Coinbase has announced significant changes to the infrastructure of the Base Ethereum Layer-2 network.
The company announced that it will be moving away from the current OP Stack architecture on which Base is built and moving to an “unified Base Stack” structure that will be fully operated by Base.
OP Price Falls After Coinbase Announces Deprecation of OP Stack Architecture
Following this development, the price of Optimism (OP) fell sharply.
This transition requires node operators to follow the version published through Base’s own GitHub repository, base/base, rather than the Optimism release. Coinbase says more detailed information will be provided closer to the transition date.
Base was initially launched on the OP Stack developed by Optimism. Over time, features like Flashblock were integrated through collaboration with ecosystem representatives such as Flashbot and Paradigm.
However, this model produced a complex structure with a large number of external dependencies. Coinbase is currently aiming to create a simpler and more controllable infrastructure by moving to a unified Base stack architecture that brings all dependencies and future innovations together in one place.
The company added that Base’s rapid growth has been driven by the world-class technology provided by OP Stack, and that it will now move towards a more independent and agile development process.
Coinbase says this transformation has three main objectives.
Thanks to the new structure, smaller, more frequent hard forks (6 times a year) are planned instead of 3 major hard forks a year. This allows for more controlled and regular updates, rather than risk accumulating all at once.
The goal is to reduce the protocol specification and codebase to a level that can be understood by a single developer. The aim is to minimize cognitive load by focusing only on the needs of the Base.
Coinbase takes the approach that “if Ethereum wins, base wins.” In this context, we plan to implement some high-impact updates to Base prior to L1 to provide data for the Ethereum roadmap.
No immediate action is required from the user at this time. Base will continue to operate according to the OP Stack specification and existing RPC will continue to be supported.
