Base Goes Full Compliance Mode: Cobalt Upgrade Lets Tokens Check IDs, Sanctions, and Stock Splits 🧾

Base activated its Cobalt upgrade on Wednesday, expanding the B20 token standard with conditional transactions and new issuer controls designed to deepen the Ethereum layer-2 network's push into tokenized assets. Cobalt is Base's third major upgrade and introduces the ability for issuers to layer multiple compliance checks onto a single asset, including identity verification, accredited-investor status and screening against sanctions lists.

The upgrade also enables issuers to schedule corporate-action events like splits, automatically updating share counts displayed across wallets and apps without minting, burning or otherwise altering underlying token balances. Issuers retain the ability to authorize administrators to move tokens from a holder's wallet without the holder's approval and to attach a public note to the transfer. Base said issuers decide whether to enable the forced-transfer feature and who may use it, and that Base itself cannot initiate such transfers.

Cobalt adds Validity Transactions, a mechanism allowing users to submit transactions that only become eligible for inclusion once specified onchain conditions are met. A trader, for example, could submit a swap that activates only if an asset reaches a target price before a designated block deadline. Base would hold the transaction and evaluate the conditions against chain state as each block is built. Transactions submitted through the system can remain private until they are included in a block, according to Base.

The upgrade builds on Base's July 8 activation of B20 as a native standard for stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets and other fungible tokens, which lets issuers deploy assets without building custom token contracts. On July 16, Base creator Jesse Pollak said the network had made a "wrong bet" by prioritizing creator, content and messaging applications and had lagged in areas including prediction markets and perpetual futures, adding that trading and payments would become a greater focus as Base positions itself as a blockchain for global finance.

A prominent B20 deployment followed on Aug. 25, when Coinbase launched tokenized US stocks on Base, issuing B20 tokens representing shares in Apple, Nvidia, Meta and Alphabet. Going forward, Base said it plans over the coming months to reduce block times from two seconds to 200 milliseconds, introduce protocol-level support for sponsored transaction fees and bundled transactions, and adopt technical changes planned for Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade.