Amazon 🤝 Blockchain

Breaking Down The Amazon Partnership with Avalanche

Hello 👋!

I picked this up a few times this week but I still felt it was underrated and had to break it down for ya.

The headlines read:

  • “Amazon Web Services Users can now Launch Avalanche Blockchain Nodes”

  • “Ava Labs partners with AWS to offer one-click node deployment”

I don’t know about you, dear reader - but I can’t imagine many of you read that and thought “I know exactly what they’re saying and this partnership makes perfect sense!”.

If so, hats off to you 🎩.

For the rest of us, this post is for you.

Today, we’re breaking down what this means, why this is important and why you should care.

Let’s dive in!

Amazon 🤝 Crypto Infrastructure

What is AWS?

In 2006, Amazon decided to create Amazon Web Services - there’s a myth that Amazon had spare, excess computing capacity from their e-commerce site which led them to offer out this excess to other companies - but it’s not true.

The truth is - they stumbled upon the idea of splitting up each application to run them more efficiently, rather than running everything in one place.

They realized the immense value this could bring (if it worked) and the value to others outside of Amazon.

This became the market-leading public cloud computing company that it is today - in October, Gartner named AWS the Leader (for the twelfth consecutive year) in the Cloud Infrastructure space.

In summary - AWS allows users to access powerful computer resources to build websites, store data and run applications.

What is Ava Labs?

Ava Labs is a developer of the Avalanche blockchain - as a quick primer:

  • Blockchains are essentially a big ol’ Google Spreadsheet, listing all the transactions that have ever happened and been recorded.

  • It’s in View-Only, so anytime something gets logged on the blockchain, a ‘transaction’ (who bought what, who sent who funds, how much, at what time etc) gets automatically logged on the spreadsheet, but no one can edit this.

  • Blockchains are like cars - we have different cars for different use cases.

  • Avalanche is positioned as a low-cost alternative to Ethereum, with a faster processing time (4,500 transactions per second vs Ethereum’s 15-second limit).

  • Some blockchains will care more about security, others speed while others care about optimizing processing time.

The Avalanche blockchain is optimized to support NFTs, web3 games and ‘subnets’ - these ‘subnets’ are the special sauce behind the Avalanche blockchain.

These are like a mini-version of a blockchain, built on top of the Avalanche infrastructure that can have custom rulesets.

So, Ava Labs are offering any customer the ability to launch their own mini-blockchain, directly on the AWS platform (making it much easier for them to adopt crypto infrastructure).

You might be thinking - “cool they’re doing this, but why?! What benefit will it give an AWS customer?”

But why?

Like with most good things, it seems like a two-way street.

AWS will benefit because:

  • They want to offer their customers the latest and greatest

  • They don’t want to fall behind in case the blockchain trend is here to stay (which it is)

  • It gives their customers the ability to launch nodes on a blockchain, while also supplying the AWS backbone (to reduce the risk of something going wrong

Ava Labs will benefit because:

  • AWS will contribute a TON of credits to projects looking to build on top of Avalanche

  • Partnerships like this will legitimize any blockchain team

  • Avalanche is banking on a whole lot more customers thanks to AWS

Why could this be an even bigger deal than we think

The last people to jump on the innovation bandwagon are typically the government and public sector institutions (I’m probably being too harsh…but you know what I mean).

The great thing about this is that Avalanche node operators can run in AWS GovCloud, meaning even government organizations that have higher data control regulations, can still adopt Avalanche for public sector projects.

Enterprise or public-sector developers now have the ability to build ‘on-chain’ (aka, on a blockchain) - by spinning up nodes on the fly with AWS, no matter their legal jurisdiction. So:

  • More projects can leverage AWS infrastructure to launch on the blockchain easily

  • More experiments and decentralized apps can be launched

  • The industry becomes more credible

Conclusion:

Overall, this is seen as a net win for the Crypto industry. I’m bullish on the Avalanche ecosystem (the team are ex-Cornell professors and include some of the leading minds in distributed computer systems), and it’s not easy to pull off a partnership like this.

Also, this announcement shows that AWS is open to supporting the blockchain industry, as well as helping to legitimize the space.

It also shows that the Avalanche team is serious about helping to build out the infrastructure to make this a success.

Do you agree with my bullishness or what have I overlooked? Hit reply + tell me what you think!

🔗 Links Of The Week

A few examples of sports leagues using web3 models like NFTs and DAO’s to engage with different fan groups.

Asking 90-year-olds the life advice they’d give their 32-year-old selves. Some of the advice: - Find the things that make your eyes light up. Do more of those.- Give everybody a second chance, but never a third.- When in doubt, love. We can always use more love.- Laugh loudly and unapologetically whenever you feel like it.

Until next time 👋

I hope you enjoyed this week’s edition - I'd love it if you shared it with a friend or two.

Got feedback? Reply to this email or tweet at me and let’s chat.

Fahim