Coinbase, the popular crypto exchange, has begun efforts to onboard African developers to Base, its new Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain solution. With a series of events across Lagos, Nairobi, and Kilifi in September, Base, which officially launched on August 9, 2023, will show off its capabilities to builders and users on the continent.

According to Coinbase, Base is an L2 built on OP Stack in collaboration with Optimism that provides a secure, low-cost, developer-friendly way for developers to build decentralized apps (dApps) onchain. By leveraging its ecosystem of 110 million verified users and $80 billion in assets, Base intends to onboard 1 million developers with the platform, tools, grants, and investments to build these dApps that could potentially serve a billion people.

While attending one of Coinbase's events in Lagos, I had the opportunity to listen to Base team members: Asia-Pacific expansion lead, Morgan Williams, software developer, Farid Salau, and product manager, Bipul Sinha. The company harped on the potential of the internet economy to move from online to on-chain—activities, and transactions have been recorded to the blockchain. “On-chain is the next online,” a slide reads.

With millions yet to have access to the internet in Africa, it’s unsurprising that Coinbase chose Africa as one of its first stops. A move that’s not unrelated to its late arrival to the continent’s crypto exchange market, which is dominated by Yellow Card, Binance, and Luno.

Jesse Pollack, Coinbase’s head of protocol, in an interview with Coindesk, disclosed that over 100 dApps have been deployed or are ready to go live on Base. Coinbase is fast expanding its ecosystem through the Base Ecosystem Fund, its investment vehicle, which supports the development of on-chain projects built on Base. Last week, Base Ecosystem Fund announced its first six investments in on-chain projects: Avantis, OpenCover, BSX, Paragraph, Truflation, and Onboard.

In a keynote speech, Yele Bademosi, a serial crypto investor and co-founder of Onboard, Base’s first investment in Africa, shared his experience with building with Base. “What stood out for me was the quality of the partners we can (leverage) on. We had Atari, OpenSea, Rainbow, and CocaCola. So many high-quality Web2 and Web3 brands and for us as the only African brand, we had to represent,” Bademosi remarked. “One of the biggest takeaways for me was just excellence. The team was extremely supportive, and (gave) feedback on the ideas, the naming, and the composition. It went beyond our wildest dreams.”

Coinbase is using this opportunity to introduce its wallet to African users, marketing it as a wallet that provides “in-app bridging and staking, gasless USDC transfers, and fast balance refresh.” It is also trying to lure users with its new direct messaging feature which allows users to easily send wallet addresses to each other while transacting digital assets in-app

Although a tech downturn and the bear market have forced African crypto startups to lay off staff and close down, Base’s formal entry into Africa might serve as a recourse. “We are here to meet developers building exciting on-chain projects, take feedback home, and select projects we want to give grants to,” Williams explained to NODO at the event.