Solana Sunday: Coinbase Cloud's New Archive Node 

In a recent blog, Coinbase announced that they would be implementing a new archival node on the Solana network under their cloud infrastructure for web3 builders to gather valuable information from. 

The development marks a new way for users to interact with the blockchain by allowing users to turn back the clock on the public ledger to analyze in-depth statistics about user interactions throughout the network's history since the genesis block was first created. 

Coinbase Cloud Archival Node

The archival node will be set up on the Coinbase Cloud which has the infrastructure necessary to allow project teams to access the archived information. One aspect that makes this so significant is how quickly the Solana network operates. 

Solana is one of the fastest moving blockchains due to its Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism; it makes tracking archival blocks difficult due to the speed at which they are validated. However, Coinbase has the resources necessary to allow its cloud infrastructure to properly monitor and track historical block data. 

Building on Solana made easy

With the archival node, Coinbase Cloud is making it much easier for a variety of project teams to analyze unique information about the Solana network to optimize their dApp protocols efficiently. 

• Query and transact

The Query and Transact features allow developers to use a myriad of different services that interact with the Solana blockchain. One of its core features is how it lets developers read and write nodes that directly connect to the network. This allows developers to access data from the Solana blockchain and gives them the tools necessary to create their own applications on Solana. 

• Participate

Coinbase Cloud’s Participate feature is a staking infrastructure that allows developers to directly work with validators on the Solana network to help it expand and become more decentralized. This has a variety of benefits for teams that are looking to create large systems on the network because it allows them to secure their validation nodes through Coinbase’s secure systems. 

Custom indexes and analytics

The major benefit of an archival node is how it will let teams access important analytics from the network’s past. This allows teams to see the data from different perspectives within the network which can include moments of high traffic and low traffic, times before and after the network has been shutdown, and major crypto moments such as the y00ts mint last week. 

With this information, builders on the Solana network will be able to focus more on their products and services than on developing their own infrastructure which takes time and resources away from the initial product that a team wants to provide to users. 

As the archive continues to grow and become more helpful to developers, we can expect to see a lot of major improvements over time with Solana-based dApps due to the data that these archive nodes will provide to the teams. 

It’s another major step for the Solana network which will need to find new advantages over the Ethereum network, which merged successfully in September. Now that both networks are on Proof-of-Stake mechanisms, it will be more important than ever for Solana to push the limits of cutting-edge blockchain technology.