Optimism jumps 22% following Coinbase ‘Base’ layer 2 announcement

Optimism (OP) jumped 22% to a local top of $3.095 at the time of press – marking a 15-day high.

Profit-taking has since formed a relatively long top wick on the daily candle. Nonetheless, year-to-date gains at the current price come in at 218% – significantly greater than the 45% gains seen from market leader Bitcoin.

OP was trading at a YTD high of $3.28 on Feb. 3. A subsequent rejection, this time at the marginally lower price of $3.209, on Feb. 8, highlighted the target area for bulls to overcome.

Coinbase x Optimism

On Feb. 23, crypto exchange Coinbase announced launching an Ethereum layer 2 called Base, running on the Optimism chain.

“Base is an Ethereum L2 that offers a secure, low-cost, developer-friendly way for anyone, anywhere, to build decentralized apps.”

Earlier, the exchange teased an announcement with a blue circle and the text “2.23.23,” driving Crypto Twitter into a speculation frenzy.

Adam Cochran posted a tongue-in-cheek comment about an airdropped Coinbase token intended to save the market from its current lull.

“If there ends up being a Coinbase token, that airdrops to users, that saves the market, we’re pooling a portion of it and creating a giant bronze statute of Armstrong, with an extra shiny bald head, and sending it to their office.“

However, it wasn’t until Thursday lunchtime (GMT) that Coinbase revealed its Base layer 2 solution. The firm said Base does not incorporate a token and will use Ethereum as the native gas token instead.

Commenting on the news, Optimism said Base runs on its OP Stack architecture – described as a modular, open source code that is highly scalable and interoperable. Optimism stands to collect a proportion of the Base transactions fees.

In addition, on boarding Base is another step towards the “Superchain” vision, Optimism said.

“In the long term, the Superchain can blossom into a sprawling network which maximizes interoperability, shares decentralized protocols, and standardizes its core primitives–all while funding the public goods which enable it.“