The creator of Ethereum layer 2 blockchain Base, Jesse Pollak, has announced he is officially “stepping up” into Coinbase leadership while also taking the lead on Coinbase Wallet — a move that industry pundits say could “level up” the crypto user experience.
Pollak — who will continue leading the Base team — said Base’s closer relationship with Coinbase Wallet will push the two entities toward achieving their common goal: To make it “dead simple for the world to come onchain.”
The Base creator was also added to Coinbase’s eight-member executive team.
Source: Jesse Pollak
Some industry pundits believe Pollak's work on Base, and now Coinbase Wallet may improve something that has hamstrung crypto adoption to date — good UX.
“A cohesive pairing of Coinbase Wallet and Base likely means a level up of the overall UX of the industry,” said Jacob Horne, a founder at media-focused blockchain Zora.
Pseudonymous crypto analyst Altcoin Psycho also told his 505,000 X followers:
“The end game to merge the offchain & onchain UX/UI by leveraging Base, CB advanced, & coinbase wallet makes me so optimistic on mass adoption.”
Coinbase Wallet is a non-custodial crypto wallet that supports hundreds of thousands of coins and thousands of decentralized apps across dozens of blockchains.
Pollak said that Coinbase Wallet would continue to serve the entire blockchain ecosystem — from Bitcoin and Ethereum to Avalanche, BNB Chain and Fantom Opera — as part of its mission to bring billions of people onchain.
Pollak previously led Coinbase’s consumer and retail engineering teams from January 2018 to September 2021. He also assisted with building Coinbase Pro and Coinbase Wallet.
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Jesse Pollak is listed as Coinbase’s latest addition to its executive team. Source: Coinbase
Pollak’s addition comes as Coinbase’s engineering vice president Manish Gupta departed Coinbase, the firm’s president and chief operating officer Emilie Choi said.
Base has become one of the most used Ethereum layer 2s since it launched in August 2023, reaching 4 million active addresses in mid-October.
Base currently has more than $7.2 billion in total value locked on the protocol, trailing only Arbitrum One at $14.2 billion, L2BEAT data shows.
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