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Base Dumps Optimism's OP Stack
Alpha Team
February 19, 2026
🔄 Base Announces Tech Shift
Announcement Key Details: On February 18, 2026, Base, the Coinbase-incubated Ethereum Layer 2 network launched in 2023, revealed in a blog post titled “The Next Chapter for Base” its decision to pivot away from Optimism’s OP Stack toward a unified Base-operated stack. This move consolidates code into a single repository to address current limitations. With $3.85 billion in total value locked, Base stands as the largest chain in the OP Stack Superchain, which recently passed a proposal to use protocol rewards for token buybacks. Wilson Cusack, Base Head of Product, posted on X: “Excited to share that we are evolving our technical roadmap, consisting of our own spec, code, and infra to accelerate the foundation of Base. This shift gives us the autonomy to ship protocol improvements more frequently and focus our resources on scaling to 1 gigagas/s.” The blog states: "Today, the code operating various components of Base, such as the sequencer, is owned by multiple teams and spread across multiple repositories, which adds coordination and maintenance overhead."
Technical Changes Outlined: The unified solution, base/base, built on open-sourced components such as Reth, simplifies components by optimizing them for Base’s use case. The blog explains: "Our unified solution, base/base, built on open-sourced components such as Reth, allows us to dramatically simplify the number of components, by optimizing them directly for our use case." Base will remain a Stage 1 rollup and continue compatibility with the OP Stack in the short term. Node operators must migrate to the new Base client for future hard forks. Upcoming hard forks include Base V1, adding Fusaka support and swapping Optimistic proofs to Base-specific TEE/ZK proofs, followed by two more to reduce ties with Optimism, with Base V3 aligned to the Glamsterdam Ethereum update. The network aims to double hard forks to six per year and scale to 1 billion gas units per second, representing about 40x its previous performance. The blog notes: "This unification does not mean Base will be built in isolation. The protocol remains public and specified in the open, and alternative implementations are welcome and encouraged. Any team can build, run, and maintain an independent client that follows the published specs and remains compatible across hard forks."
Partnerships and Reactions: Base maintained a three-year partnership with Optimism, under which Base could earn up to approximately 118 million OP tokens over six years, though the agreement's status remains unclear. An OP Labs spokesperson stated: "We’re grateful for our three-year partnership with Base, and proud to have helped it become one of the most successful Layer 2 deployments in history. Our focus remains on delivering enterprise-grade blockchain infrastructure to our ecosystem, and we will continue to serve Base as an OP Enterprise customer while they build out their independent infrastructure." The OP token declined over the after the announcement. This shift may affect Optimism's recent announcement to use Superchain revenue for OP token buybacks, as Base accounts for a large majority of Superchain activity. Base developers previously signaled exploration of a native token though Polymarket odds for Base to launch a token have dropped, showing approximately 14% chance by June 30th, 2026, and 46% chance by December 31st, 2026. Read More.
️ On today's Top Picks:
- 🚀 Polymarket launches 5 min ETH, SOL, & XRP markets.
- 🟣 Ink Foundation teases INK token.
- 🤝 OpenAI & Paradigm launch EVMbench.
- 💰 Dragonfly raises $650M for Fund IV.
Read time: ⏰ 6 minutes
Crypto News
• ⭐️ Coinbase's Base network $COIN to move from Optimism's $OP Stack to a "unified, Base-operated stack"; cites wanting to control its own stack; to launch multiple hard forks over the next several months.
• US White House to meet with crypto and banking executives (again) on February 19th to discuss stablecoin yield (Clarity Act); most previous meeting was reportedly productive, but no compromise was reached.
• Ethereum Foundation $ETH publishes Protocol Priorities Update for 2026; outlines three new tracks: Scale, Improve UX, & Harden the L1; Glamsterdam upgrade expected in H1 2026.
• Hyper Foundation $HYPE contributes 1M HYPE (~$29M) to launch the Hyperliquid Policy Center, a "research and advocacy nonprofit focused on advancing a clear path for decentralized finance to thrive in the USA."
