The US’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and the largest publicly traded crypto company in the world Coinbase just released a blog post emphasizing its commitment to respecting the principles of decentralization relating to its newly launched layer-2 Ethereum scaling protocol Base.
Base, an open-source, permissionless Ethereum layer-2 protocol, went live to significant fanfare a few weeks ago and is already establishing itself as a major player in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Built on the open-source OP Stack and in collaboration with the Optimism Collective, Base is “working toward improved decentralization using the Law of Chains as our guide,” the protocol said in a blog post.
The Law of Chains framework is designed to facilitate interoperability between different chains, in keeping with Base and Optimism Collective’s joint vision for a “superchain”.
Base Neutrality Principles
As per the blog post, Base has come up with its own set of “Base Neutrality Principles”, designed to protect against any one player (namely Coinbase) from exerting undue influence over the Base protocol, thus undermining the benefits of decentralization.
Base Neutrality Principles consist of five new standards.
These include a commitment not to control the crypto that users bridge to and from the chain, a commitment not to preference the order of transactions, a commitment not to use private transaction data for marketing purposes.
Meanwhile, as per a blog post released by Optimism, the Optimism Collective’s native layer-2 blockchain that was also built using the OP Stack, Base and Optimism (otherwise known as the OP Mainnet) will go through upgrades at the same time in order to maintain interoperability.
Base to Share Revenues With Optimism Collective
Base will share a portion of the transaction fees it generates with the Optimism Collective via a smart contract.
Meanwhile, users of Base will also be able to benefit from the issuance of Optimism’s native OP token.
According to Optimism, Base users will be able to earn as much as 118 million OP tokens (worth over $180 million at Thursday’s OP price of around $1.54) over the next six years.
Base wants “to create a virtuous cycle that ensures sustainable funding for the open-source OP Stack and other public goods that enable Base, thereby creating more innovation and growth,” the protocol’s lead at Coinbase Jesse Pollak said in a statement.
Base’s commitment to decentralization and working towards the common good of the Optimism Collective of chains and the broader Ethereum ecosystem will alley concerns felt by some that Coinbase is looking to centralize power in the blockchain space, which crypto purists want to be as decentralized as possible.
Still, as a publicly run company with a fiduciary duty to maximize the profits it delivers to its investors, concerns will remain about how Coinbase plans to monetize its influence over Base.
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