Coinbase is launching a new feed that anyone can access to obtain consistent crypto price data in the world of decentralized finance (DeFi).
DeFi platforms are designed to automate traditional financial services such as borrowing/lending, margin trading and insurance. They utilize decentralized smart contracts to remove middlemen and offer more favorable terms and interest rates.
Many DeFi protocols have to rely on trusted price feeds to function, and, according to Coinbase, have been forced to use prices from off-chain sources like exchanges or algorithmic decentralized exchanges (DEXes) such as Uniswap or Kyber.
Coinbase says neither option has been a perfect solution.
“Using data from an off-chain source requires trusting the publisher to post correct prices and keep the signing key safe — the latter historically has proven to be a difficult problem, especially when stakes are high. Similarly, relying on DEX-generated on-chain feeds exposes protocols to various novel attack vectors yet to be fully explored.”
To fill that void, the company is launching a price feed network that allows anyone to access signed price data for BTC-USD and ETH-USD markets. The new Coinbase Oracle API is based on data from Coinbase Pro.
The leading US exchange says the effort is designed to boost the DeFi movement and push crypto adoption across the board.
Over the last two years the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem has rapidly expanded as a core use-case in crypto. Today, there are close to $1B in assets actively pooled in DeFi protocols and applications that offer a wide range of programmable financial services…
A highly reliable price feed anchored into Coinbase’s secure infrastructure can help make the DeFi ecosystem safer, reduce systemic risks and unlock the next wave of growth and adoption.”
The Oracle information will utilize the same security infrastructure Coinbase employs to store crypto assets on behalf of customers.
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