Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 network just made its clearest play yet for mainstream adoption. Base launched the Base Account on July 16, 2025, a new smart wallet infrastructure layer that automatically creates a self-custodial account the moment someone signs up for the Base app.
The feature is called “Sign in with Base,” and it works across apps and chains.
What Base Account actually does
When a user signs up for the Base app, a self-custodial smart account is automatically generated. The feature set includes cross-app compatibility, meaning one account works across multiple applications built on Base and other chains. There’s also Base Pay, which enables one-tap USDC payments. Sponsored gas fees are baked in as well, meaning users don’t need to hold ETH to transact. Transaction batching is another inclusion, allowing multiple operations to be bundled into a single action.
The Sub Accounts feature, which hit mainnet in Q2 2025 after a successful testnet rollout, laid the groundwork for this broader account infrastructure. Sub Accounts let applications create isolated account contexts within a user’s main wallet, useful for separating funds across different dApps without managing multiple wallets.
