Coinbase Strengthening ‘Base’ in Developer Space, Had Rough Start

Coinbase’ new Ethereum layer 2 network solution launched for testnet with sheer optimism and spirit. The company announced Base to launch on Thursday, February 23. Focusing on providing aspiring onchain dapp developers with a “secure, low-cost, developer-friendly” method, Base was expected to bolster the crypto exchange’s efforts in the developer space. However, the news of glitches in the newly launched L2 network surfaced on social media, with many users complaining about the bad experiences.

One such user went on Twitter while calling out the issue with the transaction, stating that “every single transaction reverted” over the platform. Since no verification of the bridge contract was done, no one had any idea of the circumstances.

However, the company did not take too long to respond and stated that the crypto exchange’s wallets caused the issue, which led to operational glitches on Base’s testnet. These wallets incorrectly calculated the gas fees needed for the execution transactions. After receiving the gas fees less than required for the transaction, the L2 network program acted accordingly and started reverting the transactions meant for processing.

Roberto Bayardo, software engineer at Coinbase, took to Twitter and brought some insights while citing the issue and noted that the gas usage under load was not estimated properly by the wallets, which resulted in a bump within the bridge contracts. He added the abrupt glitch, which made users respond hastily, was overwhelming for the protocol.

Crypto Community Praising the Move

Despite the initial hiccups, the protocol has high confidence from the crypto community. The Ethereum community is especially excited after the Optimism-backed and Ethereum-secured layer 2 networks are announced. Many cited the instance of Base’s launch as the blockchain network’s “watershed moment.”

According to Coinbase’s blog post, Base is looking to serve about a billion users expected to onboard Web3 soon. The network would act as an underlying platform providing a base for the onchain products of the crypto exchange. Being an open source network, “anyone, anywhere, to build decentralized apps or “dapps” onchain” can access it.

The company disclosed several other plans with the network, which do not include launching a native network token. It intends to leverage a “decade of experience building crypto products.”

In addition, it noted the best practices, products, users and tools of Coinbase, combined with the security and scalability of the Ethereum network, would give developers a chance to serve over 110 million users on the platform while handling assets worth 80 billion USD.

Bankless Show host and popular crypto community member Ryan Sean Adams considered it a significant “vote of confidence” for the second biggest blockchain network. Cryptocurrency companies and financial institutions could onboard Ethereum seeking a network for their settlements.

Andrew is a blockchain developer who developed his interest in cryptocurrencies while his post-graduation. He is a keen observer of details and shares his passion for writing along with being a developer. His backend knowledge about blockchain helps him give a unique perspective to his writing