On Thursday, Coinbase announced its testnet launch of Base, an Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) network that it says will offer users a “secure, low-cost, developer-friendly” way to build decentralized apps (dApps) onchain.

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

With Base, the company is primarily focused on creating a “secure bridge” between L2 and L1 – as well as other L1 ecosystems like Bitcoin and Solana. This bridge, according to Coinbase, will provide for an easy-to-use onchain experience that will also afford access to Coinbase’s ecosystem and products on other chains. 

“We want Base to be a seamless gateway for Coinbase users to access the broader cryptoeconomy, ultimately making web3 more accessible to a greater number of people,” the announcement reads. 

Base is also built on the MIT-licensed OP Stack, in collaboration with Optimism, where Coinbase will be essentially joining as the second Core Dev team working to make the OP Stack a “publicly available good.”

A New Governance Model for Public Goods

Web3 has opened new doors into cyberspace that we have been wishing into existence, but may not have been necessarily prepared for – yet. 

Having said that, now that we’re here, addressing the continued market failure that is plagued by archaic regulation and economic behaviors that were strictly built for the physical world is of utmost importance.

The Optimism Collective, a band of companies, communities, and citizens working together to reward public goods and build a sustainable future for Ethereum, has been working to deploy a new model for rewarding those who create or sustain public goods – digital democratic governance. 

Through this model of “retroactive public goods funding,” Optimism is building an infrastructure to better support projects and communities that strictly build for the common good – dispelling the myth that “public goods cannot be profitable.”

Through its experimental approach to governance, Optimism is working to create such a system that “withstands the test of time,” which heavily depends on identifying ahead of time what is useful and who built it?

OP Stack is a standardized, shared, and open-source development stack that powers Optimism that essentially creates the infrastructure necessary for running L2 blockchains. Theoretically, it’s this piece of software that extends to layers of tools on top of the underlying blockchain – block explorers, message passing mechanisms, governance systems, and more. 

Turning to Web3’s mission in embracing decentralized infrastructures, Coinbase acknowledged that in growing today’s crypto economy, decentralization and collaboration are critical for both the community as well as the long-term success of Base.

“It cannot be accomplished by any single entity or company,” it emphasized.

A New Fund for Early Stage Development

Simultaneously, Coinbase also announced the creation of its Base Ecosystem Fund, which it says will invest in and support early stage projects building on Base that meets its investment criteria – however, not much information is known at this time beyond an application form. 

Coinbase said that in the coming weeks it will share its roadmap to mainnet and provide developers additional resources to help them build on Base. 

In other news, BlackRock launched a new “metaverse” ETF.