[HN Gopher] Coinbase Cloud
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Coinbase Cloud
        
       Author : hasheddan
       Score  : 189 points
       Date   : 2021-10-02 00:04 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.coinbase.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.coinbase.com)
        
       | LurkingPenguin wrote:
       | > Coinbase Cloud has it all.
       | 
       | Unfortunately, I don't see the API where I get $90 million
       | accidentally transferred to my wallet. :(
        
       | fidesomnes wrote:
       | And the winner for the worst idea of the year goes to Coinbase.
        
       | bubersson wrote:
       | The API doesn't even have support for Lightning.
        
       | qualudeheart wrote:
       | Will this service be using Rust?
        
         | exdsq wrote:
         | I think they're a Go/Typescript shop, but crypto does love
         | Rust!
        
           | qualudeheart wrote:
           | Cardano ecosystem used to use Rust a lot. Currently moving to
           | Haskell. Few other big ecosystems using Rust too.
           | 
           | Imo future is more expressive rust-like languages.
        
             | AlexCoventry wrote:
             | I thought they'd been using Haskellfor years, and the rust
             | development was relatively recent.
        
               | exdsq wrote:
               | Yeah Cardano has been Haskell for years and some Rust for
               | a secondary implementation of the node (Jormungandr)
        
             | knownjorbist wrote:
             | Polkadot is Rust and WASM based.
        
       | Havoc wrote:
       | Looks interesting. Or at least one step closer to improving
       | access to tooling.
       | 
       | I can totally see coin base becoming the de facto platform for
       | this sort of stuff. Not ideal centralisation wise but oh well
        
         | knownjorbist wrote:
         | Fleek is basically Vercel or Heroku, but for Web3. For those
         | with more at stake, it's probably better to go with a big
         | player like Coinbase.
        
           | Underphil wrote:
           | Unrelated, but nothing reminds me I'm getting old more than
           | an entire sentence of words I don't understand.
        
             | akudha wrote:
             | Also unrelated, for some reason your comment reminds me of
             | Oscar Wilde quote _I am so clever that sometimes I don 't
             | understand a single word of what I am saying._
        
             | calciphus wrote:
             | When someone versions the internet it is safe to disregard
             | the other terms in the sentence.
        
               | astoor wrote:
               | In my day, Web 3.0 meant the Semantic Web:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web#Web_3.0 .
        
               | liveoneggs wrote:
               | Internet2 will come alive any day now
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet2
        
       | drummer wrote:
       | Yes put everything in their cloud where the IRS criminals have
       | full access. Satoshi as wel as the cypherpunks definitely
       | approve.
        
       | neither_color wrote:
       | Some of the docs are coming up blank on mobile safari, what I
       | want to know is if its possible to hack together a payment flow a
       | la stripe with dummy data without creating a paid account first.
        
       | westoque wrote:
       | Isn't it ironic to use a REST API to send BTC vs say using what
       | any cryptocurrency is intended for? To use their native APIs to
       | transfer value. The aim of decentralization is to eliminate that
       | third party but this puts it back. We've come full circle.
        
         | _red wrote:
         | The idea "everyone should be their own bank" is a great idea,
         | and most should endeavor to do that, but it fails often for a
         | variety of legal and regulatory reasons.
         | 
         | Suppose you are a company, with a myriad of shareholders, do
         | you: (a) Setup a crypto wallet and give Frank and Bill the
         | keys, or (b) Outsource to reputable 3rd party.
         | 
         | I can tell you which your shareholders would prefer.
        
         | davedx wrote:
         | I don't this is ironic. I think this is a pretty cynical
         | attempt at wrapping the "Coinbase platform" around more layers
         | of crypto than they already had.
         | 
         | Embrace, extend...
        
         | base698 wrote:
         | Haven't used it directly in forever but bitcoind had a rest API
         | early on.
        
         | ed25519FUUU wrote:
         | The Bitcoin network supports a theoretical maximum of 7
         | transactions per second, so they're probably eager to do it
         | some other way.
        
           | reedjosh wrote:
           | Lightning though... Amiright!?
           | 
           | I'm setting up a node as soon as my ssd arrives.
        
             | tedunangst wrote:
             | Is "as soon as my ssd arrives" the new "the check is in the
             | mail"?
        
