The Amazon Web Services (AWS)-Avalanche “cooperation,” as it was carefully described last week, should almost immediately make it easy for developers
The Amazon Web Services (AWS)-Avalanche “cooperation,” as it was carefully described last week, should almost immediately make it easy for developers to establish nodes on the Avalanche blockchain, including via “one-click node deployment.”
Eventually, too, it might make it simpler for everyday businesses — i.e., non-crypto-related enterprises — and even individuals to establish their own subnets like smaller, private, layer-2 blockchains.
But perhaps the outstanding message from the Jan. 11 announcement is that the blockchain revolution isn’t just about cryptocurrencies. It’s also about things as prosaic as storing documents more securely and sensibly so they can be quickly retrieved during emergencies. It encompasses decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), but it’s also about bringing “scalable blockchain solutions to enterprises and governments,” including such humdrum but important use cases as compliance management, Ava Labs, creator of Avalanche, said last week.
In a webinar on Jan. 12, which included both Ava Labs and Amazon Web Services representatives, Ava Labs vice president John Nahas, explained, “Crypto products or crypto infrastructures have been very geared up until this point to cater to crypto-native people. […] We need to expand the pie here. We need to expand the developers, the companies, the people who are going to be utilizing this technology in a mass-market way to bring in more people into this ecosystem.”
A ‘fake partnership’?
The Avalanche community generally welcomed the Amazon Web Services news, but others took issue with some of the language and claims, like Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer’s assertion that “This is a big deal. It’s not your grandfather’s ‘AWS partnership announcement.’”
Was this really a “partnership,” some questioned, or just a hyped-up “use of services” agreement? Maybe Amazon Web Services was really more “tech aggregator” than collaborator? Hadn’t other layer-1 chain developers, like Casper Labs, already “partnered” with the tech colossus to allow developers to directly deploy node infrastructures or design private networks via Amazon? Indeed, developers had been invited to “set up your own managed Ethereum node” on Amazon Managed Blockchain back in May 2021, no?
In a tweet, Alejandro Pastore, CEO of Pastore Capital, described the announcement as a “fake partnership between @avalancheavax and @amazon” where Ava Labs “sold us a service rental disguised as an association with Amazon.”
Be that as it may, the Jan. 12 webinar presented three Ava Labs managers, including president John Wu, appearing beside AWS global tech lead for Web3 Shai Perednik and Bradley Feinstein, Web3 lead at Amazon Web Services. Feinstein specifically used the word “partnership” to describe the new Ava-AWS association and no one present objected. AWS and Ava Labs will hold another joint webinar together in February and a jointly sponsored hackathon in May, they announced.
More important, perhaps, is a larger question: What, if anything, does this association mean for blockchain evolution generally?
Catalyzing innovation
“It appears that Avalanche will get the best shelf space on AWS among blockchain platforms,” Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, told Cointelegraph. Businesses looking to launch blockchain-based applications from their AWS environment will get the best support and pricing if they choose Avalanche, Sigel further noted, adding:
“On a Twitter Spaces with AWS and Avalanche reps, AWS committed to marketing, education and discounts for businesses launching Avalanche subnets within AWS.”
The collaboration could have some positive industry spin-offs too, in Sigel’s view, catalyzing “meaningful innovation in the space.” Businesses may now find it easier to launch permissionless blockchains faster and easier if Amazon Web Services becomes an active presence in this market.
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Nor is Amazon the only tech giant moving in this direction. “Recall that, in November, Google Cloud launched what looks like a similar partnership with Solana,” Sigel said. Given that so much computing has moved to the cloud, it’s “positive to see this kind of commitment from the big providers.”
“The main news here is that we are seeing Amazon Web Services supporting the Avalanche blockchain ecosystem,” Sarson Funds analyst Evan LaMontange told Cointelegraph, allowing Avalanche’s custom subnets to be integrated into the AWS marketplace. It will be allowing both individuals and institutions to launch subnets that can operate as self-sufficient blockchains. systems. He added:
“This has sparked a new vision of scalability, allowing entities to easily spin up their own standalone blockchain systems.”
Others doubted the new collaboration rises to industry-level significance, however. “It certainly means…
cointelegraph.com