Coinbase announces plans to transition more of its customer and corporate USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin accounts to Base, its Ethereum layer-2 blockchain, introduced approximately seven months ago. Max Branzburg, vice president of Coinbase, highlights the move as a means to enhance fund management and security while reducing fees and settlement times.
The migration is seen as a step towards establishing a future on-chain financial system, according to David Hoffman, a co-host on the Ethereum-focused show Bankless. Ryan Sean Adams, another Bankless co-host, suggests that this move could set a precedent for both cryptocurrency exchanges and traditional banks to follow suit, emphasizing the potential of every asset transitioning into a future token.
However, not all users are fully supportive of the transition. Some, like X user “callmeKappa.algo,” express concerns over the centralization of Base, particularly with Coinbase being the sole sequencer of the chain. Despite Coinbase’s commitment to gradually decentralize Base, critics remain cautious about its current centralized state.
Base, launched on August 9, 2023, serves as an Ethereum scaling solution utilizing optimistic rollups. It allows for off-chain storage of transaction data, submitted to Ethereum’s base layer. Coinbase has taken steps to enhance transparency and accountability by open-sourcing Base’s code in October. With $2.63 billion in total value locked, Base ranks as the fourth-largest Ethereum layer 2 network, witnessing a surge in daily transactions and new users.
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