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Coinbase (COIN), the prominent publicly traded U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, has announced the successful launch of its novel Base blockchain. This marks the commencement of a transformative era wherein publicly listed corporations operate their own decentralized networks.

While Base had already been accessible for developer testing, Coinbase officials had announced its public availability from 12 p.m. ET on Wednesday, a deadline that has now elapsed.

The recent strategic initiative by Coinbase, a company renowned for its closely monitored cryptocurrency stocks, has the potential to not only generate fees through the operation of its own blockchain but also tap into a potentially more substantial income source derived from applications developed on top of it, according to company executives.

In 2016, Coinbase's CEO, Brian Armstrong, outlined a visionary "secret master plan" in which the company's fourth developmental stage would be driven by "decentralized apps" (dapps) intended to impact a global audience of one billion individuals. This strategy came to fruition when the company successfully conducted a direct listing of its shares on the Nasdaq exchange in April 2021.

In an interview on Tuesday, Jesse Pollak, who holds the position of Coinbase's Head of Protocols and is in charge of Base, revealed that a staggering 100 dapps have either been deployed or are poised for launch on the fresh network.

"Historically, the aperture of what people can do with crypto has been relatively limited, mostly speculation," Pollak said. "In order for Coinbase and crypto and this work that we're doing to have the impact that we all want, we need to move from the place where this is speculation to a place where this is integrated into every part of someone's day-to-day existence."

Coinbase has unveiled its intentions for an "Onchain Summer" campaign in conjunction with the Base launch, in collaboration with esteemed corporate allies such as Coca-Cola (KO). This strategic move aims to showcase the impressive capabilities of the new project.

Base L2 ranking

The latest Base network can be described as a "layer 2" blockchain, constructed on the foundation of the Ethereum blockchain. It employs the OP Stack software derived from Optimism, a widely acclaimed layer 2 network.

Before even making its public debut, the newly established Base network had already amassed a substantial $139 million in deposits within various apps and protocols, as reported by the cryptocurrency analysis firm L2Beat.

The "total value locked" (TVL), a widely used metric for assessing blockchains and protocols, places Base as the fifth most prominent layer-2 blockchain in terms of TVL. Leading the list is Arbitrum One with approximately $6 billion, followed by OP Mainnet at $2.9 billion, zkSync Era at $430 million, and dYdX with $336 million.