               | reedjosh wrote:
               | Ha, no I really do have one coming.
        
             | hestefisk wrote:
             | You are setting up a Lightning node? For?
        
               | reedjosh wrote:
               | > You are setting up a Lightning node?
               | 
               | Yes.
               | 
               | > For?
               | 
               | To learn, and for myself and friends to use. Vague
               | question.
               | 
               | I want the Lightning network to be the BTC solution to
               | transaction throughput and privacy, but I don't know that
               | it is. Figure best way to find out is to get my hands
               | dirty.
        
             | polyomino wrote:
             | Coinbase has been the slowest to adopt new bitcoin features
             | since they realized their business model is actually an
             | altcoin casino.
        
         | davuinci wrote:
         | A better wording would be that the aim of decentralization is
         | the _option_ to eliminate the third party. If someone wants to
         | use a third party to transact then he should have the freedom
         | to do so. Similarly, if someone wants to transact with another
         | party directly then this should also be allowed.
        
         | notyourwork wrote:
         | Middlemen have to middle, that's the model of a middleman. As
         | long as they provide some perceived value over the same without
         | middlemen they will be profitable. In this case, coinbase
         | abstracts crypto away from technically illiterate who want to
         | ride the crypto wave without learning the technicals.
        
       | jefflombardjr wrote:
       | Doesn't this further centralize something that's supposed to be
       | decentralized?
        
       | sergiotapia wrote:
       | See also: https://www.quicknode.com/
        
       | latchkey wrote:
       | When twitter was younger, people would implement against their
       | api and eventually get shut down.
       | 
       | I can't imagine having a dependency on a coinbase api.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | x3sphere wrote:
       | This seems more of a product to keep their investors happy than
       | it does actually improving the crypto ecosystem. Feels like you
       | lose the decentralization benefits of crypto when you are doing
       | everything over a centralized service. I don't know how much
       | Coinbase have abstracted things, but there's probably a fair
       | amount of lock-in here too.
        
       | bob229 wrote:
       | Crypto is trash
        
       | rikkipitt wrote:
       | I'm interested in the Coinbase Commerce as an option for my SaaS,
       | sadly they don't seem to support recurring payments out of the
       | box. Does anyone know if they might be offering this
       | functionality in the future?
        
       | H8crilA wrote:
       | Why isn't this just called Coinbase API? What am I missing?
        
         | eganist wrote:
         | its closer to a PaaS offering than just a bundle of APIs, which
         | gives it some basis to claim the Cloud marketing moniker.
         | 
         | Notably, https://bisontrails.co/participate/ (this is linked
         | from the above and is owned by Coinbase as a subsidiary)
        
           | anonymoushn wrote:
           | If my fund uses a thing for order entry, deposits, and
           | withdrawals, but not for hosting (and indeed hosting for
           | trading servers is not even for sale?), normally we would
           | call that thing an API.
           | 
           | I guess the "hosted validators" thing is reasonable to call
           | Coinbase Cloud though.
        
           | H8crilA wrote:
           | Uh, ok, the front/linked page confused me. Thanks.
        
         | Kranar wrote:
         | Coinbase API is something else [1] and would be utterly
         | confusing to use that name for this:
         | 
         | [1] https://developers.coinbase.com/api/v2
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | earthwallet wrote:
       | Awesome, we're looking for a multi-chain version of infura at
       | earthwallet.io! Sounds like exactly what we need on the Coinbase
       | Cloud page, but it's a bit tricky to find the docs for this type
       | of application. Definitely a great idea though, hopefully we can
       | make it happen!
        
       | dschlossman wrote:
       | Cool, didnt realize coinbase acquired bison trails
        
       | arthur_sav wrote:
       | Seems they forgot to write the documentation lol
       | https://docs.cloud.coinbase.com/exchange/reference/market-fe...
        
         | barmstrong wrote:
         | Coinbase CEO here. Thx for mentioning it, we'll get that fixed.
         | 
         | This is an early release from us and I would expect there to be
         | a few quirks. Please keep sharing any feedback.
        
