#crypto2023 #Coinbase #Optimism #Web3
Preface
I believe that since Coinbase released the mysterious blue circle video early yesterday morning, many people have been speculating on what the exchange is going to do. This move indeed triggered many users to discuss on Twitter and began to forward the blue circle video. Circle the meme and match it with the text "🔵2.22.23".
Finally, it was announced in the evening that Coinbase launched its own incubated Layer 2 blockchain network "Base" based on Optimism's OP Stack.
This article will briefly introduce to you, what is Base? What is Coinbase planning? And what impact will it have on the development of Optimism?
What is Base?
Base is a Layer 2 blockchain built on Ethereum, using Optimism's OP Stack to achieve scalability and lower Gas Fee (mainly because EIP-4844 reduces Layer 2 Gas Fee by 10 to 100 times (not equal), and Base will not issue coins and mainly uses $ETH as Gas Fee.
The Base test network has been launched. The details are as follows:
Network name: Base Goerli
RPC endpoint: https://goerli.base.org
Chain ID: 84531
Currency symbol: ETH
As of now, Coinbase is the only validator on the Base network, but that will change with the mainnet launch. Coinbase is trying to build Base as a bridge to cryptocurrencies rather than as an isolated entity.
Base first batch of partners
first row:
Chainlink、Blockdaemon、Infura、QuikNode、Blockscout、Etherscan、Dune analytics、Hop Protocol、Nansen、0x(ZRX)、Socket
second row:
Ondo、Panoptic、Aave、Flipside、Mnemonic、Daz 3D、Magic Eden、frame.eth、Animoca Brand、Transak、Guild、SEDA
Third row:
Perennial、Gelato Network、Pyth Network、Rainbow Wallet、Ribbon Finance、X、Balancer、PoolTogether、Euler Labs、Source、The Graph
Fourth row:
Backed Finance、Dora、wagmi、Center、Wormhole、Coherent、Parallel、Sushiswap、X、Blackbird Labs、Covalent、Cask protocol
Fifth row:
Safe、Arkham Intelligence、Moonwell、City3、Thirdweb、Sardine、Bonfire、Layer zero、Messari、Axelar、Ethglobal
No information could be found for two of the items.
Base Ecological Fund
Coinbase also announced the Base Ecosystem Fund, which invests in and supports early-stage Base-based projects that meet investment criteria. Interested partners can directly fill in the form to apply.
Since many people have sorted out this section today, I will only give a brief summary of the key points. For more details, please see the reference materials at the end of the article.
Coinbase’s “Secret Big Plan”
In fact, Coinbase had already announced its “Secret Master Plan” as early as 2016, but not many people took it seriously at the time. Perhaps only Coinbase itself knew that it wanted to work in this direction.
This big plan is divided into three stages, namely:
Phase 1: Developing the agreement (1 million people)
In this phase, new protocols (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.) are invented and people start optimizing them. Open source communities have grown around each protocol, in some cases with help from corporate sponsors. The race is on to see which protocol can scale and attract application developers. Coinbase will work closely with the open source community around each protocol and provide financial support in some cases, but at this stage Coinbase does not play a major role.
Phase 2: Establishing a digital currency exchange (10 million people)
Investing or speculating is a bootstrapping mechanism for payment networks, and creating secure and easy-to-use exchanges is a bridge for people to transfer local currency into and out of digital currencies. At this stage, we built Coinbase for consumers and Coinbase Pro for institutional and professional traders. This is currently Coinbase’s core business, and the revenue from this phase will be used for later-stage investments while continuing to expand this core business to more countries.
Phase 3: Building mass-market interfaces for digital currency applications (100 million people)
Consumers and businesses need a simple interface to start using digital currencies and their applications. For the Internet, this will happen when HTML and web browsers are introduced on top of TCP/IP; in digital currencies, we believe this will be achieved through easy-to-use wallets or accounts that allow consumers and Businesses use the growing ecosystem of apps powered by cryptocurrencies, which can be user-controlled or custodial wallets. The main feature of the application will be that it greatly lowers the threshold for ordinary people to develop and use new digital currency applications.
Phase 4: Building applications for open financial systems (billions of people)
Existing financial systems need to be re-created on the open web and globally integrated within this new consumer interface. Some important use cases that Coinbase believes need to be created include:
Loans (mortgages, small business loans, micro loans, etc.)
Venture capital (seed, traditional venture capital, venture debt, etc.)
Investments (stocks, index funds, savings accounts, etc.)
Identity and reputation (ID, authentication, credit score, etc.)
Remittance (cross-border remittance)
Merchant processing (point of sale, web orders) Coinbase will participate in this space by buying, building, or investing in various companies. It will also build developer tools and work with regulators to develop appropriate regulation in this area.
Coinbase's original intention is to create an open financial system for the world (meaning not controlled by any one country or company), and to bring more economic freedom, innovation, efficiency and equality of opportunity to the world, while the development of the digital currency industry The direction will help the development of open finance show a positive correlation; this is why Coinbase has continued to promote encryption since 2016.
