Coinbase has made a bold new bet: building their own blockchain, called Base.

An Ethereum Layer 2 chain built in collaboration with Optimism, Coinbase says Base aims to be a “safe, low cost, developer friendly” way to build.

They will officially launch Base to the public on August 9th, after having opened it up for developers in July.

‍The big picture:‍

• This is Coinbase’s first foray into incubating their own chain, with the hopes of rapidly onboarding their 110M+ users
  
• Coinbase describes Base as “the best of Ethereum but 10x cheaper”
  
• The vision for Base is to eventually be the go to interface for digital currency applications and empower an open financial system
  

Who is making moves:‍

• Early adopters are already building on top of Base, launching protocols and tokens, with over $200M over trading volume and transactions so far
  
• Some of the notable groups already building on Base include Chainlink, Etherscan, Aave, Animoca Brands, Dune, Nansen, Ribbon Finance and more
  

What’s next:‍

• Base will officially launch to the public on August 9th
  
• To encourage building on top of the chain, Base is partnering with Prop House to offer 100 ETH- roughly $185K USD- in grants for developers
  
• Base has announced partnerships with Coca-Cola and Atari to encourage users and developers on to the chain, although specifics around the partnerships are yet to be disclosed

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