Ethereum and the Coinbase-backed network Base have halted their cooperative initiative to establish a unified standard for next-generation digital wallets, concluding that making compromises would compromise the specific objectives of each respective chain.
The objective was to cause crypto wallets to function similarly to contemporary software applications. Participants could authenticate using passkeys, recover accounts through alternative mechanisms, permit an application to cover transaction costs, and group multiple blockchain operations into a single execution step. Possessing ETH strictly for network gas expenses would thus become entirely optional.
This divergence stemmed from conflicting blockchain priorities, and engineers spent multiple months trying to combine the two structural frameworks. The failure to achieve a consensus implies that developers building wallets functioning across both chains might need to support two distinct ways of forming and verifying identical transactions.
“Ethereum wanted to be the best version of Ethereum, and Base wanted to be the best version of Base, and while both sides acknowledged the benefits of ecosystem interoperability, it was ultimately secondary to the need for each chain to achieve their core goals,” Derek Chiang, an Ethlabs developer involved in the work, posted on X.
According to Chiang the cooperation efforts broke down last week.
Ethereum is working on EIP-8141, known as Frame Transactions. Base developed a competing proposal called EIP-8130. Both are drafts that change the rules around who can approve a transaction, who pays for it and what happens after it is approved.
Ethereum wants its version to preserve privacy, censorship resistance and security as wallets become more programmable. The proposed standard is also designed to make it easier for accounts to move away from the cryptography most Ethereum wallets use today if quantum computers eventually make it unsafe.
Base, on the other hand, wants more freedom to optimize transactions for high volumes and different kinds of applications, including systems with compliance requirements.
Chiang said attempts to force a common standard eventually meant one side would have to give up features it considered important.
Ethereum is now pushing Frame Transactions toward Hegotá, its planned upgrade after Glamsterdam, which is scheduled for later this year. The Ethereum Foundation this month put EIP-8141 among the execution-layer features it says must ship with Hegotá.
That gives the proposal priority rather than a guarantee. EIP-8141 is still being developed and is not running on Ethereum today.
Read More: Ethereum commits to letting users pay gas fees without having to hold ETH
Base is moving ahead with EIP-8130. The design is already available for testing on its Vibenet development network and is planned for the Cobalt upgrade, whose testnet and mainnet deployments are currently listed for September.
Ethereum-based networks were supposed to inherit one common set of wallet rules even as they diverged elsewhere. Ethereum and Base have now decided that keeping those rules identical is no longer worth the trade-offs.
Read More: Coinbase’s Base to focus on tokenized markets, stablecoins, developers this year
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2026/09/16/ethereum-base-give-up-on-common-wallet-standard-after-months-of-talks.
