In brief
- Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin praised Coinbase’s L2 network Base for “doing things the right way” by balancing centralized UX improvements with Ethereum’s decentralized security.
- Base has grown to hold $15 billion in assets since debuting in August 2023, though it peaked above $16 billion earlier this year.
- Critics argue Base’s centralized aspects could theoretically allow fund theft, but Buterin defended L2 networks as “extensions of Ethereum” that provide non-custodial security.
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin had kind words for Coinbase’s incubated L2 Base on Tuesday, saying the network is “doing things the right way.”
Buterin argued the network has been using its centralized aspects to provide better UX for users while still relying on Ethereum’s decentralized base layer for security.
“I feel like many people have been confused by recent cynicism and think that things like L2Beat are a weird sort of nerd-sharia compliance authority,” Buterin added. “This is NOT what is going on. The security that L2s provide, that L2Beat measures, reflects concrete properties that protect you as a user from being rugged.”
An L2, or layer-2, is a network built on top of another blockchain—in this case, Ethereum. They’re designed to process transactions in batches off of a mainnet, usually faster and cheaper, and then send confirmation back to the L1.
After debuting in August 2023, the network has grown to hold $15 billion worth of assets. That’s not an all-time high, though. In January, May, and a few times over the summer, the total value of assets on the network has inched above $16 billion.
Other popular Ethereum L2s include Arbitrum and Optimism. In fact, Base was built with the OP Stack, which is the open source tech framework developed by Optimism.
Despite using an open source tech stack, Base has still been criticized for having been incubated by a centralized exchange. One of the common narratives has been that because it’s centralized, Base could theoretically steal all user funds.
“Base CAN instantly steal ALL user funds,” wrote CyberCapital founder and CIO Justin Bons in response to Buterin’s praise on X. “The SC admin key is controlled by a “security council.”
Buterin highlighted the popular L2 analytics project, L2Beat, which tracks security, throughput, and active users on L2 networks. When Base proponents have used data on the site to defend the network, detractors instead turned to criticizing the L2 data project.
“This is what we mean when we say that L2s are non-custodial,” Buterin said, “they are extensions of Ethereum, not glorified servers that happen to submit hashes.”
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