• Strategy $MSTR buys an additional 2,486 Bitcoin $BTC for ~$168.4M at ~$67,710 per BTC: now holds 717,131 BTC (~$48B) acquired for ~$54.5B at ~$76,027 per BTC.
• Nakamoto $NAKA to acquire BTC Inc, parent company of Bitcoin Magazine, the Bitcoin Conference, and UTXO Management, in ~$107M all-stock deal; currently holds 5,938 Bitcoin $BTC (~$399M).
• BitMine $BMNR buys an additional 45,759 Ethereum $ETH (~$90M); now holds 4,371,497 ETH (~$8.6B) & $670M in cash; staking 3,040,483 ETH (~$6B).
• Peter Thiel & Founders Fund fully exit 7.5% stake in ETHZilla $ETHZ; recently sold ~$40M in Ethereum $ETH in October 2025 & another ~$75M in ETH in December 2025; still holds 69,802 ETH (~$138M).
Alpha
• ⭐️ Polymarket $POLY launches 5 minute up/down ETH, SOL, & XRP markets; also launches Sponsor Rewards feature; recently teased POLY token.
• Nado $INK to raise NLP cap from $4M to $6M on February 19th; Templars of the Storm NFT holders are whitelisted for early access; deposits to open to the public after 48 hours.
• OpenSea $SEA unlocks Wave 5 of Treasure Chests; Wave 6 of Treasure Chests is now live; to host live event of "The next chapter for OpenSea" on March 30th.
• Octant $GLM launches Epoch 11 & Octant v2 migration; users can now allocate ETH rewards for Epoch 11 until March 4th and migrate GLM to Octant v2 until April 1st.
• ICYMI Euphoria $MEGA launches Tapathon competition; participants will be eligible for rewards & prizes; Euphoria contributors, MegaETH 'The People' Telegram chat members, & more are eligible to participate; to launch on MegaETH mainnet soon.
Airdrops
• ⭐️ Kraken's Ink Foundation $INK teases INK token; Nado & Tydro points holders, and more will potentially be eligible for INK airdrop; Nado Open Beta Season 1 & Tydro Season 2 are ongoing.
• Jupiter $JUP launches Net-Zero Emissions/Jupuary airdrop proposal; Jupuary airdrop to be postponed indefinitely if proposal passes; voting ends on February 22nd.
• ICYMI Backpack launches TGE Verified for upcoming airdrop claim; Backpack allocated 25% of token supply for airdrop at TGE; Backpack points holders (24%) & Mad Lads NFT holders (1%) will be eligible.
• ICYMI Espresso $ESP launches airdrop claim; ~1M wallets via 30+ paths were eligible to register; registration closed on February 8th.
• ICYMI Rainbow $RNBW launches airdrop claim; Rainbow points holders are eligible; snapshot was taken on January 26th.
• ICYMI YO $YO launches airdrop claim; YO points holders are eligible; token is non-transferable until enabled via governance vote.
Finance News
• Key Events This Week: US Markets closed on February 16th; December PCE Inflation data & US Supreme Court ruling on legality of President Trump's tariffs on February 20th.
• US Supreme Court to rule on the legality of President Trump's tariffs on February 20th after multiple delays; Polymarket projects ~27% chance the Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump's tariffs.
• US CFTC files friend-of-the-court brief claiming exclusive authority over US prediction markets; filing comes amid legal challenges against prediction market operators from several US states.
• Gemini $GEMI parts ways with COO Marshall Beard, CFO Dan Chen, & CLO Tyler Meade; co-founder Cameron Winklevoss assumes COO role; Danijela Stojanovic appointed as interim CFO; Kate Freedman appointed as interim general counsel.
• Kraken acquires token management platform Magna for an undisclosed amount; marking Kraken's sixth acquisition over the past 12 months; expected to IPO this year.
