Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has unveiled a plan to pursue decentralization and neutrality for its new “Base” blockchain a few weeks after the network went live.
The new framework is called the Base Neutrality Principles. According to a Coinbase blog post, these principles are intended to align with Optimism’s “Law of the Chain,” which aims to unify the various chains built under the project’s “superchain” vision. (The foundation was built using technology from the Optimism OP Stack.)
The release of the program demonstrates the subtleties of Coinbase’s approach to developing its own blockchain, uncharted territory for a publicly traded company; the challenge is how to reap the benefits of owning a relevant network without exerting undue control over it, thereby undermining the purported benefits of decentralization.
The Base Neutrality Principles consist of five standards, and Coinbase says it will work to “develop a set of standards for all OP Stack blockchains and ensure that both builders and users have access to Base’s neutral and open block space.”
The exchange said it will not control users’ cryptocurrencies on Base, nor will it prioritize the order of transactions that occur on the blockchain. Coinbase also promises not to use private transaction data for marketing purposes and will not place any restrictions on Base users to withdraw or cash out.
In their own blog post, the team behind Optimism said that Base’s commitment to the superchain vision means that the Base and OP mainnets will undergo the same upgrades so that the blockchains remain compatible with each other. Transaction fees will also be split, with a portion of them going to the Optimism Collective via smart contracts.
According to Optimism, Base users will have the ability to earn up to about 118 million OP tokens (currently worth about $183 million) in six years.
In a blog post, Base’s founder Jesse Pollak said, “We want to create a virtuous cycle that ensures sustainable funding for the open-source OP Stack and other public products that support Base, thereby creating more innovation and growth.”
