gm Bankless Nation, even as ETH sentiment has dragged, this cycle has been Base season. Today, we break down the advances and advantages of the Coinbase L2.
gm Bankless Nation, Even as ETH sentiment has dragged, this cycle has been Base season. Today, we break down the advances and advantages of the Coinbase L2.
Today's Issue ⬇️
☀️ Need to Know: Stablecoin Mania Finance's biggest institutions want in.
🗣️ Analysis:The Base Moat Base keeps winning. Here's how.
Sponsor: Uniswap Labs — Unichain is live! Bridge & swap with Uniswap Labs' web app or wallet.
💰 Fidelity is Developing its Own Stablecoin. The massive investment firm is likely planning its use within an Ethereum-based tokenized money market fund.
🪼 HyperLiquid Delists JELLY After Vault Squeezed in $13M Tussle. HyperLiquid is facing concern and criticism over a dramatic forced settlement to stave off an apparent exploit.
🦬 Wyoming Planning to Issue Own Stablecoin This Summer. The state's governor is blazing a trail for crypto in the state, but industry participants are skeptical.
📸
Daily Market Snapshot: The tech stock-heavy Nasdaq dumped in a major way Wednesday as traders sold off their tariff fears. Crypto erased its past couple days of gains, with ETH battling the $2K barrier.
Over the past year, the chain’s seen a truly meteoric rise, pulling the most net inflows of any chain over the past year ($7.9B, with $3.3B in the last three months) — more than double the inflows of its closest rival.
It’s also sitting pretty on the revenue front, squarely in fourth place and only behind blockchains, which, at a minimum, are twice its age – all of this without handing out a token.
Further, Base has found a way to embed itself in any trend of market momentum. Whether it’s being the premier place for onchain returns when Ethereum rallies, catering to the AI crowd with Virtuals and Clanker, or swooping up the meme momentum when Solana cools off, Base has all the spotlight it could ask for. And from the looks of things, it isn’t letting up anytime soon.
Here are three areas where Base is holding court 👇
1️⃣ Home Base Advantage
Unlike other upstart rollups that have to hustle for brand recognition and the pitch of superior tech, Base can plug directly into parent Coinbase’s massive user base and trusted brand. This not only has meant tapping into the power of an always-on marketing engine and a clear pipeline for acquiring users, but also lays the foundation for developing a unique suite of hybrid, onchain/offchain products.
Verified Pools
The most recent example of this synergy is Verified Pools: specialized liquidity venues built on Uniswap v4 and Base, open only to Coinbase-KYC'd users.
People in the U.S., Singapore, the Netherlands, the BVI, the Cayman Islands, and the Channel Islands all get to join in.
These are the currently available pools: EURC / USDC, ETH / USDC,cbBTC / USDC, cbBTC / ETH, cbETH / ETH.
Optimized by risk-management firm Gauntlet, these pools offer a way for institutions (via Coinbase Prime) and retail (via Coinbase Wallet) to enjoy better liquidity in a compliance-friendly way. If you’re arriving from TradFi, this setup offers the speed and flexibility of DeFi with the comfort of trusted oversight.
Beyond this, in January, Coinbase rolled out a new service for U.S. users (minus those in New York) to borrow up to $100K in $USDC using their $BTC as collateral, all on Base.
These come with no strict repayment date, but keep your loan-to-value ratio under 86% to avoid liquidation, and interest rates hover around 4–6%.
Over $65M in $BTC is already locked up, powering ~$33M in active loans.
How does this work? BTC is automatically converted into cbBTC and deposited into Morpho, before you receive $USDC in under a minute. It’s Coinbase’s second attempt at Bitcoin-backed lending after shelving their 2023 version.
Additionally, the firm's Coinbase One premium subscription is another hybrid, onchain/offchain offering where the exchange provides perks on its L2.
You get $10/month in free gas on Base (or unlimited if you shell out for Premium at $299.99/month).
Higher yields or extra incentives on DeFi platforms like Moonwell, Aerodrome, Morpho, and PancakeSwap.
By weaving in all these perks, Coinbase encourages its existing 600K subscribers to explore and transact on Base, further smoothing the experience of moving onchain.
But Base’s advantage doesn’t just come from brand power, it’s also evolving on the technical front to ensure its network is the best to use – and to build on.
Flashblocks
Slated for mainnet around Q2 2025 (currently on testnet), Flashblocks are designed to make transactions on Base incredibly fast — cutting them from 2 seconds to 200 milliseconds. Think of it as giving your transactions a “head start,” so you don’t have to wait around for confirmations.
It borrows from Solana’s “shred-style” approach and Celestia’s data squares, plus an MEV-awareness factor courtesy of research organization Flashbots.
It offers built-in protections against transactions failures, making the entire Base experience quicker and more reliable.
