Category: Compute

In the post Establishing verifiable security: Reproducible builds and AWS Nitro Enclaves, we introduced deterministic and reproducible builds, highlighting their critical role in securing the software supply chain. We also explored how software reproducibility connects to remote attestation, demonstrating how AWS Nitro Enclaves enable decentralized remote verification of runtime and software integrity using cryptographic attestation. […]

Syncing an Ethereum node can be a time-consuming and costly process if not well optimized, with the need to find the right balance between speed and security. Compute requirements are different between the initial synchronization phase with the network and the steady-state phase where the node only needs to process new blocks (for additional details, refer to Synchronization modes in the Ethereum documentation). This challenge can be addressed by using different types of Amazon EC2 instances corresponding to your requirements. In this post, we demonstrate how to use the latest generation of storage optimized EC2 instances during the synchronization process, and switch back to right-sized memory optimized instances for the run phase to minimize cost.

A crypto wallet is a tool for managing cryptocurrencies, often built using a combination of software and hardware components. While developers prefer to offload infrastructure management to a trusted provider, this creates a new challenge. Giving full control to a third-party entity can introduce risks, such as service denial or the potential loss of funds if the provider is compromised. Coinbase Developer Platform (CDP) solved this challenge by building theWallet API, used to create and manage programmatic wallets. This post describes the Wallet API system architecture, threat models, and how Coinbase and AWS partnered to increase enclave throughput by a factor of 10.

Recent security incidents across blockchain and broader IT sectors underscore the persistent risk of sophisticated attacks on software supply chains and build environments. Reproducible builds offer a powerful mitigation strategy by making sure that software compiled from the same source code and dependencies consistently produces identical binaries, making it possible to detect tampering. In this […]

In this post, we share how Derive successfully scaled their hybrid decentralized trading platform to achieve billions of dollars in trading volume and low-latency execution by using a robust compute and database infrastructure, using AWS Graviton on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) and Amazon Aurora. We explore Derive’s hybrid exchange model and how AWS played a crucial role in their growth and scalability.

In September 2022, Ethereum transitioned to a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus model. This change allows anyone with a minimum of 32 ether to stake their holdings and operate a validator node, thereby participating in network validation and earning staking rewards. In this post, we explore the technical challenges and requirements of operating an institutional-grade Ethereum staking service. Additionally, we outline a solution for deploying an Ethereum staking service on AWS.

WAX is a blockchain-based system designed for the unique demands of the gaming industry. It provides high transaction throughput and near-instant block finality. With WAX, game developers can decouple in-game digital assets from a single in-game world and let gamers use them in new contexts such as building walls of fame, creating personal online trophy […]

Over the last 2 years, layer 2 technologies have gained traction and are solving the scaling constraints of Ethereum. L2beat provides a consolidated view of the different layer 2 projects. At the time of writing, Arbitrum represents approximatively half of the market value of layer 2 solutions. AWS offers a variety of services to help […]

This post discusses the implementation details of an Ethereum smart contract CI/CD pipeline as outlined in a previous post, which is considered a prerequisite to the topics discussed in this post. Part 1 highlighted some of the challenges faced by a multi-developer team implementing a decentralized application (dApp) and how CI/CD can help address those […]

The first question that comes up for everyone who wants to manage their own Ethereum nodes on AWS is how to select the right compute and storage. To answer this question, we ran a series of tests and observed how popular Ethereum Execution Layer (EL) clients go-ethereum with LevelDB (Geth) and Erigon work on Amazon […]