Coinbase Token Coming Soon? Jesse Pollak Reveals Coinbase’s Layer 2 Strategy

We've seen a lot of people kind of use tokens as this way of driving incentives for customers to use the product. And I think one of the risks there is that you actually dilute your ability to be like, is the product working on its own. We don't want to be off to a silo, you know, just a corporate chain that, you know, is in our own world. We wanted to be connected, so that's why we built on Ethereum. We're really excited about the progress so far. Still, day one though, we have a lot more work to do.

It's not really day one. It's been around for a long time, Jesse. First things first, base hit 16 billion. I believe it is TVL in 2025. So far it's been really successful since its launch. Did you anticipate it going this way?

You know, you can never really be quite sure what's going to happen. And when we launched Base, we were nervous. You know, it was the first time really a scaled player like Coinbase had been launching an open chain, a global economy. But I think at the same time we had a lot of confidence that there were builders out there who wanted to be a part of building something that could change the way the world works. And so the know as we laid out the mission of building a global economy, I think we've seen those builders gravitate. It's led to new apps that people are actually using, solving real problems for consumers and businesses and that's driving the growth. And so we're really excited about the progress so far. Still day one though, we have a lot more work to do and excited to get to work.

Still. It's not really day one. It's been, it's been around for a long time. Can you tell us a bit about the Genesis story and like how things have gone from, from inception to where they are now?

Yeah. So we're about two and a half years into the journey of Base. You know, it really started for me about five years into my career at Coinbase. I've been leading all the consumer products, Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, Coinbase Wallet on the engineering side. And after five years of doing that, I took a step back and really had the thought of like, what would it look like if we took Coinbase, which has started in 2012, so crypto company, but also in many ways built before smart contracts existed, before on chain was this concept and reimagined it on chain and we went through a bunch of iteration ideas for about a year and after a bunch of trying, failing learning. We ultimately realized that in order to bring Coinbase on chain, we needed platform where Coinbase could build, where other builders could build that could, you know, have the scale, the ease of use that would actually meet Coinbase's needs. And so that was the origination of Base. We launched the testnet in February of 2023, mainnet a few months later in August and then it's been off to the races. And so it's really been from the beginning a focus on how do we make this something really useful for builders so they can build better apps for consumers. So it's just easy to use this new toolkit that's emerging on Chain and for all of the new classes, like creators, like traders, who I think are starting to see the benefits as well.

If you'd had another year worth of time, would you have maybe looked to do something with ZKs instead of optimism? If I understand the technicalities correctly, no.

I think when we started Base we had a few things that were guiding us. One was this idea that we want to be a bridge, non island. I mean that's about being connected to the rest of the crypto economy. We don't want to be off to a silo, just a corporate chain that is in our own world. We want to be connected. So that's why we built on Ethereum. It's also why we built on the OP stack with optimism. And I think the other thing that really drove that was we felt like the best way to build a chain was to use the best in class technology, but build it in such a way where as that best in class evolved and matured, we could have the capability to kind of flex in through modularity. And so that was what the OP stack offered to us. It started with fault proofs which are kind of like best in class. In parallel we've been working to develop ZK VMs, a lot of learnings there. And now as we're looking towards the next chapter of Base, you know, we're going to be able to swap in more proving types, we're going to be able to improve finality, we're able to solve a lot of these hard technology problems not by totally starting from scratch, but instead by saying, hey, here's how we can do a new proving layer and make an impact. Here's how we can switch up to the finality settings, here's how we can bring in other capabilities. And so I think that incremental strategy has really paid off.

You made waves recently with the announcement that Base was considering launching its own token. And that tweet was hilarious, like some of the videos that went around and one of the comments that really got me is like, this guy thinks he's Steve Jobs sitting on stage talking about an Apple product. But like, it really is that. Can you tell us a little bit about why BASE would need a token, what that would look like? And, and realistically, when and how.

When we started base, we made a really conscious decision from the beginning to not be thinking about a token. And there were two things that drove that. One was that we felt like it could be a distraction from the product. We've seen a lot of people kind of use tokens as this way of driving incentives for customers to use the product. And I think one of the risks there is that you actually dilute your ability to be like, is the product working on its own. And so we really wanted to stay focused on just building a great platform for builders, great consumer experiences. And then the other thing was that, you know, I think that when you start with this monetary financial incentive, you can end up having kind of almost perverse incentives for people participating. Maybe they're there just for the money, they're extrinsically motivated rather than there for the mission, ready to build for the long term. And so that's what held us back. We wanted to just focus on building a great product and building a really strong long term community. I think now, two and a half years in, as we built our base, you know, as a global economy, I think we've solved a bunch of those problems, right? We now have a product, it's growing, people love it. We built the muscle for how to build that product. We have this community of tens of thousands of builders all around the world who are culture carriers and believe in this mission of building a global economy. And so as we thought about, okay, how do we continue to achieve our mission, you know, build a global economy, we need to be decentralized. We want all the participants, like builders and creators and traders, to be aligned in growing it. And we want to continue being at the cutting edge of crypto because that's what we've always been. And so through that lens, it felt like starting to explore a token with kind of like full eyes wide open, listening to feedback, figuring out what the right strategy could be. Like, now is the right time and that's exactly what we're going to do.

Let's talk about some of the criticisms though. There's plenty of people out there in the industry are like, why does an L2 need its own token. When you know, like, what's the real purpose? How much do you look at the criticism that you guys get and how much do you take on the chin? Because, I mean, it can be pretty brutal out there.

Yeah. You know, I think people are always going to have thoughts about what we're building, but I think when you look at the track record for base, we've consistently been unafraid to believe in what we believe in and then go and execute against it. And if people have opinions about it, they're welcome to share them, but we're just going to keep building. And so I think when it comes to a token, you know, we, after announcing the token, brought up a few builders. The founder of Aerodrome, the founder of zora, had a product at Virtuals, and the reason why we brought them up to have a conversation was when you look at the way they've launched tokens, they've really pioneered what's possible. They've thought about how do we integrate the token deeply into the actual product, into the economy, how do we make it so it is on Chain native, There's these value flows that exist. How do we do new, innovative things like pairing models in ZORA and in Virtuals? And so that's the inspiration we're looking towards. It's like, how do we make it so that whatever we do, we're pushing the industry forward and we're paving the way for more people? And I think that that's what we've done with the chain. When you look at the two and a half years, how everyone else has kind of followed Coinbase and the work we've done on base, and I think it's what we have the opportunity to do with the token, if that's what we decide to do.

On a personal note, you have a very.