           | mensetmanusman wrote:
           | Thoughts on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28588896 ?
           | 
           | Non-techie Family member got scammed with this last month and
           | lost $4k ETH while using coinbase. Thought I would let you
           | know since it seems very common at the moment, might be worth
           | having an alert to users not to send ETH to anyone who says
           | they will 2x their coins. Cheers,
        
             | idiotsecant wrote:
             | I'm not sure it's coinbase's responsibility to tell users
             | not to run with scissors. Anyone who thinks sending money
             | to random links they see on the internet that are promising
             | to send them more money back for free probably shouldn't be
             | entrusted with managing money.
        
               | permalac wrote:
               | Complete agreement with this comment.
               | 
               | What should a founder do? Focus on their product, the
               | better they become more scamers will attract, but is for
               | the user to use some basic logic.
               | 
               | Otherwise, should they tell people that there is no such
               | thing as Nigerian Prince? Because Nigeria is a Republic
               | but some people don't even check the basics, they tend to
               | just refuse their responsibility.
        
             | sjtindell wrote:
             | This post doesn't seem at all appropriate to me. Those
             | scams are the most bottom of the barrel, low effort, have
             | existed forever, and have nothing to do with Coinbase at
             | all. I worry that pinging founders direct with this
             | nonsense will keep them out of one of the few forums where
             | I ever get to see them contribute.
        
               | mensetmanusman wrote:
               | Depends. Most CEOs I interact with are anti-fragile. The
               | legitimacy of crypto has a lot to do with CB, so it is in
               | everyone's best interest to fight scammers being front
               | page promoted by YouTube:)
        
         | notyourwork wrote:
         | Documentation was linked to here from main page:
         | https://docs.cloud.coinbase.com/
         | 
         | Not sure where you found that other link but sort of
         | embarrassing to have that publicly exposed.
        
           | arthur_sav wrote:
           | I just searched for 'commerce' in the main documentation and
           | voila
        
       | ionwake wrote:
       | No one else find it super weird there is an announcement the same
       | day coinbase got hacked?
        
         | z0xz0xz0x wrote:
         | fact check: coinbase did not get hacked
        
           | brokensegue wrote:
           | A bug in Coinbase software allowed hackers to steal Coinbase
           | users' money and private information. What else would you
           | call this?
        
             | knownjorbist wrote:
             | If you look more specifically into what happened, you might
             | have your answer.
        
       | simonebrunozzi wrote:
       | So much for decentralization.
        
         | d0gbread wrote:
         | This service doesn't prohibit decentralized services from
         | existing and evolving? Cue why not both gif.
        
       | asjfj9 wrote:
       | Can someone ELI5 how this is any different to what the current
       | Coinbase API offers? https://developers.coinbase.com/api/v2
       | 
       | Reading through the entire Coinbase Cloud page and even going
       | into the Coinbase Cloud Exchange docs
       | (https://docs.cloud.coinbase.com/exchange/docs) doesn't make it
       | clear what this offers over Coinbase's current API.
        
         | nerdwaller wrote:
         | The difference of those two docs is one is coinbase.com, their
         | more retail oriented option (picture robinhood), and
         | pro.coinbase.com which is a more advanced trading platform
         | (think or swim or other more mature investor platforms). The
         | fee structures are different, order types, visualizations, etc
         | (even though they likely use the same infrastructure for both)
         | and they segregate a user's accounts between the two (though
         | you can freely transfer between the two). Another major
         | difference is on the retail platform you're not going to see an
         | orderbook - just a price. All that to say, I think the main
         | difference is access to more information about the overall
         | market, more advanced orders, better pair selection (that
         | usually eventually ends up on the retail platform), and the
         | more mature financial platform.
         | 
         | These new docs replace the previous pro/prime API docs and
         | extend it into new products.
        
         | adventured wrote:
         | The cloud product/label is where they intend to build out a
         | suite of service offerings. API wasn't broad enough to
         | encompass what they intend to do next.
        
       | ssss11 wrote:
       | Given their lack of competence resolving basic user account
       | issues, it would be a hard no from me
        
         | NGRhodes wrote:
         | Agreed, I was locked out of access to my funds for months, not
         | one human response until my complaint escalated to the
         | Financial Ombudsman (UK), got compensation, then tried to
         | delete my account after withdrawing all my money, raised a
         | support ticket, then last week my account was closed with the
         | following message:
         | 
         | "Upon careful review, we believe your account has engaged in
         | prohibited use in violation of our Terms of Service and we
         | regret to inform you that we can no longer provide you with
         | access to our service."
        
