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.

github

twitter

discord

website

Blockchains (L2)

Base

# Base Gross profit Methodology

## 1. Overview

Gross profit for Base blockchain measures the profitability of Base's Layer 2 operations by calculating the difference between revenue generated from user transaction fees and the costs associated with operating the blockchain. The metric answers the business question: "How much profit does Base generate after accounting for L1 settlement costs and revenue sharing obligations?" The calculation uses the formula: gross profit = revenue - cost of revenue - superchain fees.

## 2. Data sources

The calculation draws from several key data sources:
- **Base blockchain transaction data**: All transaction records from Base blockchain including gas usage, gas prices, and L1 data availability costs
- **Ethereum blockchain transaction data**: Ethereum transactions specifically from Base's batch sender address to track L1 settlement costs
- **Base smart contract events**: Parsed `FeesDisbursed` events from Base's FeeDisburser contract tracking revenue distributions
- **End-of-day price feeds**: Token price data for USD conversion, using WETH as the reference token for ETH pricing
- **Token metadata**: Contract addresses and symbols for WETH tokens on both Ethereum and Base networks

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Revenue calculation
- **Purpose**: Calculate total revenue generated from Base transaction fees
- **Logic**: Extract all transactions from Base blockchain and calculate two types of fees. For L2 execution fees, multiply `gas_used` by `gas_price` for each transaction. For L1 data availability fees, multiply `l1_gas_used` by `l1_gas_price` by `l1_fee_scalar`. Sum both fee types for each transaction, aggregate by day, and convert amounts from Wei to ETH by dividing by 10^18. Convert daily ETH amounts to USD using end-of-day WETH price feeds. Apply schema validation and gap-filling through finalization macros.
- **Key fields**: `gas_used`, `gas_price`, `l1_gas_used`, `l1_gas_price`, `l1_fee_scalar`, `block_timestamp`

### Component B: Cost of revenue calculation  
- **Purpose**: Calculate L1 settlement costs paid by Base to Ethereum mainnet
- **Logic**: Filter Ethereum transactions where the sender address equals Base's batch sender address (`0x5050f69a9786f081509234f1a7f4684b5e5b76c9`) and the recipient address equals Base's L1 contract (`0xff00000000000000000000000000000000008453`). For each qualifying transaction, calculate settlement cost as regular gas cost (`gas_used` * `gas_price`) plus blob gas cost (`blob_gas_used` * `blob_gas_price`). Sum total costs per day, convert from Wei to ETH, then convert to USD using end-of-day WETH price feeds.
- **Key fields**: `from_address`, `to_address`, `receipt_gas_used`, `receipt_effective_gas_price`, `receipt_blob_gas_used`, `receipt_blob_gas_price`

### Component C: Superchain fees calculation
- **Purpose**: Calculate revenue sharing payments to Optimism Superchain
- **Logic**: Parse `FeesDisbursed` events from Base's FeeDisburser contract on Base blockchain. Extract the `paidToOptimism` amount from each event, which represents Base's revenue sharing obligation. Convert amounts from Wei to ETH by dividing by 10^18, aggregate by day, and convert to USD using end-of-day price feeds for Base WETH token.
- **Key fields**: `paidToOptimism` from `FeesDisbursed` events, `block_timestamp`

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: Union the three components by timestamp and product dimensions, with revenue amounts as positive values and cost of revenue and superchain fees as negative values to enable subtraction through summation
- **Currency conversion**: All components are converted to USD using end-of-day WETH price feeds, with Ethereum WETH prices used for L1 settlement costs and Base WETH prices used for L2 transactions and fee distributions  
- **Time aggregation**: Daily boundaries are enforced by truncating timestamps to day level, with a consistency check ensuring all three components use the same maximum timestamp boundary
- **Final calculation**: Sum all amounts by day to produce gross profit, where gross profit equals the sum of positive revenue and negative cost components, applying gap-filling logic to ensure complete daily coverage

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

Revenue remaining after subtracting cost of revenue.

Base

Gross profit

Gross profit

Competitive landscape