Base Inks Profit Sharing Deal With Optimism

Coinbase and Optimism have reached a strategic profit-sharing agreement for Base, Coinbase’s OP Stack-based Layer 2 network.

Base will share either 15% of gross profits generated or 2.5% of its total revenue from transaction sequencing — whichever is greater — with the Optimism Collective.

“This collaboration [with Optimism] has allowed us to build Base on an open source codebase that will scale Ethereum and further the entire on-chain ecosystem,” Base said.

Base can also earn up to 2.75% of the OP token supply for its contributions to the Optimism Collective. The tokens will also enable Base to participate in on-chain governance, with its voting power limited to a maximum of 9%.

The agreement also outlines that upgrades to the Base protocol can only be authorized by a two-of-two multisig requiring signatures from both Base and the Optimism Foundation.

Superchain

In June, Optimism launched the OP Stack, a modular framework for deploying Layer 2 networks. Optimism invites networks built leveraging the OP Stack to participate in the “Superchain,” a unified ecosystem of OP Stack-based chains that Optimism plans to progressively roll out from its next upgrade. Base also acts as a core developer for the OP Stack.

“Chains that are part of the Superchain will allow builders and users to transact and move across chains easily and affordably, creating a consistent user experience and laying the groundwork for teams everywhere to build a decentralized future,” Base said.

On Aug. 24, Coinbase also published the “Law of Chains,” a common set of standards for Superchain protocols. The standards include commitments to neutrality, decentralization, and a free market for transaction ordering.

Base’s Meteoric Rise

Base has rocketed to prominence since completing its mainnet launch on Aug. 9.

It ranked as the top L2 by transaction throughput on Aug. 21, even beating out Ethereum by 24-hour activity, according to L2beat. The network is currently the third most active L2 processing 7.7 transactions per second (TPS) over the past day, closely following Arbitrum and zkSync Era.

The network has a total value locked of $244M, ranking fifth among Ethereum L2s.

Base and Optimism are also working on building an open-source monitoring stack, “Pessimism,” to ensure the security of the OP Stack.