Author: Sharon, Joyce, BlockBeats

Editor: Jack, BlockBeats

On September 22nd, Consensys, an Ethereum infrastructure development company, announced on social media that it will be shutting down its development tools Truffle Suite and Ganache, and partnering with HardHat, another Ethereum developer tool platform, to provide a smooth transition for developers currently using Truffle Suite and Ganache. Consensys also added that it will be focusing on expanding its Infura, MetaMask Snaps, and SDK products.

Source: Consensys official social media account

Consensys announced on its official website that starting from December 20, 2023, the Truffle Suite and Ganache code repositories will continue to be provided as public archives. Developers have approximately 90 days to migrate to HardHat and other solutions. "We have seen incredible growth in demand and potential for Infura, MetaMask Snap, and SDK products. In order to focus our energy on partners in the Ethereum ecosystem and allow the team to focus on building MetaMask as a platform, we have decided to retire Truffle Suite and Ganache."

Source: Consensys Official Website

Truffle Suite and Ganache are both popular tools in the blockchain ecosystem. Nowadays, Consensys chooses to promote MetaMask and Infura, which may be due to considerations for building a good Ethereum ecosystem and creating a larger platform.

Ethereum Developer Darling

In fact, since their inception, Truffle Suite and Ganache have been important tools in the Ethereum ecosystem, helping developers easily create, test, and deploy Solidity smart contracts. In 2020, their download volume exceeded 3.5 million times, making them widely welcomed by developers throughout the entire blockchain ecosystem.

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Source: Github Official Website

Truffle Suite was officially launched in 2015. It is a development framework for Ethereum Solidity language. It is based on Javascript and is easy to use for development. The main functions provided by Truffle Suite include helping developers quickly build, test, debug, and deploy, writing scripts and plugins to automate common processes, and helping developers interact with the blockchain. It also allows developers to debug mainnet transactions by stepping through verified contract source code.

According to previous reports by BlockBeats, Truffle Suite received a funding of $3 million, mainly from ConsenSys. Truffle Suite used this funding to develop an "enterprise-level blockchain development toolkit" and hire new talent. In April 2019, Truffle Suite announced its departure from ConsenSys and became independent. The company has also collaborated with enterprises such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Intel.

In April 2020, Truffle Suite announced support for Tezos, allowing developers to use its command-line tools to build, test, and deploy smart contracts on the Tezos blockchain. In July, it integrated with Filecoin. It wasn't until November that ConsenSys acquired Truffle Suite, making it an official fully-owned product of ConsenSys. As one of the first projects incubated by ConsenSys, Truffle Suite has accelerated the development of the open-source Ethereum ecosystem and cultivated a group of specialized developers.

And Ganache is a widely used software tool by developers with over millions of downloads, most commonly interoperating with Truffle Suite. Ganache is used to create local blockchain networks for testing and development, allowing developers to effectively test different scenarios and troubleshoot issues with their blockchain applications by simulating a blockchain network on their local PC. As a personal development environment for Ethereum, users can deploy contracts, develop programs, and conduct testing on Ganache. It has both desktop and command-line tool versions, and supports Windows, Mac, and Linux.

This announcement of the closure of Truffle Suite and Ganache also highlights the importance of ConsenSys' MetaMask and Infura.

Full Effort into MetaMask Snap and Infura

On September 12th, Consensys announced the release of the first version of MetaMask Snaps to the public. The product aims to completely change the way users interact with MetaMask, providing users with stronger operations and customization features. Consensys stated that they will collect user feedback on MetaMask Snaps and continue to develop to achieve the ultimate vision of MetaMask Snaps.

Source: MetaMask Official Website

MetaMask co-founder Dan recently mentioned in an interview with Bankless podcast that "MetaMask Snaps is like a plugin designed for the MetaMask wallet, and one of its important functions is to enhance transaction security. Through Snaps, users can install transaction security providers, which can simulate transactions, predict transaction results, and help users avoid potential risks, such as phishing attacks."

During TOKEN2049, Francesco Andreoli, the developer relations maintainer of MetaMask, also introduced in an exclusive interview with BlockBeats that MetaMask Snaps will provide 34 Snaps, all of which have been security audited and manually added to the whitelist by the MetaMask team. The 34 Snaps can be divided into three categories, covering transaction insights, cross-chain interoperability, and Web3 notifications.

Regarding the new features brought by Snaps, Consensys stated that "this will completely change the way users interact with MetaMask, providing users with stronger operations and customization capabilities."

Related reading: "Interview with MetaMask: How Snaps Disrupts MetaMask's Ecological Interaction."

Regarding compatibility, MetaMask Snaps has expanded its support for multiple chains, going beyond just supporting Ethereum. For the MetaMask team, Snaps is a strategy to expand their development capabilities, "in order to fully leverage the diversity of blockchain, wallets need to be flexible." For Consensys, this allows them to develop and launch the features users need more quickly, gaining more influence in the developer-oriented market.

MetaMask has been the main focus of ConsenSys in recent years. On the one hand, as of October 2022, MetaMask's total revenue has reached $320 million; on the other hand, according to public information, as of August 9th this year, MetaMask's downloads have exceeded 20 million times, making it the most popular hot wallet in the encryption industry.

Next is Infura, also an important product under ConsenSys and a key focus of ConsenSys. Infura was launched in 2016 and is an important API interface for the Ethereum network. Developers can easily access the Ethereum network through Infura. Currently, Infura has become a pillar of the core infrastructure for Ethereum and IPFS.

Previously, Infura had faced the issue of being too centralized. Simon Morris, the strategic director of Consensys, stated at the KBW 2023 conference in September of this year that a decentralized Infura will be launched by the end of 2023. Major Web2 cloud providers may become a part of this network, with the ultimate goal of establishing an architecture similar to TCP/IP that cannot be regulated.

Currently, ConsenSys has shifted its strategic focus to MetaMask and Infura. In 2022, it completed a Series D funding round of $450 million, setting a record for the largest single financing in the crypto industry, with a valuation of over $7 billion. How will ConsenSys continue to innovate and build blockchain infrastructure in the future? It is believed that the platform will be a key factor in this endeavor.

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