Crypto Market Seemingly Reenergized As Coinbase Announces Its Layer 2 Base

By Haider Jamal

Leading crypto exchange Coinbase has announced the testnet launch of a new Ethereum layer-2 network called Base. Optimism, another reputable Ethereum L2 blockchain, powers the L2 network, which will reportedly provide a safe, affordable, developer-friendly way for anyone, anywhere to successfully build dApps on chain.

Furthermore, the crypto exchange has stated unequivocally that it has no plans to issue a new token for the layer-2 network. Also, the native gas token for the L2 network would be ETH.

What is there to know?

According to the crypto exchange, Base aims to be decentralized, permissionless, and open to anyone with the goal of establishing a standard, modular, rollup agnostic Superchain which would be powered by Optimism. Moreover, Coinbase shall be joining Optimism as a Core Dev on the open source OP Stack and will work alongside the team to build a thriving developer community.

Additionally, Coinbase stated that the Base network will be compatible with other blockchains such as Solana. The network would also be decentralized, open-source, and built on the MIT-licensed OP Stack. Rather noticeably, whereas the announcement had boosted the price of OP, it appears to have had little to no effect on the price of Coinbase (COIN).

A partnership worth keeping an eye on

According to Optimism, Base will give away some of its transaction fee revenue to the Optimism Collective Treasury. Coinbase would also be a core developer of the OP Stack codebase at OP Labs. Furthermore, the partnership would then work on making Optimism a chain which connects multiple chains into a single network known as Superchain.

The Superchain, in turn, would aim to combine previously isolated L2s into a single interoperable as well as composable system. The goal is to strive for a future in which launching an L2 would be as simple as deploying a smart contract to Ethereum.

The Coinbase Optimism collaboration also intends to upgrade Optimism Mainnet, Base, as well as various other L2s to an initial Superchain structure which will also have shared bridging and sequencing. In the long run, the Superchain would improve interoperability and establish an ecosystem for shared decentralized protocols. Needless to say, this is one collaboration to keep an eye on going forward.