Base Unveils Second Onchain Summer Hackathon

Base, the third-largest Layer 2 network by TVL, has announced a second season of its Onchain Summer hackathon.

Announced on May 2, Onchain Summer II will commence on June 3 and run for one month, offering up to $2 million worth of ETH as incentives to developers in the form of prizes and grants. The campaign will then “showcase daily experiences” to promote on-chain adoption throughout July and August.

“Onchain Summer is an annual effort that brings us closer to the next chapter — where on-chain is the next online,” said Jesse Pollak, the creator of Base and head of protocols at Coinbase. “We’re calling on creators and builders everywhere to shape the next era of the internet and help bring the next billion users on-chain by showing what’s possible.”

Buildathon finalists will receive a share of 200 ETH in rewards. Base will also offer small retroactive builder grants to developers that present initial prototypes and ideas, and gas creditors of 0.25 ETH to participating developers.

Pollak emphasized that featured projects will have the opportunity to reach a broad audience of web3 users. Pollak will present additional information about Onchain Summer II at the ongoing Farcon hackathon in California.

Base rises to contention

Onchain Summer II aims to build on last year’s event, which hosted participation from more than 268,000 wallets over 23 days and helped to propel adoption for the then-newly launched Layer 2 network. The campaign featured 75 NFT collections spanning art, gaming, and advocacy, driving more than 700,000 token mints.

Base now ranks as the third-largest Layer 2 network with a total value locked (TVL) of $5.18 billion, equating to a market dominance of 13.75%, according to L2beat.

The network’s growth was recently propelled by a surge in memecoin trading, with its TVL up nearly 350% from $1.16 billion at the start of March.

Base also ranks as the top Layer 2 network by daily throughput, processing an average of 27.2 transactions per second over the past 24 hours.

Coinbase Smart Wallet

Base teased that Coinbase’s upcoming Smart Wallet is expected to launch on mainnet in time for Onchain Summer II.

Coinbase’s Smart Wallet leverages account abstraction to offer a simplified user experience that removes many of the frictions associated with traditional web3 wallets. The wallet went live on Base’s Sepolia testnet for developers in February. Pollak said the mainnet deployment will take place this quarter.

“Smart wallet allows users to create a new wallet instantly for any on-chain app using just a passkey – no app downloads, extensions, or seed phrases required,” Pollak added.