           | ssss11 wrote:
           | Oh wow that's bad.
           | 
           | Mine was their screwed up identification process - I had
           | completed it but their app wouldn't let me view their tiny
           | videos for the rewards. I was stuck in a support loop for
           | months of "you need to identify yourself", "I have", "oh yeah
           | you have, try the videos again" - repeat
        
           | arthur_sav wrote:
           | That's not just Coinbase. It's every neobank type app or
           | service.
           | 
           | The problem is that they can't handle the large volume of
           | users while also dealing with fraud & law compliance. So they
           | basically have fraud detection algos that flag anything
           | remotely suspicious with many false positives and they don't
           | have the support staff to deal with the aftermath.
        
             | sanderjd wrote:
             | It's almost like there's a good reason society invented
             | bank regulation.
        
           | starclerk wrote:
           | I was locked out of my account for 3.5 years before they
           | worked through the queue far enough to get to me. I stopped
           | using Coinbase long before then though.
        
           | notyourwork wrote:
           | Sounds like the Robinhood model. Collect as much finances as
           | you can and do as little as possible to support those
           | providing the funds while sucking up to investors.
        
       | ohashi wrote:
       | 99% uptime guarantee is embarrassingly low.
        
         | root-z wrote:
         | considering my experience with their product, it's probably the
         | best they could do in a realistic timeframe.
        
         | TheDudeMan wrote:
         | They were probably faced with decision: Release now and improve
         | over time, or don't release now. We don't live in the time of
         | option B. Option B is the path of ruin.
        
           | ohashi wrote:
           | That's the attitude you want from a financial service, YOLO
           | BUILD FAST AND BREAK THINGS.
           | 
           | We absolutely live in a time where you can engineer things
           | well, especially at the scale of a publicly traded company.
           | They aren't some scrappy startup desperately trying to get
           | their first users.
        
             | true_religion wrote:
             | They're trying to be like banks. Mine closes at 5pm sharp
             | and all transactions stop because you can't do fraud checks
             | in developing countries when "fraud check" means literally
             | sending someone physically to the point of sale to make
             | sure it really exists.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | judge2020 wrote:
         | That's nearly 4 days out of service a year with no recourse.
         | This should be unacceptable for any financial service.
        
           | knownjorbist wrote:
           | 4 whole days! They'll never recover from this, right?
        
             | urda wrote:
             | I would be not long for this world if a service I helped
             | maintain was down for four days.
        
               | knownjorbist wrote:
               | If so, that is a frightening indictment of the world we
               | live in and not you as a person.
        
             | exdsq wrote:
             | It is shockingly bad
        
               | knownjorbist wrote:
               | Only to those firmly within the HN bubble.
        
               | exdsq wrote:
               | This is specific to the domain of cryptocurrencies and
               | blockchains where you are dealing with decentralized
               | networks that slash funds if you are offline for a period
               | of time. It's a different ball game to endpoints you can
               | let fall over and restart from time to time.
        
               | tluyben2 wrote:
               | Yep, there are enough services that drop into maintenance
               | mode multiple time a week. Although outside local
               | business hours, one of my banks is in maintenance mode
               | every night (not sure if they do backups or if it's just
               | down and has maintenance mode as 500 screen or what is
               | going on) and the api (psd2 ) does not work then either.
               | Well over 4 days a year I would say and literally no one
               | cares: people are sleeping. So sure it depends on the
               | service but 99% or less does not matter if no one is
               | using it anyway. That said; it is quite bad in this day
               | and age and I really wonder what it is they are
               | 'maintaining'.
        
           | Andys wrote:
           | _Should_ be, yeah. Australian banks are this bad and worse.
        
       | shp0ngle wrote:
       | Cryptocurrencies are horrible as currencies because it's hard and
       | expensive to pay with them.
       | 
       | Make of that what you will.
        
         | latchkey wrote:
         | "In my opinion..."
        
