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Launched in 2023 and backed by Coinbase, Base platform has rapidly gained popularity. With no native token, the ecosystem outperforms many L2 solutions in terms of TVL and transactional activity.
However, the "single-story" Solana is noticeably ahead of the competition on the above and many other metrics, despite some despite some hype surrounding meme-tokens, increased inflation, periodic glitches, and increasing criticism. Apologists are eagerly awaiting the Firedancer update, which is intended to dramatically improve system performance and reliability.
In turn, the developers of Base realized the Flashblocks technology in the testnet, reducing the block creation time from two seconds to 200 milliseconds. The team introduced two more tools, Appchains and Smart Wallet Sub Accounts, designed to make the system even more performant and user-friendly.
Who will prevail in this confrontation? Will "Ethereum on steroids" be able to surpass the popularity of the "folk" Solana? Coinpaper delved into the features of the upcoming major Base update and the prospects of the two giants.
Flashblocks - 10x Acceleration
The technology was developed in collaboration with Flashbots, a company known for its tools for Ethereum and working with MEV.
Flashblocks improves transaction processing speed by streaming pre-validated blocks every 200 milliseconds. This reduces the risk of canceled transactions. The solution was previously applied by Uniswap, reducing block time on the Unichain network to 0.25 seconds.
The Flashblocks architecture is inspired by advanced developments in block distribution and execution - such as "shreds" in Solana and "data squares" in Celestia.
"At the same time, new optimizations are introduced in the context of rollups," Base project representatives emphasized.
In particular, we're talking about the Rollup Boost solution, an addition to the Optimism stack that allows to provide "external block creation."
According to them, the project's mission is to create a global onchain economy that will be a catalyst for innovation, creativity and freedom. The team assures: to achieve this goal, they will continue to improve the network, making it even more powerful, convenient and fast.
The update is expected to launch in the mainnet in the second quarter of 2025.
Base Appchains Are A Step Towards Scalable L3s
These are customizable blockchains built on top of Base's "second floor" based on OP Stack. The appchains function as Layer 3 (L3) networks and provide dedicated block space for scaling applications.
The solutions support customization, including proprietary gas tokens and commission logic, and are focused on high-load applications.
According to the team, appchains are a "natural evolution" for resource-intensive applications, making Base an even more powerful tool.
The new developments are designed to scale and utilize op-enclave, which allows instant confirmation of blockchain state via AWS S3 and AWS Nitro. Each appchain is supported by "robust enterprise-level infrastructure," including fully managed sequencers and nodes, as well as maintainability and updates.
Op-enclave is a modification of OP Stack that uses AWS Nitro Enclaves secure computing environments to immediately validate state and send state roots to the main chain. This eliminates the need for a seven-day challenge period and makes instant deductions possible.
Appchains are managed through CDP with flexible developer-oriented pricing and support for Base tools - Smart Wallet and CDP Paymaster.
New technologies are already in use:
- game projects Blocklords, Super Champs and Metacade;
- Proof 8 and MVL tokenization platforms;
- Decentralized Pictures service;
- privacy-focused platform Horizen.
Smart Wallet Sub Accounts Is A New Era of UX
Smart Wallet Sub Accounts allow you to interact with multiple wallets through a single interface, eliminating the need to manually manage assets in different applications.
This approach provides a smoother blockchain experience with fewer signatures, fewer pop-ups and a simplified UI.
"Smart Wallet Sub Accounts run on our new account framework, which combines spending rights, hierarchical account ownership and the new ERC developed by the Base team," the developers said.
The solution is expected to launch on the mainnet in the second quarter.
Privacy Focus
Coinbase has entered into an agreement with the Iron Fish team. The developers of PoW blockchain are now involved in building second-tier solutions on Base with a focus on privacy and scalability.
This is not buying a zk-SNARK or token-based system, but integrating the expertise of specialists.
Coinbase's stated goals for the deal:
- For the industry - the company is setting a new standard by integrating robust privacy mechanisms into L2, which will help create a "secure, transparent and convenient onchain future."
- for developers - Base's scalability and privacy will pave the way for building the next generation of private and secure dapps that meet regulatory requirements.
