Cobalt hits Base mainnet with engineering improvements targeting transaction flexibility and upgrade automation

Base, the Coinbase-backed Ethereum Layer 2 network, activated its Cobalt hard fork on mainnet on September 30 at 18:00 UTC. The upgrade landed without significant disruptions after a week-long trial run on the Sepolia test network, and it brings a batch of infrastructure-level changes designed to make the chain more flexible, more efficient, and easier to upgrade in the future. What Cobalt actually changes The upgrade ships several distinct engineering improvements, each targeting a different part of Base’s operational stack. First, there are updates to the B20 native token standard, a precompile originally introduced during the Beryl upgrade. Cobalt refines how B20 operates under the hood, though the practical effect for end users is improved reliability and consistency when interacting with tokens built on the standard. Second, and arguably the most interesting addition, is the introduction of validity and conditional transactions. These allow a transaction to execute only if specific on-chain conditions are verified at the time of inclusion. If the conditions aren’t met, the transaction simply doesn’t execute. Third, Cobalt establishes a framework for dynamic on-chain upgrade sc...