On February 23, Coinbase, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it has developed an L2 basenet built using Optimism’s OP Stack.
The main goal behind this move is to attract millions of new cryptocurrency users in the coming years.
Coinbase Joins Optimism as Lead Developer of OP Stack
Coinbase has announced that it will join Optimism as the core developer of the open source OP Stack, a developer toolset designed for the Optimism network.
However, Coinbase’s involvement in the project will not be limited solely to Ethereum.
The company plans to give users easy and secure access to L2 networks like Optimism and other blockchain ecosystems like Solana.
According to Coinbase VP of Engineering Will Robinson, the launch of Base’s testnet, an Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) network, is well underway.
The Base network offers a secure, low-cost, and developer-friendly platform for people around the world to build decentralized applications, or on-chain “dapps.” The plan is to decentralize the network gradually over time.
Coinbase has clarified that it has no intention of creating a new network token. Coinbase started the Base testnet to ensure a smooth implementation. The network will help reduce bottlenecks associated with scaling and data, making transactions faster and cheaper.
“Base is seen as a pathway for users to enter the crypto economy and serves as a user-friendly onchain platform with the added benefit of accessing products on various other chains.”
Coinbase Vice President of Engineering robinson
The crypto exchange aims to allow developers to integrate their products directly with Base and offer fiat access. It targets the approximately 110 million verified users of the platform and $80 billion in assets within the Coinbase ecosystem.
After the Coinbase announcement, the Optimism protocol OP token saw a light price jump and was trading at $2.92 at press time. The value represents a price increase of around 20% in the last 24 hours.
