Coinbase launches testnet for Base, its L2 on OP Stack

The largest American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has launched the Base testnet, a second‑layer solution built on Optimism’s OP Stack architecture.

1/ ? We’re excited to announce @BuildOnBase.

Base is an Ethereum L2 that offers a secure, low-cost, developer-friendly way for anyone, anywhere, to build decentralized apps.

Our goal with Base is to make onchain the next online and onboard 1B+ users into the cryptoeconomy. pic.twitter.com/RmwZFJzGGs

— Coinbase (@coinbase) February 23, 2023

“Base is an L2 on Ethereum. It offers a secure, low-cost and developer-friendly way to build decentralized applications,” said company representatives.

They stressed that the new solution does not involve issuing a token — ETH is used to pay transaction fees.

2/ Important: Base is *not* a token

We do not plan to issue a new network token for Base and will use ETH as the native gas token.

— Coinbase (@coinbase) February 23, 2023

Base will interact with the company’s core products, including Coinbase Wallet.

The American exchange will also join Optimism as a core developer of the OP Stack. A portion of transaction fees in the Base network will go to the Optimism Collective treasury.

In addition, Coinbase and its venture arm will launch the Base Ecosystem Fund. It will invest in early-stage projects using the new L2 solution.

The news positively affected the price of OP — over the last 24 hours, the Optimism project’s utility token rose 17%, to $2.91 (according to CoinGecko).

For the fourth quarter, Coinbase posted a loss of $557 million.