           | 0xdeadb00f wrote:
           | I still can't go down to my grocery store, or pretty much any
           | outlet in the city, and pay with crypto.
           | 
           | Until that is the case, I think it's very fair to say, that
           | crypto currency is hard to pay with.
        
             | latchkey wrote:
             | Does that make them horrible?
        
             | kevinak wrote:
             | You know who can? Anyone in El Salvador.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _You know who can? Anyone in El Salvador._
               | 
               | With an internet-connected smartphone with the app
               | installed and whose neighbourhood stores are following
               | the law. Which isn't _that_ many people.
        
               | latchkey wrote:
               | https://www.yahoo.com/now/over-two-million-citizens-
               | now-1438...
               | 
               | Even if we call his numbers inflated and cut his number
               | in half, it is still 1m people.
        
               | shp0ngle wrote:
               | hahahaha
        
               | 0xdeadb00f wrote:
               | Okay I guess?
        
       | lugged wrote:
       | Nothing I like more than a cookie accept button covering half the
       | screen that doesn't work when you click it.
        
         | weddpros wrote:
         | I always thank Europe for this, makes me feel so safe. I don't
         | risk anything when I can't even accept the cookie.
        
         | neither_color wrote:
         | The "i dont care about cookies" extension is really good on
         | desktop https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | exdsq wrote:
       | There goes my side project
        
       | sillysaurusx wrote:
       | I raised $2,200 in donations thanks to Coinbase making it easy
       | for people to donate crypto. It sounds like they want to do the
       | same for every aspect of a business. There's probably a lot of
       | value in that.
        
         | Fnoord wrote:
         | How much energy was wasted this way? Why would PayPal, IBAN, or
         | Flattr not have worked?
        
           | dustymcp wrote:
           | because they dont receive crypto..
        
           | collegeburner wrote:
           | I use crypto because the financial system does not allow me
           | to make a transaction anonymously unless I use cash, that I
           | can't use on the internet. Make the government remove its
           | retarded KYC and anti money laundering laws that create state
           | mandated invasion of privacy and I will stop. Crypto exists
           | only because there is a demand not met by "real money". The
           | answer is not to ban crypto but to make "real money"
           | competitive again.
        
           | coralreef wrote:
           | If it was a custodial service, then the amount of "energy
           | wasted" was basically equal to any of the above.
        
             | wallacoloo wrote:
             | The majority of cryptocurrency mining is paid for by fixed
             | inflationary rewards, not transaction fees. That means that
             | the power used by mining isn't directly dependent on the
             | number of transactions being processed. When you hear "each
             | Bitcoin transaction burns x MJ", that's a simplification.
             | 
             | Custodial cryptocurrency services therefore don't consume
             | meaningfully more or less power than non-custodial
             | services. They both rely on the underlying protocol
             | remaining functional, which is where the bulk of power
             | consumption occurs.
        
       | paulpauper wrote:
       | future headline: Coinbase Cloud Breach Notification
        
       | arthurcolle wrote:
       | The audacity of announcing a cloud on the same day a major breach
       | is made public lmao
        
         | knownjorbist wrote:
         | Don't we already know it wasn't actually a breach?
        
           | arthurcolle wrote:
           | If all your customers get sim swapped because you offered 2FA
           | over SMS then it's your fault as a service provider.
        
             | brendoelfrendo wrote:
             | Couldn't we shift the fault back a step? If it's so easy to
             | SIM swap people, shouldn't the telecoms be liable for
             | damages to their customers in the event of a SIM swap?
        
               | mercora wrote:
               | i am not entirely sure i fully agree. telecoms never sold
               | us a service to authenticate us to 3rd parties. those 3rd
               | parties did bolt it on-top of an arguably insecure
               | message transmission system. it wasn't meant to be used
               | like this and maybe its even a bad idea to use it like
               | that. the assumption only you yourself could receive
               | these codes because you are authenticated against your
               | mobile network provider might just be wrong here.
               | 
               | of course, letting the actual sim swapping attack work is
               | an issue they should be required to solve. but for
               | entirely different reasons. once you are authenticated to
               | their network you can cause substantial costs for the
               | real owner of the contract for example and those costs
               | would definitely be compensated to their clients if this
               | happens without their involvement. but if your
               | assumptions break because of this issue your assumptions
               | are wrong in my opinion and you would be the one to
               | blame.
               | 
               | a simple analogy here could be you park your car in front
               | of a police station, because nobody would dare to steal
               | your car right in front of the police right? but then
               | your car still gets stolen and you think you should try
               | to sue the police because that just happened.
               | 
               | on the other hand coinbase did made that assumption and
               | has been proven wrong in this way. they did bet on using
               | the telcos messaging systems being secure enough to be
               | used for authentication. that did not work out and this
               | caused people to lose money which should be compensated
               | for, by coinbase, because they decided to do that and not
               | the telecoms.
        
