Rapid Insights: Base Sees Significant Activity After Soft Launch

Base, Coinbase’s Layer 2 (L2), has recently soft-launched its mainnet for builders. Builders who deploy contracts on Base’s soft launch are eligible to mint the Genesis Builder NFT. Although Base is currently developer-focused, it is already starting to gain significant traction. Since its testnet launch in February, numerous protocols have begun building on Base. With this mainnet launch, there is now public access to Base’s RPC, so technically, users can already choose to transact on Base if they wish to, which many have done.

However, there is no dedicated user-friendly interface for bridging funds to Base yet, so the only viable method for bridging is to send Ether directly to Base’s portal proxy contract. More importantly, it should be noted that this is currently a one-way bridge, meaning there are no publicly available methods for users to withdraw capital they deposited on Base. It is not specified when a withdrawal function will be ready, though it will likely be soon after the official mainnet launch scheduled for August 2023.