Base Unveils Cobalt Upgrade with Enhanced Trading Controls
Base, an Ethereum Layer 2 protocol incubated by Coinbase (COIN), has launched its third mainnet upgrade, Cobalt. This upgrade brings significant improvements to the platform's functionality and user experience.
The Cobalt upgrade introduces Validity Transactions, a feature that allows users to submit time-bound transactions with specific conditions. For instance, a trader can submit a swap transaction only if the pool price reaches a certain USDC value before a certain block number. This level of control is expected to benefit advanced traders who require more flexibility in their trading strategies.
In addition to Validity Transactions, Cobalt enhances the B20 token standard. Composite Policies enable asset issuers to combine existing allowlists and blocklists with logical operators, making it easier for them to reuse live policies without maintaining off-chain synchronization. Schedule Multiplier Updates align the B20 Asset multiplier with the ERC-8056 standard, allowing issuers to schedule changes to how an asset's balance is displayed.
The upgrade also includes a 'seizeWithMemo' function for B20 assets and stablecoins, enabling authorized administrators to reassign a holder's balance where seizure has been enabled. Base plans to further improve the protocol in the coming months by reducing block times from 2s to 200ms, making smart accounts native at the protocol level with gas sponsorship and transaction batching, and supporting a subset of EVM improvements from Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade.