The collaboration between Ethereum and Coinbase-backed layer-2 network Base on a shared next-generation wallet standard has collapsed. On Sept. 14, Ethlabs researcher Derek Chiang said developers working on Ethereum’s EIP-8141 Frame Transactions and Base’s EIP-8130 could not reconcile their different requirements, forcing Ethereum to advance Frames while Base pursues a separate design for native account abstraction.
Both proposals aim to make wallets more programmable, supporting gas sponsorship, passkeys and flexible authentication. The core disagreement centers on how much freedom the protocol should give accounts versus how much structure chains should impose before transactions execute. Chiang summarized the split: "Ethereum wanted to be the best version of Ethereum, and Base wanted to be the best version of Base." The breakdown followed late August discussions attempting to bridge the two designs, even after Ethereum core developers signaled EIP-8141 for the Hegotá upgrade.
EIP-8141 introduces Frame Transactions that break a transaction into programmable calls, detach accounts from elliptic-curve keys, enable key rotation and offer a path toward post-quantum authentication. In contrast, EIP-8130, written by Coinbase engineer Chris Hunter, takes a more structured approach by requiring transactions to identify their authenticator so nodes can determine validation work before executing wallet code. Its draft includes separate L1 and layer-2 adoption profiles, while retaining ERC-4337 as an alternative transport to preserve cross-chain portability.
Ethereum core developer Matt Garnett said divergence among L2s was inevitable because market competition forces them to ship features faster than L1 can match, allowing incompatibilities to accumulate. Crypto lawyer Gabriel Shapiro argued the split weakens the case that L2 growth automatically strengthens Ethereum, saying: "L2s are great — for the crypto industry and for people who own the sequencer. For Ethereum, they are just kinda like ‘less bad’ than competing L1s." He linked the shift to Vitalik Buterin’s increased emphasis on censorship resistance, privacy and security as activity continues moving onto rollups.
