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Base, Coinbase’s new application-focused Layer 2 protocol, only needs to fulfill one criterion before it’s ready to go live on the mainnet.
On June 29, the team said the Ethereum-secured Optimism-based network had been subjected to rigorous security reviews — both internal and external — for six months — its penultimate criteria required for launch.
“After the completion of these audits, we have met ⅘ of our criteria for launching the main network,” Base said, adding that they feel confident that they did not find any critical bugs in the code:
“Performing these in-depth security workflows without finding critical bugs gave the Base team the confidence to get going with the mainnet launch.”
The other three criteria passed included a “Regolith” hard fork on the testnet, a successful infrastructure check with OP labs – the Optimism team – and an Optimism “Bedrock” update.
PS In case you’re keeping track, with the completion of these audits, we’ve now fulfilled ⅘ of our criteria for mainnet launch…https://t.co/eRarQ4R7zG https://t.co/9o3vNidNtE
— Base ️ (@BuildOnBase) June 29, 2023
Coinbase officially launched Base on February 23, which aims to create a low-cost, secure, and developer-friendly network for building decentralized applications.
In order to “test” the Optimism technology stack, the Coinbase protocol security team conducted its own internal audit to identify any vulnerabilities that may occur in layer 1, layer 2, and bridges.
In addition to Coinbase’s internal audit, Base has invited the broader community to participate in the public testing of the smart contract audit via Code4rena to report bugs found in the Optimism tech stack:
“As part of this competition, we have recruited over 100 security researchers and are pleased to report that no major vulnerabilities have been discovered.”
Among the audits investigated by security researchers were Optimism node software, Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) equivalent vulnerabilities, bridging vulnerabilities, and various issues with smart contracts.
We’ve detailed…
How we’re secured by the OP stack
Our experience with both internal and external audits
The development of our open-source monitoring tool
What does it mean to launch mainnet with this security first mindset— Base ️ (@BuildOnBase) June 29, 2023
The community audit ran from May 27 to June 10, and successful bounty hunters were rewarded no more than $100,000.
Demonstrating “testnet stability” is the final criterion to pass before launching the mainnet, according to a previous post from Base.
Although Base did not specify exactly how the final criteria will be met, the team said they are still reviewing submissions from the 100 researchers who participated in the public audit of smart contracts, in addition to reviews of past audit programs, namely: “spearbit” and “Sherlock”.
Base added that they created Pessimism, an open source monitoring tool that aims to notify developers of any anomalies that may occur in the protocol, such as account balance violations, contract events, or mismatches between L1 and L2 states.
Related: Coinbase CEO Says Bitcoin Lightning Is ‘What We’re Integrating’
In late March, Coinbase said it wanted to see an inflation-linked “flatcoin”, an on-chain reputation system, and an on-chain limit order book exchange built on top of Base.
The development of Base was considered by many to be “a huge vote of confidence in Ethereum” when the news was first announced in late February.
The base, secured on Ethereum and running at the level of the Optimism network, aims to eventually become a network for building decentralized applications.