Base Opens Up To Developers Ahead Of August Mainnet Launch

Base, the hotly anticipated Layer 2 network from Coinbase, the leading U.S. centralized exchange, opened its doors to developers on July 12.

Builders can now begin tinkering with their code on Base ahead of a public launch slated for early August. Several tools are already live on its network to support builders, including node providers, wallet infrastructure, block explorers, and developer tooling.

“We believe that builders on Base will create the next generation of products that bring one billion users on-chain,” Base said.

Base said some of the novel projects building on the network included Blackbird, a restaurant loyalty platform, OAK, a community token for Oakland residents, and Parallel, an NFT trading card game.

The launch comes as competition to scale Ethereum is heating up, with Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync, Polygon, and Consensys all shipping cutting-edge scaling solutions in recent months.

OP Stack

Base is a Layer 2 network built on top of Optimism’s OP Stack, a modular open-source framework allowing developers to deploy customized Layer 2s. In the future, Optimism hopes to establish a unified multi-chain ecosystem of L2s leveraging the OP Stack called the Superchain.

Base said the staged mainnet rollout comes after the completion of its prelaunch goals, including auditing the OP Stack and Base codebases, launching educational content for builders and users, load-testing network infrastructure, and demonstrating testnet stability.

“We worked closely with Optimism to learn from their experience bringing Optimism to mainnet, including a thorough infrastructure review,” Base said. “[OP Stack’s] release on June 6 gave us confidence in… the underlying OP Stack platform with reduced transaction fees, shorter deposit times, improved proof modularity, and enhanced node performance.”

While there is currently no bridge user interface for Base, developers can transfer ETH to cover gas fees using its portal proxy contract. Base urged users not to transfer any asset other than ETH using the contract.

Developers that deploy code on Base before the public launch will receive a non-transferable “Genesis Builder” NFT. Klara Vollstaedt designed the NFT, with Vollstaedt’s work recently featuring at the renowned auction house, Christie’s.