Coinbase, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, has launched a new Ethereum Layer 2 network called Base. This new network is aimed at providing a secure, low-cost, and developer-friendly environment for building decentralized apps or dApps on-chain. The goal of Base is to bring the next billion users to web3 and make on-chain the next online.
What is Base?
Base is a secure, low-cost, and developer-friendly Ethereum Layer 2 network. It is designed to be one of the best places for developers to build on-chain. The network leverages the underlying security and scalability of Ethereum, along with Coinbase’s best practices, to enable developers to confidently on-ramp into Base from Coinbase, Ethereum L1, and other interoperable chains.
Base makes it easy to build dApps with access to Coinbase’s products, users, and tools. Developers can seamlessly integrate Coinbase products, easy fiat on-ramps, and powerful acquisition tools. Base also offers full EVM equivalence at a fraction of the cost and is committed to pushing forward the developer platform. The network allows developers to set up gasless transactions for their dApps with easy developer APIs for account abstraction, and securely build multichain applications with easy-to-use bridges.
Base is open-source and aims to be decentralized, permissionless, and open to anyone with the vision of creating a standard, modular, rollup-agnostic Superchain powered by Optimism. Developers can build on Base using its RPC testnet endpoint or choose from Node providers: QuickNode, Infura, and Blockdaemon.
Why is Coinbase Building Base?
Coinbase’s goal is to bring in billions of users to the cryptoeconomy. To achieve this, dApps need to be easier, cheaper, and safer to interact with. For this to happen, developers need an easier way to build these dApps. Base was created to address this issue.
Coinbase has designed Base to provide easy, secure access to Ethereum L1, other L2s, as well as other L1 ecosystems like Solana. Base is seen as a “bridge” for users into the crypto-economy, making it an easy-to-use default on-chain experience with access to products on other chains. Base is interoperable with other chains and will continue to support as many chains as possible across Coinbase products.
Coinbase believes that foundational software for the global crypto-economy should be fully open source and freely available. Base is built on the MIT-licensed OP Stack, in collaboration with Optimism. Coinbase is joining as the second Core Dev team working on the OP Stack to ensure it’s a public good available to everyone. The network is seen as an open platform that anyone can contribute to, fork and extend to help the crypto-economy scale.
Decentralization is essential for the crypto-economy to remain open, global, and accessible to everyone. While Base is currently incubated inside of Coinbase, the company is deeply committed to progressing towards full decentralization over the years ahead. With increased resourcing that Coinbase brings to the OP Stack, Base is expected to progress from a Stage 0 to Stage 1 rollup in 2023 and a Stage 2 rollup in 2024.
Base Ecosystem Fund
Coinbase has also announced the Base Ecosystem Fund, which invests in and supports early-stage projects building on Base that meet the company’s investment criteria.
Conclusion
Base is a major milestone for Coinbase and the crypto-economy. The new Ethereum Layer 2 network offers a secure, low-cost, and developer-friendly way for anyone, anywhere, to build dApps on-chain. The launch of Base is a significant step towards bringing in billions of users to the crypto-economy, making dApps