Coinbase’s Base abandons Optimism’s OP Stack in favor of a unified, proprietary stack

Coinbase announced that its Ethereum layer-2 network Base will move away from the OP Stack and transition to a new “unified Base stack” that will be operated entirely by Base itself ^[1][3].

The shift involves rebuilding Base’s core stack with the aim of accelerating upgrade cadence and internal control; CryptoBriefing reported the team is targeting six hard forks per year to enable faster upgrades ^[4].

The announcement produced a market reaction: reports indicate the Optimism (OP) token experienced a sharp price drop following Coinbase’s decision to move off the OP Stack ^[2].

Observers characterized the move as a major technical shift for Base, which launched in 2023 and quickly became one of the most widely used Ethereum layer-2 networks; Coinbase framed the change as a move toward a unified, Base-operated stack ^[3][1].

The change marks a substantive engineering and governance pivot for Base from the Optimism-provided OP Stack to a proprietary, Base-operated stack intended to speed upgrades and centralize stack operations ^[1][4].