Base Hits $6.2B TVL All-Time High as Jesse Pollak Signals 'Higher'

Base, the Ethereum Layer-2 network incubated by Coinbase, reached $6.2 billion in total value locked on Sept. 22, 2026 — a new all-time high for the network, according to base. Base creator and lead jessepollak amplified the figure with a short reply pointing upward, indicating he expects further growth.

Context

Pollak conceived Base and heads the network's team at Coinbase, where he refers to himself as "builder #001" and maintains the onchain identity jesse.base.eth. Under his leadership, Base has grown into one of the largest Ethereum L2 ecosystems, built on Optimism's OP Stack.

The TVL milestone arrives amid a stretch of Base ecosystem activity that Pollak has publicly highlighted. Recent developments include Coinbase's fixed-rate Bitcoin-backed loans built by Morpho Midnight on Base, lending against Coinbase tokenized stocks, and a 25,000 USDC rewards program from Revert Finance for liquidity providers in Base tokenized stock pools on Aerodrome.

Pollak has also flagged regulatory tailwinds, pointing followers to a temporary SEC exemption permitting limited trading of tokenized NMS stocks on qualifying onchain venues. On the technical side, he has said validity transactions are coming to Base via the Cobalt upgrade, expected by the end of September.

What's Next

TVL growth and the pending Cobalt upgrade give observers two concrete markers to track. Whether Base's locked value holds above the new high — or continues climbing — will depend on continued inflows into its lending, stablecoin, and tokenized-asset markets.