Coinbase Announces New “Coinbase Protocol Team” 🚨 This article is 7 years old...
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Coinbase Announces New “Coinbase Protocol Team”
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Updated: Nov. 7, 2019 at 5:59 am UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
Bitcoin, alongside many other cryptocurrencies, is a community-driven open source project that relies on the contributions of a diverse range of community members. Almost all open source blockchain projects operate as meritocracies in which past experience or reputation don’t matter — virtually anybody is able to submit code to the Bitcoin Core project, for example.
Coinbase has recently announced their commitment to contribute to the development of innovative blockchain technologies with the Coinbase Protocol Team. The new team has been assembled with the intent of assisting with fundamental breakthroughs in cryptography, permissionless consensus, and decentralized computation.
Introducing the Coinbase Protocol Teamhttps://t.co/7IcoUXH7Wc
— Coinbase (@coinbase) March 16, 2018
In the announcement, released via the Coinbase Blog, Coinbase Engineering Director Varun Srinivasan states that the Protocol Team will be focusing on projects such as payment channels, off-chain computation, proof-of-stake blockchains, and trustless light clients. The team will operate with a collaborative perspective, working alongside other development teams active in the industry.
Srinivasan highlights Coinbase’s emphasis on fostering developing greater financial equality and accessibility in the statement:
“Cryptocurrencies and decentralized protocols will underpin an open financial system that brings greater equality of opportunity to the world… This is why we’re formally announcing the Coinbase Protocol team. Our mission is to contribute to community-led projects which will move our industry forward”
The Coinbase dev team has already made a number of notable contributions to the Bitcoin blockchain alone, assisting with work on a new light client protocol intended to assist with the deployment and integration of the Lightning Network scaling layer solution.
The blockchain community is already supported by a significant community of developers and innovators that are actively contributing to breakthrough solutions.
The fact that Coinbase is actively hiring talented engineers in order to assist with the development of distributed ledger tech, however, could catalyze a powerful growth spurt in the industry if competitors of the platform are to follow suit.
Coinbase’s interest in contributing to the evolving DLT landscape is a strong indicator that, while the platform may have potential faults, it’s still a driving force in the cryptocurrency world and is responsible for a vast surge in adoption rates. With the Lightning Network beta now live, Bitcoin — and the blockchain ecosystem in general — is poised to enter a stage of exponential growth.
