Base batches users' transactions and submits them to Ethereum, paying a share of the transaction fees to Ethereum validators (expense).

Base is an Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) offering a secure, low-cost, builder-friendly way for anyone, anywhere, to build onchain.

Coinbase team owns and governs the protocol. Coinbase is a public company and its investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Vanguard Group, ARK Investment Management, etc.

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Blockchains (L2)

Base

# Base Earnings Methodology

## 1. Overview

Base earnings represent the net profit generated by the Base Layer 2 blockchain, calculated as the difference between revenue (fees collected from users) and expenses (operational costs). This metric measures Base's profitability by subtracting all costs associated with operating the blockchain from the total fees collected. The earnings calculation follows standard accounting principles: Earnings = Revenue - Expenses.

## 2. Data sources

- **Base transaction records**: Complete transaction data from the Base blockchain including gas usage, gas prices, and L1 fee components
- **Ethereum transaction records**: Ethereum transactions from Base's batch sender address that submits transaction batches to Ethereum mainnet
- **Base FeeDisburser contract events**: Parsed `FeesDisbursed` events from Base's fee distribution contract that track fee splits between the sequencer and Optimism
- **End-of-day WETH price feeds**: Token price data from Ethereum used for USD conversion of all ETH-denominated values

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Revenue calculation

- **Purpose**: Calculate total fees collected from Base users as the primary revenue source
- **Logic**: Revenue comes entirely from transaction fees paid by users on Base. For each Base transaction, calculate both L2 gas fees (standard gas usage times gas price) and L1 data availability fees (L1 gas usage times L1 gas price times L1 fee scalar). Sum both fee components and convert from wei to ETH by dividing by 1e18. All ETH amounts are converted to USD using end-of-day WETH prices from Ethereum. Daily aggregation sums all transaction fees within each day boundary.
- **Key fields**: `gas_used`, `gas_price`, `l1_gas_used`, `l1_gas_price`, `l1_fee_scalar`, `block_timestamp`

### Component B: Token incentives (expenses)

- **Purpose**: Account for any token-based rewards or incentives paid to users or validators
- **Logic**: Base currently does not have a native token and does not distribute token incentives. This component is hardcoded to zero for all time periods but maintained in the calculation structure for consistency with other blockchain metrics.
- **Key fields**: All token incentive amounts set to zero

### Component C: Cost of revenue (expenses)

- **Purpose**: Calculate the direct costs of operating Base, specifically L1 settlement fees paid to Ethereum
- **Logic**: Identify Ethereum transactions where Base's batch sender address submits transaction batches to Ethereum mainnet by filtering for transactions from the specific batch sender address to Base's null address on Ethereum. For each settlement transaction, calculate total gas costs including both regular gas fees (gas used times effective gas price) and blob gas fees (blob gas used times blob gas price). Convert from wei to ETH and then to USD using WETH prices. These represent the direct cost of securing Base transactions on Ethereum.
- **Key fields**: `receipt_gas_used`, `receipt_effective_gas_price`, `receipt_blob_gas_used`, `receipt_blob_gas_price`

### Component D: Superchain fees (expenses)

- **Purpose**: Track fees paid to Optimism as part of the Superchain revenue sharing arrangement
- **Logic**: Parse `FeesDisbursed` events from Base's FeeDisburser contract to identify fee distributions. Extract the `paidToOptimism` amount from each event, which represents the portion of collected fees sent to Optimism. Convert from wei to ETH by dividing by 1e18, then to USD using WETH prices. Aggregate daily to determine total superchain fees paid to Optimism each day.
- **Key fields**: `paidToOptimism`, `totalFeesDisbursed`, `block_timestamp`

### Final aggregation

- **Combining components**: Sum all expense components (token incentives plus cost of revenue plus superchain fees) to calculate total daily expenses for Base
- **Currency conversion**: All ETH-denominated amounts are converted to USD using end-of-day WETH token prices from Ethereum to ensure consistent currency reporting
- **Time aggregation**: All components use daily time boundaries by truncating timestamps to day level and grouping calculations accordingly
- **Final calculation**: Subtract total daily expenses from total daily revenue to arrive at daily earnings. The formula is: Daily Earnings = Daily Revenue - (Daily Token Incentives + Daily Cost of Revenue + Daily Superchain Fees). Since token incentives are zero, this simplifies to: Daily Earnings = Daily Revenue - Daily Cost of Revenue - Daily Superchain Fees.

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Net profit (also profits, net income, profitability) — revenue remaining after subtracting expenses.

Base

Earnings

Earnings

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