Coinbase Launches an Ultra-Low-Latency Cryptocurrency Exchange on AWS

Cryptocurrency exchanges need to operate with ultra-low latency so that traders can conduct transactions as fast as possible, a key factor in a market where milliseconds can mean the difference between profit and loss. Using Amazon Web Services (AWS), Coinbase addressed the challenge of maintaining ultra-low latency when building the Coinbase International Exchange.

Launched in May 2023, the Coinbase International Exchange is a cryptocurrency exchange that operates 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. It is regulated by the Bermuda Monetary Authority and has traded more than 15 billion dollars in volume. The exchange’s core systems are built to handle 100,000 messages per second.

The Coinbase International Exchange was built on AWS from the ground up, using Cloud Native principles, powered by AWS managed services such as Amazon Aurora, a relational database service that provides scalable performance and availability at a global scale. The Coinbase International Exchange uses Amazon Aurora for its high-speed, low-latency database needs, facilitating quick and reliable near real time and historical transaction lookup. These capabilities are critical for serving the needs of the trading ecosystem.

Additionally, Coinbase uses Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) z1d Instances—which provide high compute performance, high memory, and fast disks—to manage its demanding workloads. The company chose these instances for their high compute performance, substantial memory, and, most importantly, their high-speed NVMe instance storage. By adopting NVMe storage on Amazon EC2 z1d instances, Coinbase benefits from fast disk write speeds. This helps the Coinbase Trading Engine process robust RAFT based trading logic and provide ultra-low trading latency services, which is vital to the cryptocurrency trading market. Coinbase uses these instances inside Amazon EC2 cluster placement groups to achieve the low-latency network performance necessary for tightly coupled node-to-node communication in the cluster.

AWS services provide the performance, scalability, reliability, and developer-friendly environment that the Coinbase International Exchange needs to operate effectively at scale. Using high-performance cloud computing resources, Coinbase can scale to manage high trading volumes, effectively meeting market demands. The exchange’s operational resilience and consistency are bolstered by robust infrastructure on AWS, offering stable and reliable latency crucial for fast trading decisions.

Furthermore, the AWS global network and replication features support effective disaster recovery, helping Coinbase maintain consistent service across various regions. On AWS, its developers can create, test, and deploy new features and updates as needed, driving innovation and improving responsiveness to market changes.“

The Coinbase International Exchange was born on the AWS Cloud, developed under Cloud Native Principles, and is going to continue to thrive on the AWS Cloud,” says Yucong Sun, senior staff engineer at Coinbase. “We couldn’t do that without powerful collaborations between the Coinbase team and the AWS support team, who helped us learn about the different features that we can use, as well as the best practices that we can do on the cloud.”

On November 27, 2023 at AWS re:Invent, Coinbase took center stage during an insightful breakout session. If you missed this informative breakout session or want to revisit the valuable lessons shared, you can watch the full recording here.