For the casual observer, the unstoppable rise of blockchain and associated Web3 technologies seems serene, but like a swan there’s always a lot going on under the surface – and I can’t remember a time of more momentous movement than right now. Today, blockchain faces its “broadband moment”, as increased adoption and use cases drive the demand for speed and capacity that’s an order of magnitude higher than what came before.
This isn’t a gradual, gentle evolution, and it’s not the result of pan-industry collaboration, either. When you get up close and personal, it’s a fierce and sometimes bitter rivalry between a range of Layer-2 (L2) networks. These L2s are designed to overcome the technical and performance limitations of underlying L1s like Solana and Ethereum. Whether they admit it or not, they are all competing to become the de facto standard; the “broadband for the decentralized web”.
The battle to become the “L2 that rules them all” is yet to be decided, but we have a new contender for the crown – Coinbase, a company that combines an impeccable pedigree in blockchain with superb technical expertise. With its new solution, Base, Coinbase has thrust itself into the vanguard to become the broadband of Web3. And into the money. Per Yahoo Finance, Coinbase achieved a significant milestone in its diversification strategy last quarter, with its Base blockchain generating $56 million in revenue.
Like its competitors, Base is designed to solve issues surrounding scalability and security, but it also promises to tap into a massive sum of liquidity that stands to change the nature of the crypto markets forever. Alongside some other powerful developments, and with the support of the memecoin community, Base may just be the player that’ overhauls the entire decentralized landscape and brings Web3 to a worldwide audience.
What Base Brings To Web3
As the biggest crypto exchange in the US, Coinbase needs little by way of introduction, but market dominance in one area does not necessarily translate into L2 leadership. So what is Base, and sets it apart in a crowded - some might say far-too crowded - landscape? Well, to quote Jennifer Aniston: here comes the science bit.
Base is an Ethereum L2 blockchain that specifically focuses on security, stability, and scalability for the benefit of ecosystem builders. With Base, developers can launch literally any EVM codebase and proceed to onramp liquidity and users directly from the entirety of the Ethereum ecosystem.
$130 billion worth of assets from Coinbase and associated, interoperable chains. What makes Base so flexible is the fact that it is built out of the OP (Optimis) Stack. The OP Stack is designed to make Optimism (and now Base) as close and equivalent as possible to Ethereum itself, unlocking maximum compatibility for existing Ethereum developers. This manifests as a series of modules across various consensus, execution and settlement layers that all work together to form a massive, interoperable, and secure blockchain ecosystem.
That might all sound like Base is mostly relevant to those unsung backroom guys and gals of the blockchain industry, but it’s actually incredibly significant for all of us, the ultimate end users of Web3. Sure, every L2 talks about interoperability - it’s what Layer-2s are for, after all - but Base takes this to the next level, making it simple for developers to deploy services, access a massive well of liquidity, and ensure seamless interoperability with most of the major services already trusted in the Web3 space.
Jesse Pollak, the creator of Base and a key figure at Coinbase, has been quite vocal recently about the future of Base and its broader impact on the blockchain ecosystem. In one of his recent remarks, Pollak highlighted that Base is about building "an open global economy," where the goal is to bring millions of people and decentralized applications (dApps) into the on-chain world. He believes that integrating Coinbase on-chain is essential to realizing this vision, which will help increase economic freedom globally.
In chatting with Jesse, he said “"Base’s mission is to bring a billion people onchain, and we know we can’t do that alone. We're building in the open because we believe a rising tide raises all boats, and we see Base as one part of a broader onchain ecosystem. We're proud of the progress Base has made thus far, and we know we still have a long way to go to bring the world onchain together." Pollak also mentioned that despite the challenges ahead, Base has already seen significant community engagement with users creating Twitter accounts, memes, and launching new projects on the platform, underscoring the excitement surrounding this new ecosystem.
Get Quick or Die Tryin’
If Base competed solely on integrations and interoperability, it would be a strong challenger in the L2 ecosystem. But these alone don’t explain its incredibly rapid adoption, which has seen
Base hitting (and smashing) milestones at breakneck speed.Base has repeatedly hit new highs for daily transactions, most recently setting the record with more than 5 million transactions on a single day. There’s also the fact that Base has a whopping TVL of $1.92 billion worth of assets, placing it as the #6 biggest chain overall, and well ahead of major competitors like Polygon and even Optimism (which, of course, uses the same base-layer technology).
Size isn’t everything, of course. For the ordinary end user, whether they be an institution or individual, speed is every bit as important. Here again, Base boasts impressive credentials for the title of “broadband of Web3”. As Brian Armstrong himself has championed, Base has gotten its transactions to under one second for finality along with just $0.01 for fees. Considering that Base is also truly global and has no regional restrictions, he claims that this transcends the capabilities of all existing international payment rails.
Meanwhile, in a further leap for Web3 innovation, Armstrong announced recently that, for the first time in history, Artificial Intelligence had used the Base blockchain to send a cryptocurrency transaction. “AI agents cannot get bank accounts, but they can get crypto wallets,” said Armstrong “They can now use USDC on Base to transact with humans, merchants, or other AIs. Those transactions are instant, global, and free.” What this signals is a new space in the cryptocurrency industry that facilitates AI-powered automated trading, a development that stands to revolutionize how these markets are managed.
This is precisely why there are multiple, promising ventures specifically building on Base to leverage its cutting edge benefits. Projects like PropyKeys, which offers users an unprecedented opportunity for anyone to mint an NFT representing a digital address that corresponds to a tangible, real-world property. Speaking to PropyKeys CEO, Nina Fabbri, she said that "Propykeys is built on Base because of their excellent leadership and commitment to bringing the world onchain. Their innovative approach and dedication to decentralization make them the perfect partner for our mission to revolutionize the real estate industry."
Base Is The Place For Memecoins
In addition to multiple enterprise focused projects and revolutions in AI trading, Base has also established itself as a haven for cutting edge memecoin activity.
Jesse Pollak, head of Base and Coinbase wallet, envisions meme coins playing a significant role in onboarding new users to Base, suggesting that these culturally-driven projects will be a major driver of growth for the protocol.
Already, we have seen multiple projects launch and thrive in this ecosystem. Take for example the current leader in Base memecoins, BRETT, a project inspired by a character from Matt Furie's "Boy’s Club" comic series and depicted as a laid-back, video game-loving figure. After its launch in February of 2024 BRETT quickly rose to prominence and has become one of the largest memecoins by capitalization in the entire market.