Hassan Maishera
TL;DR
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Coinbase’s Base blockchain is now officially live.
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The crypto exchange said it is the first publicly-traded crypto company to launch its blockchain.
Coinbase’s Blockchain Goes Live
Coinbase, the leading cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, announced on Wednesday that its new Base blockchain is now live.
According to Coinbase, it is the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency exchange to launch its own blockchain.
Prior to the official launch, Base was already live for testing by developers. The blockchain opened to the public as of 12 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
The launch of the Base blockchain could allow Coinbase to save more from fees and could also become a more lucrative source of revenue thanks to the applications that would be running on the network.
The launch of Base has been in the works for a while. In a secret master plan in 2016, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote that the fourth phase of the company’s development would result from decentralized applications designed to reach millions of people.
Jesse Pollak, who is overseeing Base as Coinbase's head of protocols, revealed earlier this week that 100 dApps were already deployed on the Base network. He stated that;
"Historically, the aperture of what people can do with crypto has been relatively limited, mostly speculation. In order for Coinbase and crypto and this work that we're doing to have the impact that we all want, we need to move from the place where this is speculation to a place where this is integrated into every part of someone's day-to-day existence."
The Base network is a Layer-2 blockchain built on top of the Ethereum network. It leverages the OP Stack software from Optimism, a popular Layer-2 network.
Prior to the public launch, more than $130 million of deposits were locked into apps and protocols on the Base network.
