Coinbase's Base mainnet has been made accessible to developers, as stated in a blog post by the network's development team on July 13. The decision to open up the network to builders before its public release was intended to provide users with more time. The team also announced that the network is scheduled to launch publicly in August.
Base was initially introduced by Coinbase on February 23 as a layer 2 solution for Ethereum, utilizing the OP Stack software employed by Optimism. The Ethereum community welcomed the news, considering it a significant endorsement of the Ethereum ecosystem.
In the recent announcement, the team revealed that the Base mainnet now features two operational block explorers and an official RPC node, enabling users to read data and transmit transactions. Blockchain data shows that the network has been active since July 2 and has processed over 1 million transactions. The team has deployed the official "OptimismPortal" bridge contract on Ethereum, which allows developers to transfer Ethereum and pay gas fees on the new network. However, the bridge currently lacks a web-based user interface (UI), limiting its functionality to command-line interfaces and script execution.
During the initial "builder" phase, the team has chosen not to provide a public bridge with a UI, reserving this feature for an upcoming public release. They have requested developers not to create their own bridges for applications until the official UI is launched. As part of the event, developers have the opportunity to mint a commemorative non-fungible token (NFT) called "Base is for builders." Additionally, the team is giving away a "Genesis Builder NFT" to developers who deploy a contract on the network and fill out a form on the project website.
Optimism Labs, the creator of the OP Stack, envisions a future where Base and Optimism merge to form a "superchain" consisting of multiple networks sharing the same security capabilities. However, they may face competition from zkSync's "Hyperchain," a similar solution in development that offers comparable features to Base.
