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Base launches mainnet bridge UI for end users, sets Aug. 9 for official launch

August 3, 2023 Coin Telegraph

BASE

Coinbase’s Base network began onboarding end users through a bridge UI, and the team announced Aug. 9 as the platform's official launch date.

Coinbase’s Base network has released a user interface (UI) for its official bridge, allowing end users to onboard for the first time without relying on developer tools, according to an Aug. 3 announcement. The team has set Aug. 9 as Base’s “official” release date. The team will award over 100 Ether (ETH), worth approximately $184,000, in grants to developers and content creators as part of a month-long launch event called the “Onchain Summer.”

Base is now open for bridging

Base opens for everything on August 9

We’re helping throw an onchain festival to celebrate

ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴏɴᴄʜᴀɪɴ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴇʀ https://t.co/p8KTcnkbbx
— Base ️ (@BuildOnBase) August 3, 2023

The Base mainnet launched for builders on July 13, but it lacked a functioning UI for its bridge from Ethereum. At the time, the only way to use the network was to employ command-line developer tools to bridge ETH from Ethereum’s layer 1.

In the Aug. 3 announcement, the team said the bridge UI is now running. End users can start using the network immediately without waiting for the official launch; however, some of Base’s initial Web3 apps may not be available until the official launch on Aug. 9.

*The user interface for Base network’s Ethereum bridge. Source: Base*

The team also announced a month-long “Onchain Summer” celebration. Each day, builders will “be bringing you something fun to do onchain, highlighting art, music, gaming, advocacy, and more,” the announcement stated. The team will award ETH grants to individuals or groups that create Base-related websites, art and videos or who deploy new protocols to the network between Aug. 9 and Sept. 13. The team will hand out Base-related nonfungible tokens and ETH to users who bridge to the network or complete educational “quests.”

Some investors lost millions of dollars worth of crypto on Base while trying to use it when it was “launched for builders” and not publicly available. The Pond0x (PNDX) memecoin was launched for Base on July 28, and tech-savvy investors who knew how to bridge without a UI poured over $2 million into the project, only to have the token collapse to near zero in price as a bug in its transfer function was found. Another Base memecoin, Bald (BALD), resulted in losses of approximately $1.9 million when the developer pulled liquidity from the exchange it was trading on.

FTX splurged on cartoon, book about humans and ‘Pineapple House,’ alleges CEO

June 27, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Thousands in grants were given out by former FTX executives for niche projects, according to a report by FTX restructuring chief John Ray.

Former FTX executives allegedly splurged millions on funding niche projects unrelated to crypto or Web3, including a uniquely named $1.8 million “Pineapple house.”

A June 26 report from FTX restructuring chief and CEO John Ray laid out the uses of the allegedly misappropriated customer funds.

According to the report, this included “charitable” donations made by the exchange’s co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried and other former executives under the nonprofit FTX Foundation.

Detailed were $700,000 worth of FTX Foundation “grants,” $400,000 of which were given to “an entity that posted animated videos on YouTube related to ‘rationalist and [effective altruism] material,” the report alleged.

Another $300,000 grant was given to an individual to “[w]rite a book about how to figure out what humans’ utility function is (are).”

*Highlighted excerpt of Ray’s report detailing the projects allegedly funded using FTX customer funds. Source: Kroll*

Ray alleged these “grants” used FTX customer funds commingled in various bank accounts controlled by FTX, Alameda Research and various other entities.

The report also lists a $1.8 million property called “Pineapple House” among FTX’s $243 million Bahamian real estate portfolio, allegedly purchased using customer funds.

damn, the real estate industry has been friendly to mr. squarepants pic.twitter.com/uqwGw4wGNz
— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) June 27, 2023

International broker Sotheby’s lists a similarly named property in the Bahamas, although it’s unknown if it is the same Pineapple House listed in the report.

Other uses of the alleged commingled customer funds detailed by Ray included around $20 million sent to the nonprofit organization Guarding Against Pandemics and “related entities.”

As the name suggests, Guarding Against Pandemics advocates for investments to prevent pandemics such as COVID-19, as per its website.

According to Ray, it “worked closely” with the similarly named political action committee Guarding Against Pandemics PAC run by Gabe Bankman-Fried — the younger brother of Sam Bankman-Fried.

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