By James Davis
On Wednesday, crypto exchange Coinbase rolled out the mainnet for its Ethereum scaling solution, Base, in an effort to attract more decentralized application developers. The Base mainnet, which has been in development for months, will be launched through a 4-week event dubbed Onchain Summer.
Since Coinbase made the announcement last week, the buzz around Base has caused the total value locked in the network to surge to over $140 million, representing a 51% increase in the last seven days, according to Dune Analytics data.
Coinbase Director of Engineering, Jesse Pollak, says he is pleased to see more people becoming interested in Base despite the network being in its early days. He adds that the team behind Base is looking to onboard millions of users to the network and showcase the power of blockchain technology other than just enabling the creation of crypto assets.
Already there are over 100 dApps (decentralized applications) created on Base, which majority got built by developers who were granted early access to the network in July.
Coinbase Reveals Base Will Operate Without a Native Token
Meanwhile, Coinbase says its network will not have a native token like other scaling solutions such as Optimism and Arbitrum. The company believes a token will distract people from seeing what’s actually being built on Base.
Not issuing a crypto asset can also help Coinbase avoid regulatory issues with the United States authorities. Just two months ago, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged the firm with operating an unregistered securities exchange. Additionally, the regulator alleged that Coinbase had been supporting the sale of unlicensed securities such as Cardano, Polygon, and Solana.
When asked if the Securities and Exchange Commission’s charges against Coinbase will affect the Base operations, Pollak said the agency only targeted certain areas of the exchange that are not related to the Base network.
He added that he was encouraged by the legislative progress made around crypto rules in recent weeks. Pollak believes crypto players in the United States will soon have the regulatory clarity they have been advocating for over the years.