Cobalt Upgrade Brings Enhanced Compliance Controls to Base's Layer-2 Network
Base, the layer-2 network incubated by Coinbase, has released its Cobalt upgrade on mainnet, effective October 1. This is Base's third protocol release of the year and comes after a test on its Sepolia test network, which went live with the upgrade on September 23.
The upgrade brings several key features to Base, including Composite Policies for issuers of tokens under the B20 standard. This feature allows them to link multiple lists at once, such as sanctions blocklists and Know Your Customer (KYC) allowlists, eliminating the need for duplicate records across systems.
Another significant addition is Schedule Multiplier Updates, which enables token balances to display future changes without altering underlying holdings or requiring a new contract. This feature is built to the ERC-8056 standard and targets issuers of stablecoins and tokenized assets.