As an imperative tool for the cryptocurrency community, Coinbase has now extended its clout, revealing a new feature that allows encrypted messaging between its crypto wallet users. Bolstering the usage of the Ethereum addresses, the communications protocol, XMTP, is serving as the backbone for enabling these conversations. This innovative feature offering a conversational nexus has a few mixed views.
The primary upside is the ease it provides to the users. With this service, Coinbase wallet users can transition their dialogues effortlessly from any of the approximated 450 applications built on XMTP, directly to their Coinbase Wallet. This convergence commits to a fully permissionless and interoperable experience while ensuring users the full ownership of their messages and transactions through a personal, on-chain identity. This model goes a long way in consolidating user trust and endorses transactional transparency.
However, the path is not without hiccups. While Coinbase claims the new feature allows any two Ethereum addresses to communicate, the inherent principle is based on plugging into the same messaging backbone – XMTP. This requirement implies a limited scope for cross-platform usability.
Furthermore, while this encrypted messaging feature is groundbreaking and offers a completely different angle on wallet usage, it puts a ceiling on its potential by not recording the exchanges on a blockchain. A detour from the conventional asset transfer approach, where every transaction is logged on the blockchain, XMTP messages, instead, traverse a permissioned network of nodes controlled by XTMP Labs.
Considering this new feature by Coinbase is definitely one of the largest integrations within the sphere of encrypted Web3 messaging, it must face the million-dollar question – will the company be successful in decentralizing the network to balance the equilibrium of control in the longer run? This aspect may be crucial in establishing a reassuring paradigm, primarily when it revolves around the delicate subject of permissioned communication.
The ethical aspects and user privacy are quite a challenge, and the fine line needs to be tread carefully while navigating the regulatory terrains. The long-term vision of creating a wholly permissionless and interoperable platform for communication is an exciting tangent in blockchain technology, however, the heart of this innovation lies in its successful implementation.
Source: Coindesk
