Highlights

  • Coinbase is renaming Base App back to Coinbase Wallet, just over a year after the original rebrand.
  • The app now supports more than 10 networks, including Base, Robinhood Chain, Solana, Bitcoin and Ethereum.
  • It plugs into Hyperliquid for perpetual futures trading and also offers prediction markets and tokenized stocks.
  • Coinbase is repositioning the self-custody app as a “test kitchen” for products not yet on its centralized exchange.

Coinbase is reversing course on one of its more ambitious rebranding bets, renaming Base App back to Coinbase Wallet a little over a year after it first made the switch. The self-custody app was relaunched as Base App in mid-2025 with a pitch to become an “everything app” blending social feeds, messaging, mini-apps, payments and trading into a single product. That vision didn't stick: by January 2026, Base lead Jesse Pollak had already acknowledged the social strategy wasn't gaining traction and announced a pivot toward a trading-first experience, setting up this week's full return to the Coinbase Wallet name.

Under its restored identity, the wallet is being positioned less as a social network and more as what Coinbase is calling a multichain trading entry point, and a “test kitchen” for products the company isn't ready to list on its centralized exchange. The app now supports more than 10 networks, spanning Base, Robinhood Chain, Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Monad, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon and Avalanche. It also connects to Hyperliquid to offer perpetual futures trading directly inside the app, alongside support for long-tail assets, prediction markets and tokenized stocks — categories that sit further out on the risk curve than Coinbase typically lists on its main platform.

A Year of Social-App Experimentation Ends

The reversal is a notable admission for a company that spent much of 2025 pitching Base App as its answer to the consumer crypto app question, betting that combining social features with a wallet would drive organic growth the way earlier crypto-native social products had tried and largely failed to do. Instead, Coinbase's own data pointed toward trading, not socializing, as the behavior users actually wanted from the app, and the January pivot toward a trading-first layout was the first public sign the social bet wasn't paying off. The full name reversal now closes that chapter and signals Coinbase wants the product's branding to match what users are actually using it for. It also reflects a broader pattern across crypto over the past two years, where several exchanges tried bolting social features onto trading apps in search of the next consumer breakout product, only to find that the users who download a self-custody wallet are overwhelmingly there to move or trade assets rather than to browse a feed.

Why the Multichain Pivot Matters

The rebrand lands at a moment when Robinhood Chain has emerged as one of the more disruptive new entrants in crypto infrastructure, with its daily fee revenue recently surpassing Solana, Ethereum and Base combined. Coinbase Wallet's decision to support Robinhood Chain natively, rather than treating it purely as a rival's network, suggests Coinbase is prioritizing being the default entry point for trading activity wherever that activity happens, rather than trying to keep users confined to its own chain. The Hyperliquid integration follows a similar logic: perpetual futures have become one of the fastest-growing product categories in crypto, and The Block reported that Coinbase Wallet's head of product, Ryan Kass, framed the app's expansion as a natural extension beyond Base into a broader multichain trading platform, rather than a retreat.

What Comes Next

The immediate test for Coinbase is whether stripping out the social layer and re-focusing on trading actually lifts engagement, or whether the app simply reverts to being a lower-profile companion to the main Coinbase exchange. Watch for how quickly Coinbase expands the “test kitchen” pipeline of new assets and products inside the wallet, since that pipeline is now explicitly positioned as the proving ground for what eventually graduates to the centralized exchange. Hyperliquid's own competitive position is also worth tracking, as Coinbase Wallet is not the only major platform courting the perpetuals venue for US-facing distribution, and how that competition shakes out will shape where perpetuals liquidity concentrates over the next few months.

FAQ

Why is Coinbase renaming Base App back to Coinbase Wallet?
The social-app strategy behind the original Base App rebrand failed to gain traction, and Coinbase is repositioning the product around trading and multichain asset support instead.

What networks does the Coinbase Wallet app support?
More than 10 networks, including Base, Robinhood Chain, Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Monad, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon and Avalanche.

Can users trade perpetual futures inside Coinbase Wallet?
Yes, the app connects to Hyperliquid to offer perpetual futures trading directly, alongside prediction markets and tokenized stocks.

What does Coinbase mean by calling the wallet a “test kitchen”?
Coinbase is using the self-custody app to launch long-tail assets and products before deciding whether to bring them to its centralized exchange.