Hacker News Reader

This is exactly what’s happening with crypto.

A user’s transaction on Coinbase rarely represents an actual transaction on the blockchain. A transaction actually represents a row in a Coinbase SQL database, which Coinbase will eventually batch and then convert into a blockchain operation.

View on HN

Coinbase is a centralized exchange. Of course it runs in a SQL db or whatever. They only need to touch the chain when settling inflows/outflows.

But something like Uniswap: https://app.uniswap.org/#/swap is fully on-chain. Every trade happens on chain, because the application is an immutable smart contract liquidity protocol, called an AMM, or automated market maker.

It does as much, if not more, volume than Coinbase ($1.98B in last 24H): https://info.uniswap.org/#/

So... a dark pool? Oy vey.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com