UPDATED 13:00 EDT / JUNE 17 2020

BLOCKCHAIN

Coinbase announces open-source specification Rosetta for reliable blockchain integration

Digital currency exchange and distributed ledger blockchain platform developer Coinbase Inc. today announced the launch of Rosetta, an open-source specification toolset and application programming interface for reliable blockchain integration.

Rosetta is an API designed to standardize interaction between blockchains with the objective to make it easier for anyone to build on top of a blockchain and implement a variety of use cases. Just like what the product’s name references – the Rosetta stone, an artifact that helped linguists connect multiple languages – the API also makes it easier to ensure compatibility with any cryptocurrency exchange or blockchain platform that uses Rosetta.

Instead of developers needing to write custom code for every supported blockchain, Rosetta operates by abstracting away implementation by using the Rosetta API in order to access on-chain data and construct transactions in a standard format.

Coinbase initially conceptualized Rosetta as middleware that would be used to integrate blockchain technology securely and painlessly into its own platform. Today, it is being released into general availability with the hope that it will ease development complexity and integration time for developers and crypto platforms.

As open-source software, Rosetta is already in the open market and is receiving feedback and updates from companies intent on integrating the API. Some blockchain groups have already begun integrating the software, including Filecoin, Celo, Near, Oasis, Coda, Ontology, Kadena, Handshake, Blockstack and Sia.

Although the Rosetta API was originally designed to work with previous generations of single-chain blockchains, Kadena has discovered it also works with multichain networks.

“Rosetta provides the best developer experience for exchange integration available today,” said Will Martino, co-founder and chief executive of Kadena LLC. “Instead of one-off and varying implementations from one exchange to the next, there is now a standardized and streamlined process that can be used by all exchanges.”

According to Martino, Kadena’s blockchain is designed as a proof-of-work across a sharding chain. It uses that proof-of-work with a multichain system the platform calls “braiding” to mix together multiple chains to increase scalability. The upshot is that the Rosetta API still allows ease of integration even with its platform.

“Even with Kadena’s unique position as being the first layer-1 PoW blockchain to deliver sharding to production, it was still simple for our team to work with the Rosetta API, even though it was built for previous generation/single-chain blockchains,” said Martino. “Rosetta exhibits the ongoing maturity of the digital assets marketplace, which first emerged in 2008. As we continue into 2020 and beyond, it is important that the industry continue professionalizing.”

Kadena’s insight into Rosetta’s usability describes the need for toolsets and APIs such as Rosetta, which can act as the glue for divergent blockchain platforms. As the industry continues to experiment with different types of blockchains, designed to provide different opportunities and use cases – for example, a healthcare blockchain will have different needs from a financial technology blockchain – it will increase fragmentation and thus integration difficulties.

At the end of the day, driving adoption for blockchain technology will depend heavily on the ease of building those blockchains and permitting that healthcare blockchain to interact with the finance blockchain. By providing easy integration between exchanges, financing, and services, Rosetta will provide the bridge to create a more adaptable and open ecosystem.

“The blockchain industry has generally placed a premium on innovation and divergence,” said Linda Ortega, an engineer at Kadena who was the technical lead on the Rosetta implementation. “But Rosetta presents an opportunity for all ecosystem participants to benefit from some standardization that can result in wider adoption.”

A guide, including full documentation and commentary, is available on Coinbase’s new Rosetta developer portal dedicated to the API and tools.

Photo: Pixabay

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