Investing

Coinbase's Base Testnet Integrates Chainlink Data Feeds

Tim Fries

Published: March 6, 2023 3:37 am

Last Updated: March 6, 2023 11:59 am

On March 3rd, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer 2 solution, Base, announced it had partnered up with Chainlink, the leading provider of oracle services in the industry to bring its data feeds to the testnet. Furthermore, developers will be able to use Chainlink’s service at a reduced cost thanks to Base’s participation in the SCALE program.

Chainlink Price Feeds Now Live On Base

This Friday, Base, the Coinbase-incubated Ethereum layer 2 solution, revealed it had partnered with Chainlink. According to the announcement, Chainlink’s data feeds are now live on the testnet. Furthermore, the oracle service will be available to developers at a lower cost thanks to Base’s participation in the SCALE program.

Coinbase built Base in collaboration with Optimism on the MIT-licensed OP stack. The layer 2 is intended to serve as an open and low-cost ecosystem available to anyone wishing to build dApps. While the launch on February 23rd didn’t go entirely smoothly, the announcement was met with a great deal of excitement.

Base’s introduction saw Optimism’s token reach a new all-time high and end its prolonged period of relative stagnation. Furthermore, Base is seen as a viable way to bring Coinbase’s 110 million users to the Ethereum ecosystem and the exchange itself pronounced its hopes the new layer 2 will onboard more than a billion users to digital assets.

The Growing Popularity of Blockchain Oracles

In and of themselves, blockchains do not have the ability to access off-chain data. Oracles serve to address the lack and offer a bridge between smart contracts and the outside world thus enriching the ecosystem they are deployed to. Recent months have seen multiple major platforms within the cryptocurrency industry implement an oracle service.

A month ago, on February 9th, MakerDAO voted to implement the Chainlink oracle to the Keeper Network. The move is expected to help maintain the stability of DAI and make the entire ecosystem more reliable and efficient. While Chainlink is arguably the largest oracle platform, not all platforms elect to use its service.

Binance, for example, built its own oracle service. On October 26th, the exchange’s CEO Changpeng Zhao announced the official launch of the purpose-built oracle on the BNB chain. At the time, Binance described this type of service as the key to the future prosperity and success of web3, and expressed its hopes that its oracle would offer a viable alternative to Chainlink.

This article originally appeared on The Tokenist