Base Update from Jesse Pollak - Devconnect

Hola, hola. Hola.

If you can hear me in the back, say base. [cheering]

Yeah, let's get the energy up. Uh Jessie Jessie Beginning of present. as to elundo onchain totalto mundo all the builders all the creators everyone benefiting from this new global economy that we're all building together and a big part of that is the work that we've been doing over the last many years to work with Ethereum and so I'm going to talk for the first few minutes about Ethereum and our collaboration there. And then I'm going to talk for the second half of this talk about what we're doing in Latin America and what we're seeing here in terms of growth of onchain adoption. And the really exciting thing is that Bass has come a long way from where we were two and a half years ago.

When we launched Bass 2 and a half years ago, um Bass was just oh a simple chain. Uh since then we've come a long way. Today Bass is fast with 200 millisecond block times. It's incredibly low cost with a tenth of a cent median fees. We've been scaling uh I'm going to talk about that in a second.

We're global decentralized um and I'm hugely hugely grateful for the collaboration that we've done with Ethereum as part of this. Now, as we think about working with Ethereum, our goal with BAS is to push Ethereum. We are at the front of trying to onboard as many people as we possibly can into this global economy that we're building together. And as we do that, we are figuring out what works, what doesn't work, and how do we make the technology better? And there's three big axes that we've been doing this alongside Ethereum.

The first is scaling. The second is decentralizing. And the third is simplifying. On the scaling front, we've grown base capacity to 150 mega gas a second. We just doubled it in the last three weeks.

We've been doing that by open sourcing the tools that we're building, including a new state DB called Try DB and a new benchmarking tool called base benchmark. And then we've also been contributing to FACA and other Ethereum scaling initiatives that push blob capacity forward so that we can keep scaling alongside other L2s on Ethereum. On the decentralizing side, we're continuing to find faster, more secure ways for the base bridge to settle to Ethereum. Excited about the progress that we're making there and a path that we have in 2026 towards stage two. But I think the one thing that I'm probably most excited about is the work that we've been doing simplifying because one of the really interesting things that we have from our perspective on base is that we are working on an app with the base app and we're also working on a chain with the base chain.

And what that means is that as we're trying to bring the app to millions of users, we're seeing firsthand what works, what doesn't work, and where we need to make technical investments to simplify their user experience. And there's three big ones that we've made over the last few years and that we're pushing in the year ahead. The first is that we've massively simplified the wallet experience with ERC5792. This is a really powerful wallet API for doing things like batch transactions and other capabilities. So you can distill down a really complex action that you want a user to do into one simple transaction.

This is what's actually powering all of Coinbase's onchain borrow and lend products. so that they do five transactions batched into one. It's also an emerging standard across the Ethereum ecosystem to make it easier for people to transact on chain. The second thing that we're doing that I'm really excited about is we are rolling out EIP7702 to our entire economy. Uh right now uh over the last week we've onboarded 25,000 EOAS to smart wallets.

Over the next couple months we will do millions of EOAs to smart wallets. This is all part of the process of moving our existing Coinbase wallet and BASAX customers from EOAS to smart wallets and we are seeing firsthand how powerful an improvement this is for user experience. And then the third thing is that we're really working to simplify payments. Uh, a recent standard we've been pushing called ERC850 is a one-tap payment standard that lets you compress all this really important metadata for payments into a single QR code URI that makes it so you can either scan or tap to do really complex payments at any in-person environment. And so this standards work is really critical work not just for Bass, not just for Ethereum, but for our entire ecosystem because when we uplift these standards together, we're able to deliver a much better user experience.

And we need that better user experience if we're going to bring billions of people on chain. And so that's Ethereum. I'm super proud of the work that we are doing together. But I'm not here just to talk about Ethereum. The reason I just flew down and got off the plane this morning and I'm here for 48 hours is because I believe that Argentina and Latin America will be at the center of the onchain economy.

And there's two reasons I believe this. The first is because it's already happening. If you look at the total transaction volume of crypto in Latin America, it is growing up and to the right. We saw more than a trillion half dollars of transactions over the last year. That's billions and billions every single day.

And that number is growing. But the truth is that the number is big, but we're still at the very, very beginning. We're talking about trillions of dollars of adoption. We're talking about 63% year-over-year growth in that adoption. But only 15% of adults in Latin America actually own or use crypto on a regular basis.

So, we're here, but in the years ahead, Latin America will lead and will take us all the way here in terms of global crypto adoption. And as we've thought about adoption in Latin America and adoption around the world, there's one thing that we think we really need to push on in order to make that have the maximum impact that it possibly can. And that is local currency stable coins. If you've been in crypto for a while, you've almost certainly used stable coins. But most of you have probably used dollar stable coins.

This is the thing that we're used to with Tether and with USDC. And it's what gives many people all around the world a safe, stable store of value in dollars that let them live a better economic life. But at the same time, over the last year on base, we've invested heavily in building local currency stable coins. These are stable coins that are connected to the local currency for every single country in the world. And today we have 17 of them around the world, including ones in Brazil, in Mexico, and Argentina.

And there's three reasons why we think local currency stable coins are absolutely critical for adoption. The first is that it's easier on-ramps for consumers. They can just use a currency they know. The second is that it's better products for builders. They can actually contribute to improving their local economy.

And then the third is that for governments, it is an easier on-ramp where they can now see how local currencies can help them grow their local economy using the platform of crypto. And today I'm very excited to announce that we have a new local stable coin launching WS, an Argentinian stable coin. In the front we have Ripio, who's launching it on base. We're super excited to be bringing more of Argentina onchain using local stable coins. And the crazy and incredible thing is all of this investment in local stable coins, the investment in the chain, the investment in the builders is leading to massive growth.

This is a chart from where we were a year ago to where we are today. We went from zero to more than500 apps that are being used on base on a weekly basis. And it's incredible because a big number of these apps are in Latin America. We have RIP uh Rapid Exchange from from Guatemala. We have Etherfuse and Bando from Mexico.

We have Luca from Argentina. We have Dententral from Brazil. Builders building startups that are making money, earning revenue and onboarding millions of users all across Latin America, South America, Central America. But it's also not just big builders. It's small builders, too.

I just walked out of the demo days for base batches where we had 50 different teams fly from all around the world and there was incredible representation from Latin American builders too. Luca Money, Piggy Wallet, Temple, uh, Easten, Bando, all of these teams that were taking the time, taking the energy to show up here at Devcon to represent Latin American builders making it all happen. And it's not just builders making it all happen. It's also based tripling down on our investment in Latin America. In the front right here, if y'all can just raise your hand, we have Almond in Mexico.

We got Carlos in Central America. We got Gee in Brazil. We got Sebastian Argentina. We now have four full-time leaders working to onboard builders, creators, everyday people into this new economy that we are building together. And so, as I wrap up, I guess I just want to leave all of you with a call to action.

Today is day one and in order to build a global economy that works for everyone, it's going to take all of us. And so if you're a builder, keep building great products. Talk to the country leaders on base. We want to help you succeed. If you're a creator, create content, grow, earn, onboard new people.

If you're an investor, there has never been a better time to invest in apps, in content, in creators on base. And if you are an everyday person, there's something for you, too. You can scan this QR code that will give you access to the base app beta. It's rolling out right now. Uh it's an everything app where you can post, you can chat, you can create, you can earn, you can use apps, and you can participate in this new economy that we're building.

And so with that, I will leave you with one word, which is much triel and much gracias. [applause]