Overview

• Coinbase CLO Paul Grewal argued that L2 sequencers are infrastructure that order and batch transactions, comparing their role to AWS rather than a matching engine.
• Base co-founder Jesse Pollak detailed that the sequencer uses first‑in, first‑out ordering, does not match trades, and can be bypassed via direct submission to Ethereum for censorship resistance.
• Vitalik Buterin said Base cannot steal or block withdrawals, pointing to L2Beat’s Stage 1 model with L1‑enforced exits and minority‑independent security council safeguards.
• SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce previously cautioned that a single entity controlling a matching engine could look like an exchange, leaving the legal classification of sequencers unresolved.
• Base reports roughly 160 transactions per second and about $15 billion in TVL, has enabled permissionless block proposals, and is openly exploring a network token as part of a broader decentralization roadmap.