Coinbase, the once sleeping giant, is awakening.

If you've been paying attention at all to the Ethereum ecosystem you can't help but notice Coinbase is starting to make onchain moves. And they're not messing around.

And it's not just with Base.

They've recently announced a Smart Wallet, which is destined for mainnet soon.

Base on Warpcast

Smart wallets make coming onchain easier than ever https://warpcast.com/coinbasewallet/0x349838cf

Farcaster

And yes... there is already plenty of smart wallet providers and companies.

But the Coinbase Smart Wallet is special.

It has the backing of the biggest publicly traded crypto/onchain company. It has deep roots with the Optimism Collective and in-turn the Superchain. It has native access to by far the biggest and best funnel for "onchaining" users i.e. a trusted centralized exchange. I could write an entire thesis for why Coinbase will dominate the blockchain user experience in the next 10+ years, but that's probably not really necessary.

You literally can't be in a better position from a market perspective.

Or can you?

It pays to go Open Source. Don't believe me?! Just listen to based Zuck explain why it can be incredibly advantageous to Open Source a codebase.

Dwarkesh Patel

@dwarkesh_sp

Will Zuck open source the $10 billion model?

1,795

7:02 PM • Apr 19, 2024

With a long-term view on the problem it becomes increasingly clear Open Sourcing the Coinbase Smart Wallet stack, and encouraging contributions, can quickly become one of Coinbase's biggest advantages.

But how exactly?

Unleash The Power of the Builders

I have it on good accord the Coinbase Smart Wallet will eventually support modules/plugins.

Wilson Cusack on Warpcast

I imagine we'll get to something modular by end of year. Would be curious which things you're most excited to unlock.

Farcaster

Why is that important?

For so many reasons my fellow Etherean!

It's the seeds for a flourishing a module ecosystem, which can extend and enhance the native Coinbase Smart Wallet product.

First let's get one thing straight - Coinbase is the Stripe of blockchain.

And what does Stripe do really well? It's the developers standard for integrated finance systems. Plus, it has an outstanding ecosystem/market for third-party vendors and service providers.

All this to say, is that you can almost guarantee that same "thing" will happen with the Coinbase Smart Wallet. Major features will be handled by Coinbase, but a flourishing module ecosystem that does everything from recovery, identity, subscriptions to intents will be handled by third-parties.

It's just how you scale digital systems. Plain and simple.

Coinbase can't do everything. Or even if they can, they don't necessarily want to.

True power/longevity comes from ecosystems and networks.

A Thriving Module Ecosystem

Once modules/plugins are added to the Coinbase Smart Wallet the flood gates open.

Kinda whether Coinbase wants it or not 🤷‍♂️

The Coinbase team can either plants the seeds for a thriving modular ecosystem or a savvy entrepreneur will recognize the unique opportunity and start one for them - either way it's going to happen.

You simply can't avoid the waves created by the awakening giant

Now it's just a matter of what it will look like...