In episode 15 of Cointelegraph’s Hashing It Out podcast, Elisha Owusu Akyaw talks with Will Robinson, vice president of engineering at crypto exchange Coinbase. They discuss the exchange’s vision for the future of the cryptocurrency industry, which is tied to its new Ethereum layer-2 network, Base. Robinson provides updates on the exchange’s latest tools, including an ERC-20 recovery function, wallet as a service and more.
The episode starts with Robinson explaining what his role entails. Robinson explains that he manages the developer product group responsible for internal crypto infrastructure, developer-facing products and protocol-facing efforts. Despite the regulatory activity and “drama in the market,” Robinson believes building in the crypto space has never been this exciting
“I think the world is moving on-chain by default. It is going to happen in fits and starts — on-chain is the new online.“
As part of Coinbase’s plan to build more on-chain tools, the United States-based exchange launched Base, an Ethereum layer-2 network. According to Robinson, Base is a product born out of the exchange’s sturdy movement internally to build more things on-chain. Robinson hopes that Base would become the default on-chain home for Coinbase to steer its users into the larger crypto ecosystem, while partnering with developers to build applications for mass adoption.
The cryptocurrency industry has seen multiple layer-2 networks, such as Arbitrum and Optimism, release their ecosystem tokens. Rumors on social media have tipped Coinbase to release a token for the Base network, but Robinson says there will be no token or airdrop.
Late last year, Coinbase launched an asset recovery tool for users who “mistakenly send unsupported tokens” to exchange addresses. According to Robinson says the ERC-20 recovery tool has been used by over 10,000 users who have recovered over $150 million in assets.
Related: Who watches the watchers? CryptoHarlem founder Matt Mitchell explains why surveillance is the enemy
Robinson also describes the concept behind the wallet-as-a-service product by Coinbase, which is attracting Web2 applications intending to add Web3 features such as digital collectibles or nonfungible tokens.
Listen to the latest episode of Hashing It Out with Will Robinson on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or TuneIn. You can also explore Cointelegraph’s complete catalog of informative podcasts on the Cointelegraph Podcasts page.
