Yesterday you could read in the crypto news that the large American listed crypto exchange Coinbase had announced its own blockchain. The network called Base is one layer-2 layer on top of Ethereum (ETH) that should make it easier to develop decentralized applications (dApps).
It was made clear that the crypto exchange currently has no plans to release its own token for Base. Despite this, many crypto investors associated the Ethereum-based token Base Protocol (BASE) with Coinbase’s new blockchain.
Base Protocol rises 250% and drops immediately
The price of Base Protocol is tied to the market cap of all cryptocurrencies at a ratio of 1:1 trillion. Base Protocol was launched in December 2020 and therefore has no relation to the new one layer-2 network of Coinbase. Nevertheless, the price managed to skyrocket by a total of about 270% after the Coinbase news was released, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Before the news from Coinbase was known, the price was still trading around $1.90, but within hours it had just passed $7.
The increase did not last long as the price managed to reach the same level as before the Coinbase news last night. At the time of writing, the price is therefore at $1.79: about 75% lower than the previous high.
Ethereum layer-2 network
The Ethereum layer-2 network is built using the OP Stack, a toolkit for the Optimism (OP) network. The OP price therefore shot up with a total of 16% after the news came out.
The chain will be integrated into the exchange, wallet, non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace and developer products and plans to be interoperable with other blockchains in the ecosystem outside of Ethereum, such as Solana (SOL). The ultimate goal is to bring more than 1 billion users to the crypto economy.