Pollak: Decentralization is essential at the base layer, not entire stack
Jesse Pollak · Why Now Is The Best Time To Build In Crypto · Y Combinator · Sep 23, 2025 · at 23:31
Jesse Pollak (creator of Base at Coinbase) responds to crypto critics about integrating traditional commercial logic like escrow and chargebacks into onchain protocols.
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“The place where decentralization is really, really important is at the very bottom of the stack, right? You need decentralization at the Ethereum layer, at base, because what that enables is it enables this global platform that everyone can come and participate on. Now on top of that platform, the thing that we're seeing is that if you just myopically say, okay, now not only does the base layer need to be decentralized, every single thing that goes up and down the stack also needs to be decentralized. You're basically throwing out what we've learned about building businesses for the last hundred years and saying, oh no, no, no, no, no, like that stuff's wrong.”
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