Last week at ETHDenver, Coinbase and Chainlink announced that Chainlink Price Feeds are live on testnet for the newly launched layer-2 network, Base. Base will also join Chainlink SCALE to accelerate the development of its ecosystem by providing developers with low-cost access to Chainlink’s industry-standard decentralized services.
During a fireside chat, Base lead, Jesse Pollak, joined Global Head of Blockchain Partnerships at Chainlink Labs, Niki Ariyasinghe, and Head of CeFi Partnerships at Chainlink Labs, William Reilly, to examine how the collaboration between Coinbase and Chainlink could drive innovation on Base and throughout web3.
“I think what Base means is we’re entering the next era of Coinbase and the next era of the broader crypto economy,” Pollak said. He reflected on Base’s potential to cultivate real-world utility that brings the next billion users to the cryptocurrency economy.
“One of the really exciting parts for us is aligning values and aligning visions,” said Ariyasinghe about Base joining Chainlink SCALE. He highlighted Coinbase and Chainlink’s shared focus on connecting web2 with web3 and a joint effort to build viable systems for the long term.
“Our goal with Base is to make it as easy, as cost-effective, as secure as possible for developers to build useful applications,” Pollak explained. “As part of that, developers need access to real-world data and that’s where Chainlink fits in. And we’re super excited to work with them to make it happen.”
He summarized Coinbase’s mission to attract a million builders who create applications used by a billion users.
Ariyasinghe said the foundation for building advanced applications on Base all starts with Chainlink Price Feeds, which are slated for mainnet launch as soon as possible. He’s also looking forward to multiple Chainlink services on Base – particularly Automation and the just-launched Chainlink Functions, a serverless platform that allows web3 developers to integrate web2 APIs into feature-rich hybrid applications.
“Chainlink Functions goes to the heart of connecting web2 to web3 which is really enabling web3 developers and web2 developers to bridge that divide,” he said, adding that he has high expectations for what developers will build with Functions on Base.
Pollak believes integrating Chainlink will allow Base to function as “the ultimate bridge” for bringing off-chain users on-chain – not only to Base but the entire crypto economy.
“It’s not just the people that need to come over; it’s all of the information that needs to come over,” he said. “This is where we see Chainlink fitting in. It’s the data bridge; it’s the function bridge; it’s the automation bridge that makes it possible.”