TL;DR
- Base confirmed June 25 as the mainnet launch date for Beryl, its second major network upgrade.
- The upgrade introduces B20, a native token standard compatible with ERC-20 that operates as a precompiled contract written in Rust.
- Beryl reduces the standard withdrawal period from Base to Ethereum from seven days to five and adds the Reth V2 execution client.
Base, the Ethereum layer-2 network incubated by Coinbase, announced that June 25 is the official mainnet activation date for its second major upgrade, called Beryl. The upgrade was previously deployed on the Sepolia testnet as part of the technical verification process before its definitive implementation.
The central component of Beryl is B20, a new native token standard designed to allow the issuance of stablecoins and other digital assets directly from the network’s node software. Unlike traditional ERC-20 tokens, which run through smart contracts deployed on-chain, B20 tokens function as precompiled contracts with logic written in Rust.
This reduces operational overhead and can improve overall performance. Despite that architectural difference, B20 maintains full compatibility with the ERC-20 standard and incorporates support for ERC-2612 permits, which allows authorizing transactions through cryptographic signatures without the need for separate approval transactions.
Base Launches a Toolkit for Issuers
The upgrade also includes an Issuer Toolkit aimed at those wishing to issue assets on the network. The toolkit includes roles to access controls, token minting and burning capabilities, optional supply limits, transfer restrictions, and freeze and confiscation functions.
At launch, B20 supports a general-purpose asset format and a stablecoin-specific version with fixed six-decimal precision. Base indicated that future upgrades could allow transaction fees to be paid with B20 tokens instead of ETH.
Faster and More Efficient
Beryl also optimizes the withdrawal process from Base to Ethereum, reducing the standard period from seven days to five. This improvement focuses on the single-proof withdrawal path, which is the most widely used by the majority of bridging providers, unlike the one-day path enabled by the Multiproofs system introduced in the Azul upgrade, whose adoption has been limited by the high cost of generating zero-knowledge proofs.
Finally, the integration of Reth V2, the latest version of the execution client, reduces storage requirements for full, minimal, and archive nodes. These efficiency improvements will allow Base to increase gas limits per block without overloading sequencers or RPC infrastructure
