Coinbase has made a bold new bet: building their own blockchain, called Base.
An Ethereum Layer 2 chain built in collaboration with Optimism, Coinbase says Base aims to be a “safe, low cost, developer friendly” way to build.
They will officially launch Base to the public on August 9th, after having opened it up for developers in July.
The big picture:
- This is Coinbase’s first foray into incubating their own chain, with the hopes of rapidly onboarding their 110M+ users
- Coinbase describes Base as “the best of Ethereum but 10x cheaper”
- The vision for Base is to eventually be the go to interface for digital currency applications and empower an open financial system
Who is making moves:
- Early adopters are already building on top of Base, launching protocols and tokens, with over $200M over trading volume and transactions so far
- Some of the notable groups already building on Base include Chainlink, Etherscan, Aave, Animoca Brands, Dune, Nansen, Ribbon Finance and more
What’s next:
- Base will officially launch to the public on August 9th
- To encourage building on top of the chain, Base is partnering with Prop House to offer 100 ETH- roughly $185K USD- in grants for developers
- Base has announced partnerships with Coca-Cola and Atari to encourage users and developers on to the chain, although specifics around the partnerships are yet to be disclosed
