Several blockchain-based projects have declared support for the release of Coinbase’s Rosetta which features an open-source set of guidelines and tools designed to help companies and developers simplify the process of integrating with exchanges and apps.
Initially created to integrate third-party blockchains onto its own platform, Coinbase believe Rosetta will also make the building of cross-blockchain applications – such as wallets, block explorers and dapps – easier and more reliable.
Endorse the Plan
Cross-chain solution provider Ontology (ONT) are one of the projects already onboard.
They are joined by Blockstack, Celo, Coda, Filecoin, Handshake, Kadena, Near, Oasis, and Sia.
Exchange Benefit
From Coinbase’s standpoint, Rosetta would be used for blockchains not already integrated with their platform. Ethereum-based tokens and projects would not need to follow Rosetta’s framework as the technical infrastructure is already in place to onboard these projects.
For those projects utilising an individual blockchain and seeking to engage with the Coinbase platform, Rosetta would act as a middleware forming a communication bridge between the exchange and the new chain.
According to Surojit Chatterjee, Coinbase Chief Product Officer, the middleware is needed as “The number of blockchains has grown dramatically in recent years, and with it has come a proliferation of different node and wallet APIs that can be challenging to navigate…”
Chatterjee believes this challenge can be overcome as “Instead of writing custom parsing for every supported blockchain, applications can use a blockchain project’s Rosetta implementation to read on-chain data and construct transactions in a standard format; minimising code and simplifying maintenance.”
By making Rosetta open-source, Chatterjee suggests the wider crypto-community will benefit as “…it can ease development and integration for both developers and crypto platforms alike.”
While it is too early to say if other major exchanges will adopt the Rosetta framework, for those projects hosting a token or coin on a unique blockchain deciphering a fast route to a possible Coinbase listing has certainly become easier.
