If you're building on a newer chain, a less popular L2, or a niche protocol, you might wait months. Or forever. The data exists on-chain, public and available to anyone running a node. But indexed, queryable data? That's controlled by whoever decides what's worth indexing.

Validators have the data. Why aren't they serving it?

Here's the absurdity of the current setup: validators already maintain complete chain state. They process every transaction, execute every state transition, store every block. The data that indexers repackage and sell access to originates from validators.

Validation is permissionless. Anyone meeting the protocol requirements can run a validator, join consensus, and earn rewards. The barrier is technical and economic, not administrative. No application process, no approval committee, no terms of service.

Indexing should work the same way. The infrastructure that produces blockchain data is open. The infrastructure that serves blockchain data should be equally open. Validators are already trusted with consensus. Extending their role to serve indexed data removes an entire layer of unnecessary gatekeeping.

Instead, we've built a parallel industry. Validators produce data. Indexers vacuum it up, reprocess it, and sell access. The permissionless base layer feeds a permissioned data layer. Value flows from open infrastructure to closed infrastructure, and developers pay the toll.

Closed markets vs. open protocols

Current indexing infrastructure operates as a market of competing businesses. Providers differentiate on performance, coverage, pricing, and features. They compete for customers. This isn't inherently bad, but it has structural consequences.

Businesses optimize for their interests, not the ecosystem's. They support chains and contracts that drive revenue. They build features that attract enterprise customers. They deprecate endpoints that don't justify their maintenance cost. Every decision runs through a business model filter.

Permissionless indexing operates as a protocol, not a market. Anyone can participate. Anyone can extend capabilities. Anyone can serve data. Competition happens at the operator level, not the infrastructure level. The protocol is a public good. Operators compete on execution.

The difference shapes everything downstream. In a closed market, innovation requires convincing a vendor or building from scratch. In an open protocol, anyone can contribute. New chains get indexed when someone decides to index them, not when a product team prioritizes them. Custom transformations ship when a developer builds them, not when they clear a roadmap review.

Markets concentrate power in whoever controls the platform. Protocols distribute power to whoever participates.

Developer access as a second-class concern

The friction developers face with current indexing infrastructure is a direct consequence of the business model.

Rate limits exist because providers need to manage capacity and push users toward paid tiers. If you're building something experimental, something that might generate unpredictable query patterns, you're constantly watching your limits. The provider's business needs constrain your development process.

API keys and accounts exist because providers need to track usage, enforce limits, and bill customers. Every integration starts with signup flows and credential management. You're not just building your application. You're onboarding to someone else's platform.

Terms of service exist because providers need legal protection and usage control. You're bound by restrictions that might change at any time. Your application's legality is coupled to a provider's risk tolerance.

None of this exists at the base layer. You don't rate-limit your access to submitting transactions. You don't need an API key to run a node. You don't agree to terms of service to participate in consensus. The protocol doesn't care who you are or what you're building. It just works.

Permissionless data access extends this to the indexing layer. Query any node, get data. No accounts, no rate limits tied to billing tiers, no terms governing what you can build. The network serves anyone who asks, the same way blockchains process transactions from anyone who submits them.

Innovation bottlenecked by gatekeepers

When indexing infrastructure is controlled by a handful of providers, they become chokepoints for innovation.

New chain support depends on provider priorities. An L2 launches with novel data structures. Developers want to build on it. But indexed data isn't available until a major provider decides the chain is worth supporting. Could be weeks, could be months, could be never. The chain is live and permissionless. Access to its indexed data is neither.

Custom indexing logic requires their platform or your own infrastructure. You need a specific data transformation. An aggregation that doesn't exist in standard offerings. A view of chain data optimized for your use case. Your options are to hope a provider builds it, pay for enterprise customization, or stand up your own indexing stack. The innovation you want is blocked by infrastructure you don't control.

New query patterns need their approval or toleration. You're building something that generates unusual traffic patterns. Maybe a research project, maybe a novel application architecture. Providers might rate-limit you, flag you for abuse, or ask you to leave. Their platform, their rules.

Permissionless infrastructure doesn't have these bottlenecks. Anyone can index a new chain by running the appropriate node and joining the network. Anyone can implement custom logic and serve specialized queries. Anyone can generate whatever query patterns they need. Innovation doesn't require permission from incumbents.

The technical foundation for permissionless indexing

Permissionless participation requires specific architectural properties.

Open node participation with no gatekeepers. Validators can extend their existing role to index and serve queries. They already run full nodes, already maintain state, already proved their commitment to the network. Non-validators can still host and serve data across the network without indexing responsibilities. No application process, no approval workflow, no allowlists. Participation follows from the role you already play in the ecosystem.

Protocol-defined rules, not provider policies. What gets indexed, how queries work, what data formats are supported, all defined by open specifications. Changes happen through governance, not product decisions. No single party controls the rules.

Extensible by default. The ability to add new chains, new data transformations, new query types shouldn't require permission from core infrastructure. Plugin architectures, modular designs, open interfaces that anyone can extend.

Credentially neutral access. Queries authenticated by cryptographic identity, not platform accounts. Your ability to access data isn't tied to a business relationship. You pay for queries the same way you pay for transactions: protocol fees, not subscription tiers. The network verifies your keys and serves your queries. No invoices, no account standings, no enterprise sales calls.

These properties mirror what makes blockchains permissionless at the consensus layer. The same design principles apply to data access.

What permissionless indexing enables

When anyone can participate in indexing infrastructure, the ecosystem develops differently.

Long-tail chains get indexed. Support doesn't depend on commercial viability. A small community can index their own chain, serve their own data, and build applications without waiting for mainstream providers to care. The threshold for data availability drops from "profitable to support" to "someone cares enough to run a node."

Experimentation flourishes without gatekeepers. Developers try novel architectures, unusual query patterns, experimental data transformations. No one's reviewing whether your use case fits their platform. You build what you want and see if it works.

Competition shifts to execution. When the protocol layer is open, operators compete on performance, reliability, and cost. No one has structural advantages from controlling the infrastructure itself. Users benefit from competition that isn't distorted by platform lock-in.

Ecosystems become self-sufficient. Communities aren't dependent on external providers who might deprioritize them. They control their own infrastructure. Sustainability doesn't require commercial adoption.

Developers become participants, not customers. Your relationship to infrastructure changes. You're not buying a service. You're using a protocol. The power dynamic shifts fundamentally.

The asymmetry is unsustainable

Blockchains are permissionless because permissionlessness is the point. Open participation isn't a feature. It's the property that makes decentralization meaningful, that enables censorship resistance, that allows trustless coordination among strangers.

That property doesn't survive contact with permissioned infrastructure.

If you need permission to access indexed data, you've reintroduced gatekeepers. If providers decide which chains get supported, they're kingmakers. If your ability to build depends on someone else's business priorities, you're not permissionless. You're just at the end of someone else's roadmap.

The base layer got this right. The data layer needs to catch up.

Permissionless means anyone can participate. Not anyone with an API key. Not anyone willing to pay. Not anyone whose use case fits the business model. Anyone.

Infrastructure that doesn't meet that bar isn't permissionless. It's just open for business.

Join the community building the read layer that's open to everyone.
X · Telegram · Discord · GitHub ·  shinzo.network