White Star Capital Digital Asset Fund - newsletter #117
Coinbase is building Base, its own Ethereum Layer-2 network
Coinbase Is Building Base, Its Own Ethereum Layer-2 Network
White Star Capital Digital Asset Fund - newsletter #117
Last week, Coinbase launched Base, its own Ethereum-focused Layer 2 network, in a signal that it is entering the decentralised ecosystem and expanding into the developer space. Coinbase, the second biggest centralised exchange by trading volume, has said that Base will be a low-cost, secure environment that serves as a bridge to bring users into the crypto economy. It will allow developers to directly integrate their product with Base and provide fiat onramps. In doing so, it targets the estimated 110 million verified users and $80 billion in assets in the Coinbase ecosystem.
Layer 2s are blockchains built on top of Layer 1 blockchains like Ethereum or Solana, in an effort to reduce the bottlenecks that leave high-throughput volumes prohibitively expensive. They make the blockchain space more accessible, cheaper, and faster, whilst still taking advantage of the security of L1s like Ethereum.
‘The launch of Base reinforces the importance of L2s in growing the blockchain ecosystem’, said Dmitry Shklovsky, co-founder of QuickNode, which is a partner and node provider for Base. ‘More onramps and more equitable, developer-friendly L2s are key health indicators that we are moving in the right direction’, he added.
Though the network will start off highly centralised, Coinbase has released a detailed plan regarding how the network will decentralise over time. In this, it said it is working with Op Labs and Optimism Collective to create a ‘Superchain’ of connecting networks built on the OP stack. In order to bridge users into the crypto economy, the goal is to offer access to other L1 ecosystems like Solana and make it interoperable with other chains, whilst also providing access to Coinbase’s products, users, tools, and fiat on-ramps. Citing Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s post on the decentralisation of rollups, Coinbase considers the current version of Optimism as a ‘Stage 0 rollup’, and expects to progress to Stage 1 by the end of this year.
Coinbase also emphasised that Base will be ‘fully open source and freely available’, joining the OP Stack core dev team in order to ‘ensure it’s a public good available to everyone.’ A number of crypto businesses, platforms, marketplaces and infrastructure firms have committed to building on Base, including Quicknode, Aave, Chainlink, Wormhole, Etherscan, Animoca Brands, Dune, Nansen, Magic Eden, Pyth, Blockdaemon, Rainbow Wallet, Ribbon Finance, and The Graph to name a few released by Techcrunch.
🔦 White Star & Portfolio Spotlight
Thala Lab’s testnet is now live
The testnet launches with two core products: the Move Dollar CDP vaults and ThalaSwap.
Exclusible partner with Shiseido to launch World’s First AI-Powered NFT Community Program In Beauty
Shiseido is amping up its metaverse activations to commemorate its 150th anniversary.
🏦 Enterprises & Institutions
South Korea’s Lotte Group partners with Polygon for global NFT drive
Lotte Group, South Korea’s fifth-largest conglomerate with operations in manufacturing, hotels and e-commerce, plans to expand its non-fungible token (NFT) business onto the global market through a partnership with the Polygon blockchain.
Visa's Crypto Strategy Remains Intact Despite Crypto Winter
The U.S. payment giant denies a Reuters report it is looking to slow down partnerships with crypto companies.
Game Engine Unity Adds Verified Web3 Toolbox for MetaMask, Solana, Dapper Labs
The 3D gaming tech company is highlighting Web3 tools for its massive game developer community.
Google Cloud Broadens Web3 Slate By Joining Tezos ‘Bakers’
The tech giant is already a validator for Solana and Aptos and now has a Web3 fan at the helm of YouTube.
Japan Gets Its Own ‘Metaverse Economic Zone,’ With Help From Fujitsu
The move to create an interoperable metaverse comes soon after the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan published a proposal on Web3 policy.
Two Prime Embraces Crypto Trend-Following Strategy
The SEC-accredited crypto investment manager is betting crypto markets will recover — even if it doesn’t time the bottom.
⚖️ Government & Regulation
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Plans to Let Customers of Its Nonbank Members Trade Crypto
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, or TASE ,which operates Israel's only public equity trading platform, wants to expand authorized activities to allow customers of its nonbanking members to trade crypto.
Coinbase launches grassroots campaign to influence US lawmakers and regulators
Coinbase’s effort to harness the power of people interested in a future where digital assets play an integral part in society comes at a potential crossroads for the crypto industry.
Alchemy Pay obtains license from Central Bank of Indonesia, ACH surge 7%
The Indonesian license was issued jointly to Alchemy Pay and BDPay to allow the firms to offer remittance and fund transfer services.
💰 Funding & Exits
Affine Protocol Raises $5.1M From Industry Heavyweights to Develop DeFi Yield Offering
The round was led by Jump Crypto and Hack VC and included contributions from Circle Ventures and Coinbase Ventures.
Chain Reaction Raises $70M in Series C Funding
The round, which brought total funding to $115M, was led by Morgan Creek Digital and participation from Hanaco Ventures, Jerusalem Venture Partners, KCK Capital, Exor, Atreides Management, and BlueRun Ventures.
Houseparty co-founder raises $25.5 million for Ethereum 'town square' protocol
The startup is building a protocol and app that aims to enable better digital town squares.
Income-Backed DeFi Protocol Huma Finance Raises $8.3M Seed Funding Led by Race Capital and Distributed Global
Huma launches the first on-chain factoring market with launch partners Circle, Superfluid, and Request Network.
Web3 Infrastructure Startup Portal Raises $5.3M
The company emerges from stealth with a roster of backers, including Katie Haun’s investment firm.
10T’s Tapiero Launching Crypto PE Firm Backed by Alan Howard
Dan Tapiero of 10T Holdings is launching a crypto private equity fund amid deeply discounted valuations, targeting a $1 billion capital raise backed by hedge fund billionaire Alan Howard and a host of other prominent investors.
Term Labs Raises $2.5M to Build Out Fixed-Rate Product for DeFi
Term Labs is building out a key primitive for the DeFi space, allowing crypto projects to lock in fixed rates on their idle holdings.
CoinFLEX Claims Blockchain.com Owes Over $4.3M in FLEX
Blockchain.com says the claim is “completely meritless and a work of fiction.”
🚀 Project Launches & Updates
Electronic Arts Founder Trip Hawkins Is Now Making NFT Games
Hawkins has joined startup Games for a Living to help create NFT and token-fueled video games, starting with Elemental Raiders.
Peloton’s Robin Arzón Is Building a Web3 Community Around Working Out
The exercise giant's vice president of fitness programming is soon launching Swagger Society, a Web3 lifestyle membership club that aims to foster a fitness community in Web3.
Bored Ape Yacht Club Creator Yuga Labs Reveals First Bitcoin NFT Project
TwelveFold, a limited series of just 300 generative Ordinals NFT art pieces on Bitcoin, will be auctioned later this week.
Cointelegraph partners with Phaver mobile Web3 social app
The partnership will grant the 200,000+ users across Phaver and other Lens-based Web3 apps access to daily Cointelegraph content.
🔥 Other Bits We're Excited About
Avatars, Get Ready to Strut: Decentraland to Host Second Metaverse Fashion Week
The event will have Dolce & Gabbana and Tommy Hilfiger return with new virtual activations while Coach and Adidas are set to debut their digital wearables on the popular metaverse platform.
Colombia Just Held a Court Hearing in the Metaverse—Cartoon Avatars and All
Colombian lawyers put on virtual headsets to take part, and the meeting was live-streamed on YouTube. Those attending appeared in the meeting as computer-generated avatars.