Coinbase launches blockchain Base to help developers build on-chain dApps

Image credit: Coin base

Coinbase, the second-largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has launched Base, an Ethereum-focused layer-2 (L2) blockchain, Jesse Pollak, head of Base and chief protocol officer at Coinbase, told TechCrunch.

In the past, Coinbase has been on the trading and exchange side of its business, but from a utility perspective, it’s still too difficult for developers to build useful decentralized applications (dApps) and for users to actually use those things on-chain, Pollak said.

In an effort to expand further into the developer space, Coinbase is building Base to make it “dead easy” for developers to build dApps and for users to access those dApps through Coinbase products, Pollak said. “Our goal is to achieve phase 4 of Coinbase’s master plan: to bring one billion users into the crypto economy.”

L2 is a “secure, affordable, developer-friendly” chain that aims to help developers create on-chain dApps, the company stated. The base is built on the MIT-licensed OP Stack in collaboration with the layer-2 blockchain Optimism, which is also focused on the Ethereum chain.

A number of crypto businesses, platforms, marketplaces and infrastructure firms have committed to building on Base, a Coinbase spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Those planning to be involved include Blockdaemon, Chainlink, Etherscan, Quicknode, Aave, Animoca Brands, Dune, Nansen, Magic Eden, Pyth, Rainbow Wallet, Ribbon Finance, The Graph, Wormhole and Gelato, to name a handful.

“We’ve made an effort to go out to everybody and bring them into this open ecosystem,” Pollak said. “What will be required of us to make this successful is to continue to double down on the values ​​of decentralization, open source and having this for everyone and a bridge that connects our users into the crypto economy and brings them to places they can go that don’t is controlled by Coibase, but which can offer them valuable experiences.”

Initially, Base will have fees comparable to Arbitrum or Optimism in the range of 10 to 50 cents, with plans for it to drop close to 1 cent over the next year, Pollak said. The chain is currently in the testnet phase and does not have a specific mainnet launch date, but expects it to happen during Q2 of this year, Pollak said.

While Base is incubated inside Coinbase, the plan is to decentralize it “in the coming years,” Pollak said. The team has done “a lot of work over the last six months” to address some of the biggest concerns from others, including how a large centralized company can engage in a decentralized way.

“It’s going to be a journey, but that’s why we’re working with Optimism and why we’re building on an open source technology stack and being so intentional about who the stakeholders we’re bringing into the ecosystem are from day one,” Pollak said.

Coinbase’s goal with Base is also to provide the foundation for developers and users to enable people coming in, Pollak said. “It’s going to require us to make Base as cheap as possible, as secure as possible and as decentralized as possible because that decentralization is a key aspect of enabling the openness of the ecosystem.”

The chain will be integrated across Coinbase’s exchange, wallet, NFT marketplace and developer products, and plans to be interoperable with other blockchains in the ecosystem outside of Ethereum, Pollak shared. Base has had conversations with teams building Solana, Avalanche, Polygon and others to work on that vision, Pollak added.

Base is also launching an ecosystem fund in partnership with Coinbase Ventures to make mostly pre-seed investments in builders developing on Base across the crypto ecosystem, Pollak said. “We don’t just want to focus on financial tools, NFTs or games; we want it to be welcoming to everyone.”