Category: Compute

Private key management remains one of the most challenging security aspects of building Web3 and broader financial applications. In blockchain systems, every transaction requires a cryptographic signature produced by a private key, and whoever possesses those keys controls the associated assets. This means a single compromise can result in immediate, irreversible loss of funds. Traditional […]

Part 1 of this series covers the high-level architecture of a Centralized Exchange (CEX) and Market Maker (MM) and networking integration patterns. This post builds on that foundation by focusing on EC2 compute optimization. In this post you will learn how to Reduce tail latency by up to 29% at p99.9 by selecting the right […]

In this post, we show how BSVA used AWS services to build a distributed node architecture that achieves 1 million TPS across six Regions. This solution demonstrates how organizations can implement cloud infrastructure to solve complex blockchain scaling challenges while maintaining system integrity.

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has revolutionized how users interact with financial services, introducing new ways to lend, borrow, and earn interest through smart contracts. However, unlike traditional finance (TradFi) or Web2 systems where tracking user positions is straightforward through account numbers, DeFi presents unique challenges. Monitoring a user’s position value over time requires gathering data from […]

At Circle, we operate scores of nodes across dozens of blockchains in order to provide reliable RPC services supporting products such as USDC, Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), Circle Payments Network (CPN), and others. Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of digital currencies and public blockchains for payments, commerce, and financial applications worldwide. In this post, we share details about how we operate Circle’s blockchain node infrastructure at scale, using AWS services, common off-the-shelf tools, and some custom tooling.

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.