Base creator Jesse Pollak joins Coinbase exec team

Creator of layer 2 blockchain Base, Jesse Pollak has joined the executive team at Coinbase as engineering vice president while also leading Coinbase Wallet.

Jesse Pollak announced on his X account on Oct. 1, that he will be leading Coinbase Wallet and joining its eight-member executive team in addition to leading Base (BASE).

He stated that Base and Coinbase share the same “north star” and by bringing the relationship closer, it would make it easier for the two entities to achieve their common goal. which is to make it “dead simple for the world to come onchain.”

“I’m really excited to take on this new mandate and to accelerate our mission of bringing a billion people and a million builders onchain,” Pollak wrote in his post.

In his post, Jesse assures that Base will continue to uphold its core values of being a fully decentralized open source protocol “for everyone”. Moreover, he will be incorporating those same democratic values to the work he will be doing with the Coinbase Wallet team.

Many industry players and analysts congratulated Pollak on the promotion and viewed it as a positive development for both entities. Pseudonymous crypto analyst Altcoin Psycho stated on X that Coinbase appointing Jesse Pollak gives him optimism for more mainstream adoption of crypto.

According to a post by President and Chief Operating Officer of Coinbase, Emillie Choi, Coinbase’s previous engineering vice president Manish Gupta left Coinbase in order to “start a new chapter.” Pollak will be taking over Gupta’s role as engineering vice president.

Previously, Jesse Pollak led Coinbase’s consumer and retail engineering teams from January 2018 to September 2021. He was also involved in the creation of Coinbase Pro and Coinbase Wallet.

On Aug. 9, 2023, Coinbase launched Base, calling it a new layer-2 blockchain network. The protocol was built to enhance Ethereum’s capacity for decentralized applications, improve user interfaces, and reduce transaction costs.

According to data on L2Beat, Base’s total value locked has managed to surpass $7.2 billion.