Base creator Jesse Pollak joins Coinbase exec team

Jesse Pollak, the creator of the layer 2 blockchain Base, has joined Coinbase’s executive team as vice president of engineering while also heading Coinbase Wallet.

On October 1, Pollak announced via his X account that he would be taking on the leadership role for Coinbase Wallet and joining the eight-member executive team, in addition to continuing his work with Base.

He emphasized that Base and Coinbase share the same overarching goal, stating that strengthening their relationship will facilitate their mission to make it “dead simple for the world to come onchain.”

“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,” Pollak wrote in his post.

In his announcement, Jesse emphasized that Base will maintain its core values as a fully decentralized, open-source protocol “for everyone.” He also plans to bring those same democratic principles to his work with the Coinbase Wallet team.

Many in the industry congratulated Pollak on his promotion, viewing it as a positive step for both Base and Coinbase. Pseudonymous crypto analyst Altcoin Psycho expressed optimism on X, stating that Pollak’s appointment could lead to greater mainstream adoption of crypto.

In a post by Emillie Choi, President and Chief Operating Officer of Coinbase, it was revealed that former engineering vice president Manish Gupta has left the company to “start a new chapter.” Jesse Pollak will be stepping into Gupta’s role as engineering vice president.

Previously, Pollak led Coinbase’s consumer and retail engineering teams from January 2018 to September 2021 and played a key role in the development of both Coinbase Pro and Coinbase Wallet.

On August 9, 2023, Coinbase launched Base, a new layer-2 blockchain network designed to enhance Ethereum’s capacity for decentralized applications, improve user interfaces, and lower transaction costs.

As reported by L2Beat, Base’s total value locked has exceeded $7.2 billion.