Bridged assets to Coinbase's Layer 2 top $100 million

Coinbase's Base has seen more than $100 million in value bridged over to the Layer2.

As per L2beat, $111 million in crypto assets have bridged over to Base. Coinbase, which announced the launch of its own Layer 2 to scale out the Ethereum blockchain in February, said on August 3 that it would widen mainnet access next week in conjunction with the release of a bridge to Ethereum.

Releasing an official bridge introduces a way for users to move tokens between the Base network and Ethereum. It is still early days for the optimistic rollup-based Layer 2, with its fraud proof system still under development.  Fraud proofs allow users to challenge the validity of transactions or state updates on the blockchain. If someone submits an invalid transaction or state update, others can provide proof that it's fraudulent.

Base's roll out is part of what Coinbase is describing as "Onchain Summer," which will see a number of brands--including Coca-Cola and OpenSea--collaborate with the crypto exchange on on-chain events. 

As reported by The Block's Vishal Chawla, Base’s developer-only mainnet went live on July 13 and was primarily accessible to developers. However, in the lead-up to the official launch, several users bridged assets to the network using a portal proxy contract and other unofficial bridges to trade new memecoins. That lead to a surge in activity on the network. 

Memecoins and profits

It also led to a surge in profits generated by the Ethereum scaling solution. Profits generated from Base increased from around $13,000 on July 29 to over $430,000 on July 30. 

In its second quarter earnings letter to shareholders, Coinbase pointed to Base as an initiative that illustrates the firm's ambitions to expand its business outside of trading. 

"Base is an investment in blockchain infrastructure which we expect will drive down transaction costs and increase transaction speed – key attributes we believe will unlock new use cases over time," the letter reads.