               | arthurcolle wrote:
               | I agree - you are right, we absolutely should. But if
               | customers are using Coinbase, and people sue and get
               | successfully judgments against Coinbase for using
               | insecure authentication media, then maybe Coinbase can go
               | ahead and initiate lawsuits against the telecoms if they
               | are feeling the heat.
               | 
               | Consumer complaints against ISPs/telecoms have been
               | notoriously slow, unresolved with no real improvements -
               | even before the creature Ajit Pai crawled out from under
               | his rock, shockingly enough.
        
             | JohnJamesRambo wrote:
             | If that is the net you are casting that is going to be a
             | very wide net.
             | 
             | SMS 2fa isn't great but there are lots of places that use
             | it.
        
               | arthurcolle wrote:
               | They should all be liable for damages if anything bad
               | happens as a result of account misappropriation IMO
        
               | Consultant32452 wrote:
               | Coinbase is making all the affected customers whole. What
               | more liability do you want?
        
               | arthurcolle wrote:
               | A fine that is substantial enough to make them deprecate
               | 2FA for SMS
        
               | Consultant32452 wrote:
               | Why do you care if Coinbase gets robbed?
        
               | arthurcolle wrote:
               | Because people and organizations should be held
               | accountable for their actions and weak security can
               | directly impact people's lives
        
             | z0xz0xz0x wrote:
             | "all" customers? Or do you mean 6,000 out of 60m +?
        
               | arthurcolle wrote:
               | Either works for the example. You should be liable for
               | offering something that is easily exploited that affects
               | your customers.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | renewiltord wrote:
         | Then don't use it haha. There's always so many HN users talking
         | up these so-called breaches and acting like they matter when
         | they probably have a grand total combined spend authority of
         | $100 for snacks at the weekly happy hour.
        
           | arthurcolle wrote:
           | I was a pre-sale investor in Ethereum, have been in Bitcoin
           | since it was < $2 per BTC. Your casual dismissal of my
           | statement indicates you have no idea what you are talking
           | about - no one is going to seriously use this. Just like no
           | one serious keeps their balances on Coinbase Pro/Prime. They
           | are a fine trading desk if you face them OTC, but to think
           | they are going to become a state of the art "crypto cloud
           | provider" is hilarious.
           | 
           | Next up, Coinbase NFT verification services (Sotheby's of the
           | future!). My sides are sore.
        
             | kleinsch wrote:
             | You bought some crypto currencies early, congrats. None of
             | those statements demonstrate purchasing power for a cloud
             | product...
        
               | arthurcolle wrote:
               | > None of those statements demonstrate purchasing power
               | for a cloud product...
               | 
               | What does this even mean? Are you trying to say I don't
               | have enough money for the offering? Maybe so :)
               | 
               | I am indicting Coinbase for what they are - their lack of
               | support, lack of useful options even for well-moneyed
               | players in the market, lack of useful crypto products.
               | Their API is fine, but that is standard.
               | 
               | And now they want to be the new Infura/Alchemy? I mean,
               | why? They already don't provide a great product. My Uber
               | driver yesterday was asking me if they should buy
               | Avalanche after I casually mentioned crypto. Yeah,
               | democratizing finance for sure.
               | 
               | Use it if you want, you seem axed on the product. Hope it
               | works out for you!
        
               | exdsq wrote:
               | To be fair an early investor in Bitcoin and Ethereum from
               | pre-2015 could have the same 'spending power' as a
               | successful IPO founder, which isn't trivial!
        
             | [deleted]
        
         | emXdem wrote:
         | Name a traditional bank in the US that offers FIDO U2F for
         | MFA... I'll wait... I've been looking for one for a while.
        
