Ethereum And Base Officially End Push For Shared Wallet Standard

Ethereum and Coinbase backed Base have officially abandoned months of effort to build a unified standard for next generation crypto wallets, concluding that forcing a shared design would require each network to sacrifice features central to its own priorities.

What The Standard Was Meant To Do

The goal was to modernize wallet behavior by letting users log in with passkeys, recover accounts through flexible methods, allow apps to cover transaction fees, and bundle multiple blockchain actions into a single transaction, eventually making it optional to hold ETH just to pay network fees.

According to an Ethlabs developer involved in the effort, talks broke down last week after both sides acknowledged the value of interoperability but ultimately prioritized their own network’s core goals over compromise.

Two Separate Paths Forward

Ethereum is advancing EIP-8141, known as Frame Transactions, which aims to preserve privacy, censorship resistance and security while preparing wallets for a future shift away from current cryptography if quantum computing eventually threatens it. The proposal has been listed as a must-ship feature for Ethereum’s upcoming Hegotá upgrade, though it remains in development and isn’t live yet. Base, meanwhile, is proceeding with its own proposal, EIP-8130, designed to optimize for high transaction volumes and applications with compliance needs. That standard is already being tested on Base’s development network and is slated for the network’s upcoming Cobalt upgrade later this month.

The split means wallet developers building across both networks will likely need to support two separate transaction systems rather than one shared standard.