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Dear Bankless Nation,
Back in February, crypto exchange giant Coinbase announced Base.Â
Itâs a layer-two (L2) Ethereum scaling solution built on Optimismâs OP Stack tech and part of Coinbaseâs mission to help create an open financial system for the world.Â
As of today, the L2âs now officially open for bridging ahead of a full network launch + an âOnchain Summerâ fest planned for next week, August 9th.Â
For this post, letâs talk the basics and key resources so you can prepare for the coming Base NFT boom!
-WMP
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Base operates as a permissionless L2, open to all developers and users, settling on Ethereum, and with Coinbase initially being the sole sequencer at genesis but with plans to decentralize over time.Â
Despite the recent $BALD memecoin frenzy, Baseâs real appeal lies in its potential to onboard Coinbaseâs established user base into web3, providing a frictionless transition from centralized to decentralized apps.
Learn more: Read Unpacking the Coinbase L2 Opportunity and The Base Case in Bankless
Want to unlock $1,000+ in Citizen deals and perks across crypto?
Before now, only a one-way and unofficial bridge into Base was live for developers.Â
However, today, August 3rd, the Base team announced the opening of the two-way Base Bridge in preparation for the full public launch of Base on Wednesday, August 9th. The bridge currently supports ETH (which you use to pay for gas on Base), cbETH, DAI, and USDC.Â
Keep in mind, if youâre getting ready to bridge in and start exploring Base, you may need to add the L2 to your wallet. If youâve downloaded the Coinbase Wallet app or extension, youâre already set as the wallet now natively supports Base. Otherwise you can use a service like Chainlist to add Base to your MetaMask, etc.Â
Itâs an opportune time to get ready here, as lots of activity is set to take place across the L2 in the coming days.Â
âOver the next week, youâll begin to see dapps across the onchain ecosystem turn on Base support and new ones launch,â the L2 teamâs latest announcement noted.Â
To celebrate the official launch of Base, the L2âs team is putting on an unprecedented, month-long Onchain Summer festival starting on August 9th.Â
The event will bring together â50 of the best builders, brands, products, artists, and creatorsâ in the space and will feature âsomething fun to do onchainâ every day the festivities are running.
Among Baseâs Onchain Summer partners are mainstream brands like Coca-Cola and Atari, and many crypto and NFT projects are on the slate too including Bonfire, Fini, Highlight, Parallel, Manifold, OpenSea, Optimism, Rainbow, and Zora.Â
Additionally, to kick off the event the Base team is launching over 100 ETH worth of grants through Prop House, which was created by Nouns DAO as a public community funding system where people can bid on ETH with ideas. The grants will be spread across tracks: Onchain Summer, Build on Base, Based Accounts (ERC-4337), and Stand with Crypto.
If you havenât minted anything on Base yet, youâre in luck. Youâve got options now, and theyâre growing fast. But where to start?
For the next month, you can use the provided interface at onchainsummer.xyz to mint the free âBridge ETH to Baseâ NFT (seen in the screenshot above) and simultaneously bridge however much ETH you want to Base. This is one straightforward place to begin.Â
Another similar opportunity, the Base Bridge Pass, is currently available via mint discovery platform mint.fun. Mintable until August 31st, this drop lets you mint an NFT that in turn automatically triggers a small amount of ETH being sent to your walletâs address on Base.Â
Over the next month, weâll undoubtedly see a considerable surge of Base NFT activity.
I presume the aforementioned festival partners like OpenSea and the mint suites of Highlight, Manifold, and Zora will be adding support for the L2 in short order, and such integrations will generally make it a lot easier for creators and collectors to dive into Base.  Â
And, again, these integrations are just a few of the deployments we can expect in the coming days. There are already dozens of projects that are lined up for deployment here, so donât sleep on the Base app scene in the weeks ahead! There will be many NFT intrigues ahead.Â
A Bankless Citizen â turned $264 into $6,077 last year. A 22x ROI đ in a bear market!
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Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here.
