'We want to be the AWS of crypto,' says Coinbase exec

Published at: Dec. 3, 2021

With Amazon Web Services (AWS) being one of the most popular cloud service providers on the planet, it's no surprise that Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange based in the United States, is attempting to capitalize on its success by developing its own cloud infrastructure solution, Coinbase Cloud.

"We want to be the AWS of crypto," said Coinbase chief product officer Surojit Chatterjee in an exclusive interview with Forbes. "We are building this whole Coinbase Cloud suite of products that you can think of as crypto computing services to help developers build their applications faster." 

Before becoming Coinbase Cloud, the service was named Bison Trails, a cloud-based staking infrastructure solution that Coinbase bought earlier this year for an undisclosed amount that was rumored to be above $80 million. According to Coinbase, Bison Trails is a non-custodial platform, which means it does not manage clients' staked assets.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) was once a secondary consideration for Amazon in Seattle, overshadowed by Amazon. Nevertheless, the Amazon subsidiary that debuted almost 20 years ago is the firm's major profit engine today. AWS earned $13.5 billion in annual operating earnings in 2020 on a revenue base of $45.3 billion, or 63 percent of its parent company's total.

Related: NFTs could be ‘as big or bigger’ than all crypto on Coinbase, CEO says

Coinbase officials have suggested that they need to become the "Amazon of cryptocurrencies" as soon as possible. or Because the majority of its accolades are for not just being the first major digital currency business to go public but also for doing so by achieving the greatest direct listing in history, its income stream is overly reliant on transaction fees.

This is often the case with line items that are dominated by a single category's revenue concentration. Facebook, for example, and Google are almost entirely reliant on advertising to make money, therefore their line items generally have this degree of revenue concentration.

However, due to their significant dependence on the market and overall trading volumes, Coinbase and other exchanges may be highly vulnerable. Because trading volumes are closely linked with price swings, such dependence can be a major drawback for crypto platforms like Coinbase or any other exchange.

Coinbase is seeking to boost trading income by providing subscription services that are more resistant to market swings to mitigate this risk. For example, it provides institutional custody services, staking possibilities, a learning portal that gives users crypto as a reward, an e-commerce checkout system, and the ability to issue Visa debit cards to clients. It's also trying out a subscription plan that would give customers a monthly trading allowance for a set price.

The acquisition of Bison Trails, according to Chatterjee, was a critical step in Coinbase's transition to a more mature financial system. The platform supports crypto custodians, funds, decentralized apps, and token holders. Some of its customers are Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), New York-based fintech firm Current, and Turner Sports.

As of November 2021, Coinbase Cloud has $30 billion in crypto assets staked on its platform. Coinbase, one of the most popular cryptocurrency platforms, has more than 73 million genuine customers, 10,000 organizations, and 185,000 ecosystem partners in more than 100 countries. According to Coinbase, since its founding, it has handled transactions worth over $700 billion.

Tags
Related Posts
Super Bowl 2022: Here’s the scoreboard of crypto ads
Super Bowl commercials have always been an intrinsic part of the annual National Football League (NFL) championship and for business, a fair sign of making it in the real world. This year, however, marked a new milestone for the crypto community as FTX, eToro, Crypto.com and Coinbase debuted crypto ads in Super Bowl 2022. With rising demand in crypto — recently fueled by nonfungible tokens (NFT), meme tokens and the Metaverse — Super Bowl crypto ads stole the limelight from traditional businesses on social media platforms like Twitter. Let’s gauge into the advertisements and echo the feelings expressed by the …
Adoption / Feb. 14, 2022
Ethereum white paper predicted DeFi but missed NFTs: Vitalik Buterin
Rounding up the last decade, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin revisited his predictions made over the years, showcasing a knack for being right about abstract ideas than on-production software development issues. Buterin started the Twitter thread by addressing his article dated Jul. 23, 2013 in which he highlighted Bitcoin's (BTC) key benefits — internationality and censorship resistance. Buterin foresaw Bitcoin’s potential in protecting the citizens’ buying power in countries such as Iran, Argentina, China and Africa. However, Buterin also noticed a rise in stablecoin adoption as he saw Argentinian businesses operating in Tether (USDT). He backed up his decade-old ideas around …
Adoption / Jan. 2, 2022
Crypto inheritance: Are HODLers doomed to rely on centralized options?
Self-sovereignty is a core principle in the cryptocurrency space: Investors need to rely on a trustless, decentralized network instead of a central entity that has been known to devalue the holdings of others. One shortcoming associated with self-sovereignty, however, is inheritance. An estimated 4 million Bitcoin (BTC) has been lost over time and now sits in inaccessible wallets. How many of those coins belong to HODLers who passed away without sharing access to their wallets with anyone else is unknown? Some believe Satoshi Nakamoto’s estimated 1 million BTC fortune hasn’t been touched for this very reason: No one else had …
Adoption / May 23, 2022
WEF 2022, May 24: Latest updates from the Cointelegraph Davos team
Disclaimer: This article is being updated all day long. All timestamps are in the UTC time zone, with updates in reverse order (the latest update is placed at the top). The first in-person World Economic Forum event since the COVID-19 pandemic started continues to bridge traditional finance with the future of money on its third day. The Cointelegraph team — including editor-in-chief Kristina L. Corner, head of video Jackson DuMont and news reporter Joseph Hall — is deployed on the ground in Davos, Switzerland, where the event is held, to track the most recent developments from WEF 2022. Check out …
Adoption / May 24, 2022
Crypto recruitment execs reveal the safest jobs amid layoff season
Despite a wave of heavy crypto layoffs to start the new year, employees in technical and engineering roles, as well as senior management, will likely continue to see “strong demand” for their skills, recruitment professionals believe. It’s been a tough first few weeks of 2023 for crypto businesses and their staff. Within just two weeks, the market has already seen more than 1,600 crypto-related job cuts as a result of continued market volatility and uncertainty. However, not all departments have seen the same level of cuts. SAFU: Senior-level tech and engineering Rob Paone, founder and CEO of crypto recruitment firm …
Blockchain / Jan. 18, 2023