Coinbase layer-2 network Base closes in on mainnet launch

Base, a new layer 2 application-focused protocol by Coinbase has just one criteria left to fulfil  before being ready for mainnet launch.

On June 29, the team said the Optimism-powered, Ethereum-secured network has been subject to six months of rigorous security audits — both internally and externally — its second-last criteria required for launch.

“With the completion of these audits, we’ve now fulfilled ⅘ of our criteria for mainnet launch,” Base said, adding that they feel confident after not finding any critical code bugs:

“Completing these in-depth security workstreams without discovering critical severity bugs gave the Base team confidence to proceed towards mainnet launch.”

The other three criteria passed included a “Regolith” hard fork in testnet, a successful infrastructure review with OP labs — the team behind Optimism — and Optimism’s “Bedrock” upgrade.

P.S. In case you’re keeping track, with the completion of these audits, we’ve now fulfilled ⅘ of our criteria for mainnet launch…https://t.co/eRarQ4R7zG https://t.co/9o3vNidNtE

— Base ️ (@BuildOnBase) June 29, 2023

Coinbase officially launched Base on February 23, which aims to be a low-cost, secure, developer-friendly network for building decentralized applications.

To “battle-test” Optimism’s tech stack, Coinbase’s protocol security team conducted its own internal audit to identify any vulnerabilities that may emerge on layer 1, layer 2 and on the bridges.

In addition to Coinbase's internal audit, Base invited the broader community to partake in a public smart contract audit test via Code4rena to report bugs found in the Optimism’s tech stack:

“We engaged over 100 security researchers as part of this contest, and are happy to report there were no significant vulnerabilities discovered.”

Among the audits investigated by the security researchers included Optimism’s node software, Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) equivalence vulnerabilities, bridge vulnerabilities and miscellaneous smart contract issues.

We’ve detailed…
How we’re secured by the OP stack
Our experience with both internal and external audits
The development of our open-source monitoring tool
What it means to launch mainnet with this security first mindset

— Base ️ (@BuildOnBase) June 29, 2023

The community audit ran from May 27 to June 10 with a maximum of $100,000 in rewards handed out to successful bounty hunters.

Demonstrating “testnet stability” is the final criteria that needs to be passed prior to mainnet launch, according to a previous post from Base.

While Base didn’t state how the final criteria would be fulfilled exactly, the team said that they’re still reviewing submissions from the 100 researchers that took part in the public smart contract audit in addition to reviews from past audit programs — namely “spearbit” and “sherlock.”

Base added that they’ve built Pessimism, an open source monitoring tool which aims to notify builders of any anomalies that may arise in the protocol, such as account balance irregularities, contract events, or disparities between L1 and L2 states.

Related: Coinbase CEO says Bitcoin Lightning is 'something we’ll integrate'

In late March, Coinbase said they want to see an inflation-pegged “flatcoin,” an on-chain reputation system and an on-chain limit order book exchange built on Base.

Many considered the development of Base to be a “massive vote of confidence for Ethereum” when the news was first announced in late February.

Secured on Ethereum and powered by layer-2 network Optimism, Base aims to eventually become a network for building decentralized applications.

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