The Coinbase crypto exchange’s Ethereum Layer-2 network, known as Base, will offer a low-cost, secure, developer-friendly blockchain environment for building decentralized apps (dApps)
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Global crypto exchange Coinbase introduced Base — its new Ethereum layer-2 network designed as a low-cost, secure, developer-friendly environment to serve as a bridge to the crypto economy.
Layer-2 networks are third-party protocols that operate on top of an underlying blockchain protocol (Ethereum, in this case) to improve its scalability and efficiency. Only by adequately incorporating scalability into their structure can blockchains accommodate an exponentially growing number of users, transactions, and data.
Besides the ability to develop dApps for Ethereum, Base will be interoperable with other L2 chains, while also offering access to various L1 ecosystems like Solana. The network will also provide access to Coinbase’s products, users, fiat on-ramps and acquisition tools. The exchange doesn’t plan to issue any new network tokens for the Base solution.
Currently available as a testnet, Base has ambitious goals to onboard 1 billion new users into the crypto economy. Base developers can start building dApps on the new network using its RPC testnet endpoint or choose from Node providers: QuickNode, Infura, and Blockdaemon.
Base is built on the MIT-licensed OP Stack, in collaboration with Optimism. It has become the second L2 on that open-source platform, following Optimism Mainnet.
Although the network is seeded with Coinbase products, users, and assets, the vision is for the L2 network to become fully decentralised. As for the decentralisation roadmap, the company plans that Base will progress from a Stage 0 to Stage 1 rollup in 2023 and a Stage 2 rollup in 2024.
Developing efficient Layer-2 solutions helps underlying protocols achieve higher throughput – a feature detrimental to their long-term growth, effective adoption, and wide-scale usage.
