after 2 years of hard work, blobs are now live on @base

before: $0.31
after: $0.00 (but actually $0.0005)

wallets need to update to handle these cost reductions!

1/ i'm so proud of us reducing @base fees 100x+ — but i've also seen how much hard work it's taken to get here. 

i want to share my perspective, with the hope that it shows how thinking long term, working hard, and doing things *together* can do massive good in the world.

@base builder #001; onchain cities w/ OAK & city3

2/ my story for 4844 begins in march 2022. 

we wanted to bring @coinbase onchain, but didn't know how. so we started experimenting with different onchain products to see what would stick.

as we built, we decided (a) we wanted to build on ethereum; (b) L2 was the place to do it

cofounder /ethglobal, team /op-stack, /canada native 

liamhorne.com

4/ we didn't know what we were building — but we knew whenever we figured it out, we'd need fees to be as low as possible. so we needed to help.

I wrote up a proposal and @barmstrong  and @danger approved us having 
@mdehoog start contributing.

5/ thus began our first contributions to ethereum. 

over the next lil while, we brought in @dgc and @bayardo.eth, who hacked with @proto, mofi taiwo, @terencechain, & others

they wrote code. i coordinated and took notes for a weekly meeting with contributors.

6/ once the merge shipped, @tim and @dannyryan got involved and more core devs started attending the meeting and shipping code.

we decided that at the jan 2023 "core devs retreat", alongside getting shanghai ready — we'd ship a fully functioning devnet with all clients.

7/ this was about the same time we decided to build @base. it took us a year — but we finally found how we could bring coinbase onchain.

and we saw how all of our work with 4844 would help us do it. we were fired up!

8/ the retreat was my first time in person with core devs and it gave me so much conviction — hundreds of people, from all over the world, coming together for a week. to just ship. ethereum!

we didn't really think we would ship the devnet. but we did. incredible.

8/ while we were there, I hosted an "AMA" with core devs to talk about coinbase. i will never forget @vdwijden and others grilling me on how we would *actually* contribute. 

this grounded me in ensuring that @base showed up to be the best possible contributor we could.

9/ after the retreat, 4844 was mostly on its wheels. so i stepped back and let @bayardo.eth continue leading our involvement. he did an incredible job over the last year making it happen.

and so many other core devs up to iron out the gnarly details and get this thing ready.

10/ too many people to shoutout, but some that stand out:

i shared 'em on twitter and it's too long to share here: https://twitter.com/jessepollak/status/1768086439152279861

and all the other people in this thread! and everyone else i missed who made it happen!

11/ it took us almost exactly two years — but if we hadn't all come together, i don't think we'd have gotten here nearly as fast.

so proud to be part of this incredible, global, decentralized team building the next generation of the internet onchain.

THANK YOU.

3/ BUT, we saw a big problem: even then, L2 fees were too high to bring millions of coinbase users onchain.

at that time, @liam.eth was leading OPLabs, we started talking, and he told me about 4844 — an initiative that could lower fees dramatically on L2.