Coinbase to move customer and corporate USDC accounts to Base

Coinbase will begin moving its customers and corporate US dollar coin (USDC) stablecoin accounts to Base – its Ethereum layer-2 blockchain launched seven months ago.

Coinbase Vice President Max Branzberg posted on X on March 26 that the move will allow the crypto exchange to “manage and secure customer funds with lower fees and faster settlement times.

The change only affects Coinbase.com accounts – not Coinbase Wallet, as users are responsible for their own private keys.

Currently, Coinbase.com user tokens are held by Coinbase in a wallet secured by a multi-party algorithm.

Branzberg emphasized that Coinbase always holds customer assets 1:1 and does not lend money unless instructed to do so.

Coinbase's move to on-chain paves the way for an on-chain financial system in the future, explained David Hoffman, co-host of Ethereum-focused show Bankless, in a March 26 X post.

Bankless co-founder Ryan Sean Adams believed the move would set an example for cryptocurrency exchanges and banks to follow suit.

“Every asset is a symbol of the future. […] Every bank is a chain of the future,” added Sean Adams.

Not everyone is in the movement, though.

User X suggested “callmeKappa.algo” Base is too centralized in its current state.

Related: Base TVL doubles in one month. When researchers give memecoins to drive adoption

According to L2BEAT data, Coinbase is currently the sole successor to Base – meaning the chain is fully controlled by the exchange.

However, the organization has expressed its desire to decentralize the base from time to time.

Base was launched as an Ethereum scaling solution on August 9, 2023. It uses optimistic rolls to store transaction data off-chain and push transactions into the Ethereum base layer.

Coinbase opened up Base's code in October to increase transparency and accountability

Currently, the fourth-largest Ethereum layer 2 is locked in at $2.63 billion in total value, trailing only Arbitrum, Optimism and Blast, L2BEAT reports.

Base hit a peak of 2 million daily transactions on March 16. Daily new user figures also continue to rise.

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