       | crazypython wrote:
       | This imposes a centralization externality on blockchains. Putting
       | a validator node in Coinbase Cloud makes that blockchain more
       | centralized by giving Coinbase control over a large number of
       | validator nodes.
        
       | teruakohatu wrote:
       | Didn't Microsoft Azure's blockchain platform fail? It was
       | shutdown earlier this month [1]. How is this different and/or
       | better?
       | 
       | [1] https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/microsoft-
       | azure-b...
        
         | mbesto wrote:
         | Isn't Coinbase Cloud vastly different? Azure was for building
         | any application blockchain technology (could be crypto, smart
         | contracts, supply chain, blah blah) whereas CB Cloud is for
         | building applications on top of Coinbase's crypto exchange.
        
         | knownjorbist wrote:
         | This appears to be only managed blockchain infrastructure, not
         | all of the other concerns that emerge when actually building an
         | application on top of such a thing.
        
         | programmarchy wrote:
         | I think Microsoft and others like IBM failed to "get it". They
         | tried to adopt blockchain tech without the cryptocurrency
         | aspect, failing to realize there needs to be a built-in
         | incentive structure for people to participate on any blockchain
         | network. Mining, staking, and other proof / reward systems are
         | required for any blockchain tech to get off the ground.
        
           | toomuchtodo wrote:
           | IBM and Microsoft cater to enterprises. Enterprises whose
           | entrenched positions are challenged by decentralized systems.
           | Centralizing a decentralized system is done either to
           | bootstrap it (optimistic) or embrace, extend, and extinguish
           | it (pessimistic). A corporation alone might not need a
           | blockchain, but has no choice but to participate if that's
           | where the market is, and a consensus of participants (no pun
           | intended) is who determines that technology (not corporate
           | procurement).
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis.
           | ..
        
             | lottin wrote:
             | Can you please give a single example of an enterprise that
             | is being challenged by a decentralised system?
        
               | PKop wrote:
               | I would say commercial banks are on their way to being
               | challenged by DeFi and stablecoins on Ethereum. But it is
               | debatable how decentralized this system in its entirety
               | is given the biggest entities are centralized custodian
               | coins. But still.. massive disparities in yields and
               | flexibility of moving value around at will does have
               | enough disruptive force that banks and the Federal
               | reserve are racing to both regulate stablecoins and push
               | "CeFi" instiutions into registering as banks themselves,
               | while on the other end legacy finance is moving towards
               | adopting some of these systems themselves.
        
               | toomuchtodo wrote:
               | Clearing and settlement of securities. https://paxos.com
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | PKop wrote:
           | Agree, and this quote from the OP's link is humorous in that
           | regard:
           | 
           | "While blockchain is best known for its association with
           | cryptocurrencies, _it has applications beyond this field._ "
           | 
           | This sentiment is just thrown around without evidence. Either
           | a blockchain has an internal reward mechanism to account for
           | the increased costs associated with it's execution or it is
           | simply a more complicated and expensive database looking for
           | a problem to solve...and also is likely not decentralized.
        
             | dogman144 wrote:
             | Good evidence is git, which is a blockchain (linked list of
             | hashes).
        
               | jcliff wrote:
               | without a way to resolve the canonical version without
               | trusting a singular maintainer, git is not a blockchain.
               | blockchains enforce consensus in a decentralized way, at
               | least public blockchains do or should.
        
           | verdverm wrote:
           | Hyperledger Fabric uses Proof of Authority and is still being
           | used for projects. Being antithetical to the crypto crowd it
           | doesn't get the same fanfare. The target user base is very
           | different.
           | 
           | I personally would reach for this tech stack before the
           | permissionless variety, I just don't have anything that needs
           | blockchain.
        
             | sanderjd wrote:
             | What are some projects it is used for?
        
               | verdverm wrote:
               | Primarily supply chain.
               | 
               | https://www.hyperledger.org/learn/case-studies
               | 
               | Understand connecting IRL to BCL (blockchain ledger) is
               | where provenance breaks down. Just because a blockchain
               | says something, does not mean it is true. Just that the
               | data onchain hasn't changed.
        
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