Base announces upcoming improvements to smart accounts

Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 network just made its clearest play yet for mainstream adoption. Base launched the Base Account on July 16, 2025, a new smart wallet infrastructure layer that automatically creates a self-custodial account the moment someone signs up for the Base app.

The feature is called “Sign in with Base,” and it works across apps and chains.

What Base Account actually does

When a user signs up for the Base app, a self-custodial smart account is automatically generated. The feature set includes cross-app compatibility, meaning one account works across multiple applications built on Base and other chains. There’s also Base Pay, which enables one-tap USDC payments. Sponsored gas fees are baked in as well, meaning users don’t need to hold ETH to transact. Transaction batching is another inclusion, allowing multiple operations to be bundled into a single action.

The Sub Accounts feature, which hit mainnet in Q2 2025 after a successful testnet rollout, laid the groundwork for this broader account infrastructure. Sub Accounts let applications create isolated account contexts within a user’s main wallet, useful for separating funds across different dApps without managing multiple wallets.

The 2026 roadmap: Beryl and Cobalt

First up is Beryl, targeted for June 25, 2026. This upgrade introduces B20, a new native token standard designed to facilitate further abstraction improvements.

Then comes Cobalt in September 2026. Cobalt will establish native account abstraction at the protocol level, meaning gas sponsorship and transaction batching won’t be features bolted on top of the network — they’ll be built into the foundation. Every account on Base would essentially be a smart account with built-in capabilities that currently require third-party infrastructure.

The AI angle

Base has been increasingly explicit about building “agent-native infrastructure,” and the smart account improvements feed directly into that strategy. Traditional externally owned accounts, controlled by private keys, require a single signer and lack programmable logic. Smart accounts with features like transaction batching and gas sponsorship are better suited for autonomous agents that need to execute complex multi-step operations. The combination of Base Account’s current features and the Cobalt upgrade’s native account abstraction creates an environment where AI agents could operate with the same ease as human users.

What this means for investors

The introduction of these features has not yet triggered significant market price changes or expert commentary directly linked to the smart accounts announcement.

For the broader Ethereum ecosystem, Base’s roadmap creates competitive dynamics against other Layer 2 networks including Arbitrum, Optimism, and zkSync. Base has a specific advantage in Coinbase’s existing verified user base. “Sign in with Base” could become a path from centralized exchange user to on-chain participant.

Investors watching Base should track three things over the next twelve months: daily active smart accounts post-launch, developer adoption of Sub Accounts and Base Pay integrations, and whether the Beryl timeline holds.

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