Base becomes the primary chain for all financial actions on Coinbase

Coinbase is going all-in on Base. The exchange is building a unified system where every financial action, whether it happens on the main Coinbase platform or in Coinbase Wallet, runs through its Layer 2 network.

The move cements Base as what its head, Jesse Pollak, has called “the blockchain for global finance.”

The numbers behind the consolidation

Base has hit roughly $5.7 billion in total value locked across decentralized finance protocols, an all-time high for the network.

The network has also established itself as a leader in stablecoin transfers. Base also accounts for a substantial share of Coinbase’s on-chain activity. The platform has cited the network’s rapid transaction speeds and low fees as core reasons for the consolidation.

The Coinbase Wallet pivot

One of the more interesting chapters in this story is the Coinbase Wallet rebrand. Coinbase had previously spun the wallet experience out as the “Base App,” an experiment that tried to position the wallet as a social-first product tied directly to the Base network’s identity. That experiment ran for about a year.

It didn’t work. On September 10, Coinbase reversed course and brought the product back under the Coinbase Wallet brand. The social-first angle apparently underperformed expectations.

The revived Coinbase Wallet now emphasizes multichain trading while still using Base as the dominant platform for asset discovery and trading activities.

Institutional muscle: J.P. Morgan on Base

Perhaps the most telling signal about Base’s trajectory isn’t consumer-facing at all. J.P. Morgan has initiated pilots using its JPMD deposit tokens on the Base network, targeting 24/7 instant settlements with near-zero transaction costs.

Building its own tech stack

Base originally launched on the OP Stack, the open-source framework developed by Optimism that powers several major Layer 2 networks. In early 2026, the team moved away from that dependency and transitioned to its own proprietary technology stack.

The token question that won’t go away

One thing Base conspicuously does not have is its own token. Despite ongoing discussions and speculation about a potential Base network token, no such asset has been launched. Users transact using ETH for gas fees on the network, and Coinbase has not signaled an imminent change to that arrangement.

It also means that Base’s growth has been entirely organic in the sense that there’s no token farming or airdrop hunting inflating the activity metrics. When a DeFi protocol on Base shows $5.7 billion in TVL, that capital showed up without the lure of a future token reward.

What this means for the competitive landscape

Coinbase’s consolidation around Base reshapes the Layer 2 competition. Networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, and newer entrants now face a competitor that comes pre-loaded with the distribution of one of the world’s largest exchanges. Every new Coinbase user is a potential Base user by default.

For traders, the unified system should translate to lower friction and reduced costs when moving between Coinbase’s custodial services and self-custody in the wallet. The multichain trading capabilities mean users aren’t locked into Base exclusively.

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