This is big news for gaming, high-frequency trading, and any other scenario where real-time confirmations matter, potentially expanding the chain’s overall offerings.
Flashblocks make Base faster
This 10x change makes Base the fastest EVM chain to date, bringing effective block times from 2 seconds down to 200 milliseconds —and they're live on testnet right now + coming to mainnet in Q2 pic.twitter.com/q4eKK6iapd
Another upgrade for the network will be to their smart wallets (debuted last year) in the form of Sub-Accounts, currently in testnet and expected in Q2 2025.
WithSub-Accounts, multiple addresses (for NFTs, yield-farming, everyday spending, etc.) can be bundled under a single wallet interface.
Set spending limits and permissions can be preset to avoid pop-up transaction spam.
It’s all built on a new ERC standard from Base, which means devs can integrate it seamlessly if they want to. For new users, this could help tame the complexity of wallets which still scare many people away from onchain life.
Smart Wallet Sub Accounts make Base simpler
These new features give onchain apps the ability to have less wallet popups, more fine-grained spend limits, and all the benefits of having one universal account pic.twitter.com/ppsenZwUwt
Finally, there’s Base Appchains, specialized Layer 3 networks for specific apps that want more customization. Unlike a typical shared chain, these Appchains leverage the same OP Stack as Base but with a TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) approach for near-instant bridging and dedicated blockspace.
They run on Base’s infrastructure, letting devs customize gas tokens, fees, and blockspace for their own needs while maintaining security.
Early adopters include Blocklords, Super Champs, and Metacade on the gaming side, plus projects like Proof 8, MVL, Horizen, and Decentralized Pictures, which explore everything from real-world data to privacy and art.
It’s a big piece of Base’s long-term plan for modular scaling: give projects that want it their own environment — complete with hardware-enforced security from TEEs — without forcing them to sacrifice the liquidity and user base that Base provides. Essentially, you can tailor your own “mini blockchain” (an ever-growing narrative in the wake of Hyperliquid’s success) and still enjoy smooth, near-instant bridging back to Base.
Base Appchains make Base more powerful
These L3s (powered by the op-enclave framework) provide apps with dedicated blockspace + custom gas tokens and permissions, enterprise-grade support, builder friendly pricing, and seamless integration with Base builder tools pic.twitter.com/McsmnY9lPg
Yet another huge area of growth for Base has been its establishment as a premier place for stablecoin transfers.
While onchain high-speed arbitrage strategies, memecoin speculation, and deep DeFi lending have all contributed to eye-popping growth, Base’s support for regional stablecoins and integrations with fiat on/off-ramps have also moved the needle, setting the chain up as a leading arena for stables.
Massive Growth in Stablecoin Transfers
Just last February, Base’s stablecoin transfer volume sat at about $3.7B. This year, that number had ballooned to $1.9T in February, accounting for 43% of all stablecoin transfers — putting Base ahead of Ethereum, Tron, and Solana, for the month.
Base now commonly outpaces Ethereum, Tron, and Solana in stablecoin transfer volume.
A big factor is the constant flow of Farming MEV, where traders rely on Base’s speed and liquidity to run their arbitrage and flash-loan strategies, according to Dune and Artemis’s recent report.
Beyond that, top-notch lending platforms and a wave of memecoins have added fuel to the fire. DeFi giants like Aave and Aerodrome anchor enormous pools of stablecoin liquidity, while the popular protocols like Virtuals, Clanker, and Flaunch drive transaction velocity from sheer speculative demand.
Regional Stablecoins Boost Financial Inclusion
Base is also big on non-dollar stablecoins — an increasingly important way for people to escape volatile exchange rates or gain easy access to DeFi.
EURC (Euro-Backed): Introduced in July 2024, EURC has become the largest regional stablecoin on Base, with a current supply of ~$33M.
BRZ (Brazilian Real-pegged) has grown 10x, aided by strong liquidity in Aerodrome pools.
Alongside cNGN (Nigerian Naira-pegged), CADC (Canadian Dollar–pegged), and more, these local stablecoins let people around the world bypass traditional banks and take advantage of DeFi opportunities on Base. Throw in Coinbase Wallet’s on/off-ramps and the new Onboard P2P option (for trading small amounts of local currency for crypto quickly), and you’ve got an ecosystem that’s genuinely trying to bring crypto to everyone.
Unlock the power of Unichain – a fast, decentralized Ethereum Layer 2 network built to be the home for DeFi and cross-chain liquidity. To bridge tokens to Unichain and start swapping today, get started with Uniswap Labs’ web app or mobile wallet.
Not financial or tax advice. Bankless content is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time to time, we may add links in this newsletter to products we use. We may receive a commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless team holds crypto assets.
