Zainab AsifCoinbase, the popular US-based cryptocurrency exchange, has launched a testnet for its Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) network called Base. According to the company, the platform aims to provide a secure, low-cost, and developer-friendly way to build decentralized apps on-chain, with the goal of making on-chain the next online and onboarding one billion users into the crypto economy.
Base will serve as both a home for Coinbase’s on-chain products and an open ecosystem where anyone can build. The platform is being incubated inside Coinbase, leveraging the company’s experience in building crypto products. It is being built on Optimism’s OP Stack with the vision of creating a standard, modular, rollup agnostic Superchain powered by Optimism. Coinbase has clarified that it does not plan to issue a new network token.
Developers can start building on Base today at base.org. Coinbase has indicated that it is progressively decentralizing the chain over time.
Coinbase has been focused on building an open financial system that increases economic freedom globally. The company has progressed through the first three stages of what it envisions it takes to get there: the protocols (Bitcoin, Ethereum), building the exchange (Coinbase Exchange) to serve as a bridge to digital currencies and creating a mass market interface for decentralized apps or “DApps” (Coinbase & Coinbase Wallet). The company has increasingly focused on unlocking the final stage: the apps of the open financial system.
To do so, Coinbase is looking to create an environment where thousands of actually useful DApps emerge that can bring 1 billion+ users into the global crypto economy. Base is the latest step in this direction. Coinbase is using the platform to build more products that leverage the full power of the on-chain environment.
Coinbase ran an internal process in the first half of 2022 to create a paved road for internal on-chain development. The company aligned on three primary decisions: EVM as the primary developer platform for DApps, Ethereum Layer 1 (L1) for the highest value DApps, and Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) for DApps that require scale. While these decisions helped Coinbase teams start building faster, the company also identified that Ethereum L2 is still too expensive today, and there are a number of L2s, meaning Coinbase teams still have to decide between different options.
In the second half of 2022, Coinbase began investing in EIP4844, which will lower L2 fees by 10-100x. The company started another process to identify what L2 it should choose as the primary home for Coinbase DApps. Base is a step towards this goal.
This News Article is equivalent to a Fact-check Article because we fact-checked the statements and details of this news using Primary Source/s (Base Blog Post – Web3 Archive). Fact-check Equivalency is an initiative launched by Fact Protocol, a decentralized web3 fact-checking system, to provide users with trustworthy and straightforward news on an “as is” basis.
Damodar Kalyan
Mohith Agadi