Optimism develops towards "super chain"
Optimism aims to empower humans through decentralized blockchain technology, enabling unprecedented coordination of human intelligence on a global scale and at scale. According to official statistics, in the past two years, Optimism Mainnet has saved users a cumulative US$2.73 billion in gas fees and 15.9 years of transaction confirmation waiting time.
However, there is an inconvenient truth: “These optimizations brought by Layer 2 have not allowed Ethereum to truly expand.”
If Ethereum is to compete with the giants of Web2 and claim the next niche in software, it will need Internet-level scale. Even though Ethereum Layer 2 is already pushing the limits of tools and user experience, it is still far from global scale. In order to support the next hundreds, thousands and millions of chains, Optimism hopes to provide a "decentralized, governed, secure and collaboratively improved open source service" through OP Stack, as in the previous article "From Four "Roadmap of big top projects, look at the future of Ethereum expansion plan" mentioned: "OP Stack is a modular open source blueprint, suitable for a variety of highly scalable and interoperable blockchains, not just It’s Rollups, not just Optimism.”
What Optimism wants to build is a unified chain network, not just a single network. By making Optimism an open source project, it becomes a platform for the chain to allow more Layer 2 to be compatible and connected. Through "building together", it replaces the "siloing" of Layer 2 in the past and creates a "super chain" belonging to Web3. ”.
When Coinbase's Base joins, it becomes a core developer of the OP Stack code base. As a core developer, Coinbase will join OP Labs to contribute to the Optimism Collective's mission and expand OP Stack's leading position as the most OverPowered public product in the game. .
As one of the new Layer 2 chains, Base will return part of the transaction fee income to the Optimism Collective financial treasury to further realize the future vision of "Impact = Profit".
In the short term, this collaboration will upgrade the Optimism mainnet, Base, and other Layer 2 to an initial superchain structure with shared bridges and sequences.
In the long term, Superchain can develop into a vast network that maximizes collaboration, shares decentralized protocols, and standardizes its core language, while funding the public goods that support it.
Decentralization Roadmap to 2023
Base and Optimism will strive to advance from the "Stage 0 rollup" defined by Vitalik to the "Stage 1 rollup", with a significant level of decentralization and trustlessness. To achieve this goal, Base will next partner with OP Labs and Optimism Collective:
Launch at least one failure validator for the OP Stack to protect Base and Optimism mainnet by leveraging a set of validators to identify and challenge failures.
Decentralizing the upgradeability of Base and Optimism mainnet smart contracts starts with a safety committee whose decentralized quorum is not controlled by any single entity.
Launching the initial version of the super chain, which can sequence transactions on Base, Optimism mainnet and any OP Stack rollup, protecting the rights of anyone to participate in these ecosystems
In 2024, efforts will be made to advance the Base and Optimism mainnets to "Stage 2 rollup", with a degree of decentralization and security comparable to that of Ethereum.
In the coming weeks, Coinbase will also share its mainnet roadmap and provide additional developer resources for building on Base.
in conclusion
Coinbase played this move very fast and fiercely. It only took less than a day from hint to reveal. It not only attracted the attention of many people, but also the discussion in major groups on the Internet remained high; and the choice was based on It may take time to prove whether OP Stack can really attract developers to join in its blockchain expansion and jointly build a "super chain". But it cannot be denied that the launch of Base will help accelerate the development and application of blockchain technology and provide better solutions for applications in fields such as DeFi and NFT.
In addition, I really admire that Coinbase has been able to continue to implement the plan it set since 2016. This is very commendable in the encryption industry. You have to know how many exchanges have closed down and how many visions have come from 2016 to now. Many promises have been shattered and torn into pieces. There are really very few organizations that can stick to the end.
As the competition among the four major Layer 2 players becomes more and more intense, it is definitely a good thing for us participants and the market. Whether it is events, airdrops or cooperation news, one after another, it has driven the enthusiasm of the entire market. There will be a period of time where I won’t be bored anymore.
References
Meet Base
https://base.mirror.xyz/jjQnUq_UNTQOk7psnGBFOsShi7FlrRp8xevQUipG_Gk
Decentralizing Base with the OP Stack and Optimism
https://base.mirror.xyz/H_KPwV31M7OJT-THUnU7wYjOF16Sy7aWvaEr5cgHi8I
What projects are the first partners of Coinbase’s new chain Base?
https://www.theblockbeats.info/news/35017
The Coinbase Secret Master Plan
https://www.coinbase.com/blog/the-coinbase-secret-master-plan
Optimism Goes m̶u̶l̶t̶i̶ Superchain
https://optimism.mirror.xyz/2jk3D1Y8-hid8YOCUUa6yXmsyzNCYYyFJP0Nhaey9x0
Optimism - All-Time Stats & Gas Fee Savings
https://dune.com/optimismfnd/optimism-all-time-gas-fee-savings
Optimism’s Path to Technical Decentralization
https://dev.optimism.io/decentralization-roadmap/
