The cryptocurrency space witnessed the rise of a little-known coin with the Coinbase announcement. Base Protocol (BASE) experienced a significant increase of over 230 percent after a big announcement by Coinbase. The announcement was about the launch of a new Ethereum layer-2 (L2) network called Base, which aims to provide a secure, low-cost and developer-friendly way for anyone to build decentralized applications (dApps) anywhere. Here are the details…
Coinbase announcement raises BASE
The cryptocurrency community on Twitter was inundated with reactions to Coinbase’s latest announcement of the launch of a tier 2 solution in Optimism. As we have reported as Kriptokoin.com, the new Ethereum layer-2 solution is called Base. However, it shares its name with a cryptocurrency project called Base Protocol. Because of this, the value of the BASE token increased, unrelated to what Coinbase was talking about in its announcement.
Base Protocol is a token with a price fixed to the total crypto market cap. The 1/1 trillion rate allows traders to speculate about the entire crypto industry with a single token. The protocol’s BASE token rose 347 percent to $7.46 from around $1.67 on February 23 prior to the Coinbase announcement. This move also brought prices closer to BASE’s all-time high of $7.98 in March 2022.
However, realizing their mistake, traders started selling the token. As a result, the coin dropped to $2.03. Still, the price action marked a daily increase of 19 percent for the token. It also attracted attention that the unrelated BASE token started to move long before the Coinbase announcement. That’s why speculation arose that there was “insider trading” on Coinbase.
Coinbase’s layer-2 announcement was welcomed
The reaction of the crypto community to the Coinbase announcement was overwhelmingly bullish. Partnering with Optimism, the company aims to engage more than one billion users on Web3. Basic users will be able to interact securely with Ethereum and other layer-1 and 2 networks. On February 24, Cinneamhain Ventures partner Adam Cochran suggested the move would “break the ground”. He suggested that the Coinbase L2 network could become the new industry standard.
Anthony Sassano, a prominent member of the Ethereum community, tweeted about Coinbase’s new network. He stated that this is an important step towards making on-chain the next online platform and engaging one billion users in the crypto economy. The tweet went on to explain that Base will be backed by Ethereum and will not have a token. Still, this hasn’t deterred speculators from piling on the token.
Ethereum advocate Ryan Berckmans explained why this is a “big deal” for ETH. He suggested that in a multi-chain world, a single all-encompassing platform would likely rise to the top. Syncracy Capital co-founder Ryan Watkins said the Coinbase move is “a turning point in the evolution of Ethereum’s rollup ecosystem.” However, there was no reaction in ETH prices and it was traded at $ 1,648, losing 1 percent on the day.