Coinbase’s layer-2 network Base has built a token standard directly into its blockchain, launching B20 as a native alternative to the smart-contract tokens that dominate crypto, with compliance controls like freeze-and-seize and transfer blocklists baked into the protocol.

B20 went live on Base mainnet this week through the network’s Beryl upgrade, after the rollout slipped past its original June 25 target. Base describes it in its documentation as “an ERC-20 superset that runs as a native precompile”, meaning a token’s logic runs inside the node software, written in Rust, rather than as a contract deployed on top of the chain. That keeps B20 tokens compatible with existing wallets and exchanges while, Base says, making transfers cheaper and higher-throughput.

The standard bakes in features that issuers of regulated assets normally have to build and audit themselves: role-based permissions, supply caps, granular pausing, transfer allowlists and blocklists, memos, signature-based approvals, and freeze-and-seize powers. Base pitches B20 as a way to streamline compliant asset issuance, aimed at stablecoin issuers, real-world-asset projects, and tokenized-equity teams, and says the code was audited by Base and the security firm Spearbit.

That makes Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2, a purpose-built home for institutions, but it also writes permissioned control into the chain’s token layer, the same freeze-and-blocklist powers that have drawn scrutiny when stablecoin issuers wield them. Tokens are created with a single call to a factory precompile and carry an address prefix marking them an asset or a stablecoin.

Developers who rushed to build on B20 flagged the same catch. Because the tokens run as a precompile rather than a contract, existing block explorers and indexers do not yet read them, so a holder cannot easily see who controls a token’s freeze, mint, and admin roles. One developer building tools to read B20 tokens noted on X that “the freeze / mint / admin powers are baked into the token, and a buyer has no source to read them”.

“Most tokens are smart contracts deployed on top of a chain. B20 tokens are native to Base”, the network’s Base Build account said on X. The account called the launch a starting point, pointing to more performance gains in Base’s next upgrade, Cobalt, expected around September. Base’s B20 roadmap targets roughly 50% cheaper transfers and letting users pay gas fees in the tokens themselves.

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