Base’s Pollak takes on new role with Coinbase, joins wallet team

Jesse Pollak, the creator of the Ethereum layer-2 network Base, is taking on an additional role to lead the team behind the Coinbase wallet. Pollak announced the new role in a post on X, noting that he also joins the eight-person Coinbase executive team.

The new roles, which many consider a promotion for Pollack, come after his role leading Base network since it launched in August 2023. It also follows the exit of Coinbase vice president of engineering Manish Gupta.

Pollak said:

“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.”

The appointment has attracted commendations from many in the crypto community who believe Pollak will do well in the role. Fantom founder Andre Cronje congratulated Pollak, noting that the promotion is well deserved and hard-earned.

Before Base, Pollak led the Coinbase retail engineering and consumer teams and was involved in building Coinbase Wallet and Coinbase Pro.

Pollak wants to onboard more people to crypto

Following Pollak’s appointment, many observers within the crypto community expect that the Coinbase wallet will see a massive improvement in its user experience in the coming months. Their expectations are based on what the executive achieved with Base, particularly with onboarding new users.

Pollak also expressed commitment to making the Coinbase wallet easier to use. He noted that the Coinbase wallet and Base network have the same core goal: to make it easier for more people to come on-chain. Having the same lead would make it easier for the teams to collaborate on achieving this goal.

He said:

“@base and @coinbasewallet share the same north star: make it dead simple for the world to come onchain, and connect everyone who does to the incredible products being built across the entire onchain economy.”

He added that Coinbase wallet will now start integrating some of the core values that have made Base successful, such as decentralization and acting as a bridge to bring people on-chain.

Crypto community expects improvements to the Coinbase wallet

Meanwhile, several people in the crypto community have also highlighted the impact of having Pollak lead the Coinbase wallet team. One user said this will create a synergy between Coinbase, Base, and Coinbase wallet, boosting mainstream adoption for the Base network.

They noted that the integration of Coinbase wallet with Base could finally allow several Coinbase customers to dabble into crypto and use it for everyday transactions and savings the same way people use Venmo and Cash app. The user also suggested improvements that could help the Coinbase wallet achieve its goals, including enabling gasless swaps, memecoin support, and listing successful and safe Base projects on the Coinbase exchange.

Founder of the Zora blockchain, Jacob Horne, also expressed his excitement with the development, noting that Pollack’s work on Base significantly improved the Coinbase brand within a short period. He could even do better now that he leads the Coinbase wallet team.

He said:

“A cohesive pairing of Coinbase Wallet and Base likely means a level up of the overall UX of the industry.”

Crypto trader Altcoin Psycho also praised the decision, noting that they are optimistic about mass adoption due to the integrations they expect from Coinbase advanced, Base, and non-custodial Coinbase wallet.

Base L2 already enjoys one of the strongest user bases due to its affiliation with Coinbase. According to Defillama data, it has 1.41 million addresses, putting it only behind Solana and Tron. Many believe the network could onboard more Coinbase customers if it seamlessly integrates with Coinbase wallet.