Coinbase Acquires On-Chain Payments Platform Utopia
Date: 2024-11-14 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: BUSINESS
On November 13, Coinbase announced the acquisition of Utopia Labs to strengthen its on-chain payments infrastructure. The Utopia Labs team will become part of the Base network, which Coinbase developed as a second layer for Ethereum. This will accelerate the implementation of its plans to develop on-chain payments.
The Base network supports on-chain application developers by attracting users and creating a flywheel effect, according to Coinbase. In October, Base overtook Arbitrum to become the largest second-layer network by TVL with $3.15 billion, according to DeFiLlama.
In September, Coinbase launched a Bitcoin wrapper cbBTC on Base, which has already accumulated $1.3 billion in TVL, according to CoinMarketCap.
Utopia Labs has created a platform for managing crypto payments, including stablecoins. In October, Stripe also acquired crypto platform Bridge for $1.1 billion to implement support for stablecoins.
On November 11, Coinbase shares rose above $300 for the first time since 2021 amid Donald Trump's victory. Morningstar expert Michael Miller noted that the new Trump administration will likely support the crypto industry, which could ease regulatory pressure and positively affect the cryptocurrency rate.