- for users - privacy tools will become more accessible, giving more control over data while maintaining fast and inexpensive transactions. This will open the door to secure transactions and participation in onchain activities with privacy protection.
- Iron Fish will remain independent and will not become part of Coinbase or Base. Project co-founder Elena Nadolinski will continue to serve on the fund's board, and the governance structure will remain the same.
"Ethereum On Steroids"
Base is an Ethereum-based L2 network built on Optimism's OP Stack architecture.
With the launch of mainnet in the summer of 2023, the network was hit by a wave of meme tokens. Some of them managed to fire hundreds of Xs, turning Base into a "cryptospeculation hotspot."
The network itself is part of the Superchain ecosystem, a unified blockchain infrastructure on OP Stack focused on scalability, interoperability and rapid deployment of new solutions.
As a "second floor", the L2 network relies on Ethereum's level of security. It is fully equivalent to EVM, allowing developers to run applications without having to rewrite code. They have familiar tools like Foundry, Hard Hat, and Truffle at their disposal.
At the time of writing, the Base-based dapps ecosystem is ranked seventh by DeFi Llama with a TVL of $2.74 billion.
Solana's corresponding value is $7.1 billion. Ecosystem ranks second on the list, behind only Ethereum. Base outperforms other L2 solutions based on "optimistic" rollups, including Arbitrum and Optimism, by a wide margin in terms of transaction activity.
There is also a big difference in the number of active addresses:
Despite its superiority over many other networks in the context of onchain activity, the average commission in the Base network when making a swap on DEX is quite acceptable for the average user - only ~$0.06. This is less than the Optimism score ($0.08).
For comparison, a similar transaction on the Ethereum network costs almost 10 times more.
In terms of transaction speed, Base is like a sports car, while Ethereum is more like a family minivan:
For ease of comparison, let's present the data in the form of a table:
| Parameter | Parameter | Ethereum |
| Real TPS | 120 | 13,82 |
| Maximum theoretical TPS | 1429 | 119 |
| Block time | 2 sec. | 12.16 seconds |
What's About Solana?
Bernstein analysts are confident that Solana will be the leader in the race for mass adoption of onchain payments. Colosseum co-founder and former head of growth at the Solana Foundation, Matty Taylor, also agrees with this view. He says a "parallelized" blockchain will overtake Ethereum in the number of consumer Web3 applications - and do so by a noticeable margin.
To enable this leap, since August 2022, Jump Crypto developers have been working with the Solana Foundation Working on the Firedancer client-validator, a project that should take Solana's decentralization and productivity to the next level.
Scalability is the currency of the future, Messari analysts believe. They note that Firedancer will become not just an upgrade, but a full-fledged challenge to the modular approach, which is now being actively promoted in the crypto environment.
During testing of the new development, TPS reached 1 million.
In September, an early version of Firedancer called Frankendancer launched on the Solana mainnet. An exact date for a full client release on the mainnet has not yet been announced.
With meme fever, daily transaction volume on the Solana mainnet reached 300 million. After the casus with the LIBRA token promoted by Argentine President Javier Miley, the hype around "funny coins" subsided somewhat, and the onchain index went down.
The graph of the dynamics of the number of active addresses confirms the downward trend:
The number of new Solana addresses has been steadily falling since the peak reached last November:
Nevertheless, Solana is still fundamentally strong and significantly outperforms Base on a number of important metrics.
Conclusion
The Base system benefits from stability because it relies on Ethereum's security. However, this same reliance makes it vulnerable to the limitations of the underlying network infrastructure. The focus on EVM compatibility makes it easier to migrate projects from L1 solutions - a kind of elevator to the Ethereum ecosystem.
Solana relies on low fees and high throughput, which is especially valuable for users for whom decentralization and fault tolerance are not a priority. The network architecture is optimized for high-load dapps - from micropayments to onchain games.
In other words, Solana is about speed and ultra-cheap transactions, while Base is about security, compatibility and tight integration with Ethereum. Both platforms offer a strong value proposition, prioritizing in their own way.
Watching these two ecosystems clash will be particularly interesting, with major upgrades already looming on the horizon.
