Base lead Jesse Pollak to head Coinbase Wallet and join the crypto exchange's exec team

Jesse Pollak, development team lead behind the Coinbase-incubated Ethereum Layer 2 network Base, is stepping up to head the crypto exchange’s web3 Coinbase Wallet.

Pollak posted late Monday that Base and Coinbase Wallet “share the same north star” — aiming to make it simple for people to get onchain and connect to web3 apps across the ecosystem. “I’m so excited to work even more closely with the wallet team and to keep leading the Base team,” he said. “Now, we’ll be able to work together more closely to make this happen.”

Base will “continue to uphold its core values of being for everyone, a bridge not an island, and decentralized and open source,” the Coinbase protocols lead noted. “Coinbase Wallet will continue to work across the entire onchain economy, and we’ll start the work of embodying the other Base values in even more ways,” he added.

Launched in August 2023, Base is an optimistic rollup that processes transactions off the main Ethereum blockchain and only periodically posts transaction data on-chain, increasing throughput and reducing costs. Last week, Base's total value locked crossed the $2 billion mark for the first time, positioning it as the second-largest optimistic rollup by deposits after Arbitrum.

Originally called Toshi when it launched in 2017, Coinbase Wallet is a non-custodial crypto wallet that allows users to manage and store their digital assets themselves. It was initially focused on the Ethereum ecosystem but has since expanded to multiple blockchain networks, including Bitcoin, Solana and BNB Chain.

Pollak is also joining Coinbase’s executive team he confirmed on Monday. “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,” he said.