• Elemental Royalty Corporation $ELE announces shareholders can choose to receive dividends in Tether Gold $XAUT; marksfirst publicly listed gold company to offer the option.
• ICYMI OpenClaw (ClawdBot) founder Peter Steinberger joins OpenAI; Sam Altman says "OpenClaw will live in a foundation as an open source project that OpenAI will continue to support."
Security and Exploits
• ⭐️ OpenAI & Paradigm collaborate to launch EVMbench, a "new benchmark that measures how well AI agents can detect, exploit, and patch high-severity smart contract vulnerabilities."
• Moonwell $WELL discloses ~$1.8M of bad debt due to misconfigured oracle; notably, Moonwell core contributor @anajuliabit claims the code was audited by Halborn.
• OpenEden $EDEN regains control of website and resumes normal operations after DNS hijack; also implements additional safeguards.
• Figure $FIGR discloses recent data breach affects nearly ~1M customers; disclosed data breach last week; data includes customer names, dates of birth, physical addresses, and phone numbers.
• ICYMI Google releases Chrome security update; patches zero-day vulnerability that is actively exploited in the wild; "use-after-free bug in CSS allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code inside a sandbox via a crafted HTML page."
Token Unlocks
• LayerZero $ZRO / ~$38M / FEB 20th
• Wormhole $W / ~$1M / FEB 20th
• Kaito $KAITO / ~$10M / FEB 20th
Sourced from Tokenomist
Funding
• ⭐️ Dragonfly raises $650M for Fund IV.
• Novig raises $75M in Series B funding led by Pantera Capital.
• PRED raises $2.5M in Seed funding led by Accel.
• Fireplace raises $1.5M in Pre-Seed funding led by Frachtis.
• MYX Finance raises an undisclosed amount in Strategic funding led by Consensys.
The Degen Farmer
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| PROTOCOL | ASSETS | APY |
|---|---|---|
 GrowiHF (Hyperliquid L1) | USDC | 543.64% |
 Indigo (Cardano) | IUSD | 186.56% |
 Altura (Hyperliquid L1) | USDT0 | 88.83% |
 Spectra V2 (Katana) | YVVBUSDC | 42.99% |
 Hyperion (Aptos) | USDTUSDC | 30.09% |
 ThalaSwap (Aptos) | USDTUSDC | 27.38% |
 YO Protocol (Base) | USDC | 19.34% |
 Wildcat Protocol (Ethereum) | HALALUSDCUSDC | 18.50% |
🌿 OpenEden: Tokenized Real-World Assets |  |
🌿 What is OpenEden: OpenEden is a real-world asset (RWA) tokenization platform focused on bringing regulated yield products on-chain. Its core offerings include TBILL, tokenized U.S. Treasury Bills, and USDO, a regulated yield-bearing stablecoin. OpenEden provides the infrastructure for issuing and managing compliant on-chain products, with over $200M in total value locked and partners including BNY as custodian, alongside backing from firms such as YZi Labs and Ripple.
🧩 New: Introducing PRISM: OpenEden recently announced the upcoming launch of PRISM, a tokenized multi-strategy yield portfolio developed with FalconX and Monarq Asset Management. PRISM is designed to target stable, risk-adjusted returns with low correlation to crypto prices, allocating capital across strategies such as cash-and-carry arbitrage, secured institutional lending, established on-chain yield venues, and regulated tokenized real-world assets, including U.S. Treasury–backed products. A limited pre-deposit campaign is currently open, with the full launch expected in February.
🔓 PRISM Pre-Deposit Vault
- Total rewards of 4,700,000 $EDEN tokens
- $50M deposit cap
- Accepts USDO, USDC, and USDT
- 30-day pre-deposit campaign
Rewards accrue at a fixed daily rate throughout the campaign. Deposits made earlier in the campaign may receive a proportionally larger share of incentives as the vault approaches its maximum capacity.
That’s it for today’s edition! See you soon.
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