Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin says L2 Base is “doing things the right way”

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin had a kind word on Coinbase’s incubated L2 base on Tuesday.

Buterin argued that the network uses a centralized aspect to provide better UX for users and relies on Ethereum’s distributed base layer for security.

“A lot of people are confused by the irony these days, and I think that something like L2Beat is a strange kind of nerd compliance bureau,” added Buterin. “This isn’t what’s going on. The security provided by L2S, the measurements of L2Beat reflect the specific characteristics that protect you from being robust as a user.”

L2, or Layer 2, is a network built on another blockchain. in this case, Ethereum. These are designed to process transactions in batches from the mainnet, and are usually faster and cheaper to send confirmation back to L1.

After debuting in August 2023, the network has now held assets worth $15 billion. But it’s not the best ever. Several times during January, May and summer, the total amount of assets on the network exceeded $16 billion.

Other popular Ethereum L2 include arbitrum and optimism. In fact, the base was built on an OP stack. This is an open source technical framework developed by optimism.

Despite using an open source technology stack, the base is still criticized for being incubated by central exchange. One common story is that because it is centralized, the base can theoretically steal all user funds.

“The base can steal all user funds instantly,” writes Cybercatital founder and CIO Justin Bons, in response to Buterin’s praise for X. “The SC Management Key is managed by the Security Council.

Buterin highlighted L2Beat, a popular L2 analytics project that tracks security, throughput, and active users on L2 networks. When base supporters used data on the site to protect the network, they instead resorted to criticism of the L2 data project.

“This is what it means when you say L2 is non-obligatory,” Buterin said.