February 25, 2020

The leading Digital Asset API provider Amberdata.io, now available in AWS Marketplace.

Available today, one-click integrations with instant access to fully indexed blockchain and Enterprise grade digital assets via a simple developer-friendly API. See full AWS Marketplace details here →

Get started at Amberdata.io

Digital Assets are the future, don’t miss this asset class because it’s “difficult” to use

The past few years have shown massive upheaval in many traded assets. None come close to the astronomical innovation and exchange of Digital Assets. As with any new type of asset, there is no shortage of high volatility, low liquidity, scams, high percentage of whales, instant slippage, exponential asset diversification and so much more. All of these “negatives” are signals showing the baby steps of growth. This is the first asset class that has a fully realized and fully transparent history for all consumers (investors, traders, etc) to investigate, utilize or build their business upon.

While I won’t go into specific assets in this post, I want to highlight why we chose to launch our AWS Marketplace integration now and how your business can benefit. If you’d like to gain more insights into a few assets, please see previous articles linked below!

Digital Assets are defined by global need

Until the 20th century, the world operated trade with physical representations which was inefficient and slow. Today, all forms of trade are represented in some fashion digitally. Even the old adage “USD is backed by gold” has been completely different since 1971. Computation and connection speeds have drastically lowered the barrier of trade globally allowing near instantaneous transactions.

The problem that remains — how is a trade guaranteed accurate by both parties and made with fair, just and verifiable digital information?

In a world where digital copies and file piracy is rampant, trade becomes an asset that requires digital scarcity.

Digital Assets, by definition, are digitally scarce resources, that are verifiably scarce by the protocol of transactions and the software that defines its supply. This software is also publicly available and in most cases audited by security firms. While these assets are still relatively new, each asset can be trusted as much as the community and participants trust the software backing the asset.

Each Asset provides features matched to traditional need

Digital Assets can be a 1:1 definition of traditional assets. Take Gold for example, we could define a new digital asset called “Earth Gold” such that its supply is equal to the total weight known to exist & mineable within the Earth. This asset’s current supply would be the total weight of Gold currently mined, including pieces sitting in cold storage to available in stores.

On the other end of the spectrum, a digital asset can be written to mimic a futures contract, collateral contract or even bonds. These are all examples with known supply, demand and boundaries such that software can define variables to encompass the trade transaction accurately.

Some Assets shift the tradition paradigm drastically

Unlike traditional assets, Digital Assets can add functionality that bends the nature of its utility. One example of this is a utility token, where each single token is tradable in a market, but the token itself could be used to unlock a website viewing (think of a news pay-wall) if the person holds some amount of the asset. Another example is a token with extra algorithmic functionality — Assets with a bonding curve define changes to its supply and circulating supply depending on assets held/used. This allows businesses or decentralized applications to change their economic models to incentivize usage, ownership or adoption.

Digital Assets are flexible, allowing the future of finance to be defined, updated, refined & innovated. Keeping track and understanding the dynamic landscape of digital assets is hard! This is where Amberdata helps simplify the use and metrics of all assets.

Amberdata.io available in AWS Marketplace today!

At Amberdata, we have worked hard defining and building a product that makes Digital Assets easy to use. This new asset class requires re-thinking how assets are represented for use and consumption. Today, we’re happy to announce that our entire product offering — The Amberdata Digital Asset API, is now available in AWS Marketplace as a way for businesses to easily integrate within current platforms and infrastructure.

Click here to go to aws marketplace →

Using AWS Marketplace simplifies software licensing and procurement, makes it easy for customers to find, buy, deploy and manage software solutions including SaaS products like Amberdata.

Market data for Digital Assets

Traditional assets are traded on exchanges, and operate using order books from an open market of buyers and sellers. This is exactly the same in digital assets, with a few new changes:

Exchanges operate 24/7/365
Exchanges do not require a headquarters, they can operate 100% decentralized anonymously or solely automated.
Assets are defined by an underlying software protocol usually backed by a blockchain.
Assets can be written in software to utilize different algorithms to define or manipulate total & circulating supply.

While this doesn’t cover all the exact differences, it should provide a clear picture of how the trading data is changed. Since exchanges do not “close” daily, the data available includes more market updates.

Blockchain data for Digital Assets

We have defined a simple recipe that encompasses the best data:

Exchange Trade Data
Blockchain Transparency Proofs & Software Definitions

When both of these ingredients are combined, any business can get a clear picture of the asset in its entirety. If either of these ingredients is missing, it is likely there could be changes in the asset that get missed. This is very important, as every business should not operate without the full scope of data available from both the software defined asset and open market context. An analogy we like to use is:

“Market data without blockchain data is like a bridge without steel.”

Whether you are just investigating digital assets, or ready to integrate digital assets into your pipeline, Amberdata.io has everything you need in a single API.

Why trust Amberdata.io?

We get this question all the time, and the beauty is you don’t have to trust us to use our services! All of our data is delivered including verifiable proofs, meaning if our data is wrong you will be able to prove it yourself. We encourage our customers: “Don’t trust, verify”. This ethos is at the core of our product which ensures the highest standards of data integrity. See the full details here →