Coinbase's Base Launches a Native Token Standard With Freeze-and-Seize Built In

Coinbase's Base Launches a Native Token Standard With Freeze-and-Seize Built In

Coinbase’s layer-2 network Base has built a token standard directly into its blockchain, launching B20 as a native alternative to the smart-contract tokens that dominate crypto, with compliance controls like freeze-and-seize and transfer blocklists baked into the protocol. B20 went live on Base mainnet this week through the network’s Beryl upgrade, after the rollout slipped past its original June 25 target. Base describes it in its documentation…

Base Activates B20 on Mainnet: The Protocol-Level Shift Making L2 Tokens 50% Cheapere

I've watched a lot of blockchain upgrades get announced with language that makes incremental improvements sound revolutionary. Most of the time, the reality doesn't match the framing. But when I read through what Base is actually shipping with the B20 token standard as part of its Beryl mainnet upgrade, I found myself doing something I don't often do, reading the technical documentation twice, because the implications kept expanding the more I s…