Coinbase Ethereum L2 Launches Mainnet With $142M Already on Its Network

Coinbase has launched the mainnet for Base, its Ethereum layer-2 community,  as a part of its bid to spur the event of thousands and thousands of recent decentralized apps.

After months in improvement, Coinbase is launching its Base via a month-long launch occasion referred to as Onchain Summer time. Because it was introduced final week, the passion round Base has been sturdy with simply over $142 million in complete worth locked within the ecosystem, an nearly 52% enhance in complete worth locked from the week main as much as the launch, in accordance with Dune Analytics.

“I believe it is extremely thrilling that there is been a lot vitality and urge for food for people to return and use Base, even earlier than we publicly launched,” mentioned Jesse Pollak, Coinbase’s senior director of engineering, in an interview with Decrypt. 

Pollak characterised Base’s launch as a part of a extra bold plan of bringing thousands and thousands of extra customers on-chain, and doing which means showcasing extra of what might be completed with the know-how than simply focusing round cryptocurrencies. 

A part of this effort is being demonstrated with the greater than 100 decentralized apps (dapp) that shall be obtainable with Base’s launch, a portion of which had been created by builders who obtained early entry to the blockchain final month. 

Not like different layer-2 networks, like Arbitrum and Optimism, Pollak insists that Coinbase has no plans to introduce any native tokens to Base. He mentioned tokens “distort” what’s being completed on a community, one thing Coinbase would somewhat keep away from in favor of specializing in incubating builders. 

“We wish of us to see Base as sort of a possibility for progress and enlargement,” defined Pollak. “However we additionally assume it is actually essential that we incubate, and curate a Base native group the place of us who’re actually constructing base first, and creating for this new sort of world.”

By not issuing a token, Coinbase may be avoiding a regulatory minefield at a time when it’s already going through severe authorized stress. On June 6, Coinbase was sued by the Securities and Trade Fee for allegedly working as an unlicensed securities alternate. The company additionally accused Coinbase of dealing in unregistered securities, amongst which it mentioned had been in style tokens like Solana, Polygon and Cardano. 

Pollak mentioned the SEC’s lawsuit is unlikely to derail work on Base, as a result of it’s aimed toward areas of Coinbase’s enterprise that aren’t instantly associated to the ecosystem that it’s attempting to foster.

“That pursuit is one thing that’s fairly separate and distinct from the questions that the SEC is asking round tokens and regulating them,” mentioned Pollak, including that Coinbase has been “actually inspired” by latest legislative and judicial modifications round crypto regulation that he hopes will imply clearer regulatory readability is forthcoming.