The decision by COINBASE to launch a price oracle has been lauded by some as an astute, bold, and wise move. Their secure and timestamped BTC/USD and ETH/USD feeds secured by their systems will be freely available and some now interpret this as a direct competition with Chainlink.
Rumors now emerge that Chainlink admin at Telegram groups are censoring users for mentioning this Coinbase oracle.
Distinctively, Coinbase will, in a way, eliminate the middleman, that is Chainlink, and make available their data to any relayer willing to use this data for smart contracts activation via the Coinbase Pro API.
That they also chose Ethereum highlights how the blockchain is a market leader in DeFi and a boost not only for ETH but for DeFi apps that are built on the pioneer smart contracting platform.
Coinbase—Chainlink Competition Heating Up, Reports of Censorship
The chess move here is that Coinbase is using an Open Oracle Standard which is open source and you don’t have to pay as it is free. Besides, for quality control, filtering mechanisms will be implemented to prevent any form of price deviations.
It is this seismic shift that some observers say Chainlink’s business model will likely stall—due to reduced demand, if different trusted exchanges follow the lead. As it is, commentators add the situation won’t be as bad for Chainlink—which is not an oracle but an oracle network, as a middleman between exchanges and DeFi applications.
Further arguments supportive of Chainlink is that the Open Oracle Standard which is an API will be a weak point. On the other hand, the robustness of Chainlink is that it aggregates data from different sources while simultaneously incorporating threshold signatures and mixing.
Perhaps because of this challenge, there are unconfirmed reports of censorship at Chainlink’s Telegram groups. Any mention of Coinbase’s price oracle, it is said, will lead to a ban:
Coinbase just created a free version of what took #Chainlink $32m dollars and 5 years to create. Turns out you don't need an ERC20 token that has 65% of it's total supply held by two devs. Admins in the telegram are now banning people who mention it. What an absolute shitcoin.
— Strong ETH (@EthereumWiki) April 24, 2020
Decentralization and Robustness in DeFi
Not forgetting, the very aim of blockchain is to eliminate the middleman.
Bitcoin did that with banks and so is Ripple, Ethereum and pretty much every other blockchain project that has utility and solving a real-world problem.
Coinbase, although a centralized ramp that facilitate the trading of different assets for fiat or digital currencies, has their eyes fixed on improving DeFi. DeFi, or simply open finance, seeks to disrupt traditional finance by shifting power away from banks to digital asset holders.
But in this case, the fact that reliable price data (hopefully it won’t be manipulated as time goes time) from Coinbase not only makes DeFi robust but odds of exploitation due to snags on the chain, like the recent congestion on the Ethereum blockchain that lead to the loss of $8 million at MakerDAO in March, will be curbed and possibly eliminated.
It must be also noted that the reliability of DeFi directly depends on the throughput of the network and any impediment is often exploited.
Coinbase, it seems, is determined that this is reduced or never happens.
“Coinbase is one of the most trusted companies in the crypto space and a major part of our mission is growing the crypto-economy. 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.”
