Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) has restored the Coinbase Wallet name to the self-custodial app it relaunched as Base App in July 2025. The change, confirmed on September 10, 2026, marks a clear shift away from a social-first “everything app” and back toward fast, permissionless trading across many blockchains.
About 14 months earlier, Coinbase recast its wallet as Base App during the “A New Day One” event.
The product was meant to blend social feeds, messaging, mini-apps, payments, creator tools, and trading into a single onchain home built around Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network.
The bet was that users would linger if the app felt more like a social network than a finance tool.
That experiment fell short.
CEO Brian Armstrong later said the social push “didn’t quite work.”
Base creator Jesse Pollak also acknowledged that creator coins, team-backed tokens, and a social-first feed failed to hold attention, and he handed day-to-day product leadership back to Coinbase.
The restored Coinbase Wallet name is meant to signal a broader role: the company’s self-custodial front door to what product lead Ryan Kass calls an “everything exchange.”
Kass described the earlier Base App identity as an opinionated experiment.
The Wallet name, he said, better reflects a product that lets people reach assets regardless of which chain they live on.
Coinbase also framed the wallet as a test kitchen for markets and assets that may not yet appear on its centralized exchange.
Base App is now Coinbase Wallet.
Built for speed. Trade anything, anywhere, without asking permission. pic.twitter.com/Z1tlIWyI4X
— Coinbase Wallet (@coinbasewallet) September 10, 2026
The app now emphasizes speed and range. Onboarding is designed to take seconds.
Users keep full control of their keys; Coinbase said existing balances are unaffected by the name change.
Supported networks include Base, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, BNB Chain, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, plus newer additions Monad and Robinhood Chain, with more planned.
Trading coverage spans memecoins, tokenized stocks, prediction markets, and perpetual futures routed through Hyperliquid.
Official posts described the product as a wayto trade “anything, anywhere, without asking permission,” including mark ets that appear onchain before they reach traditional venues.
Base is not disappearing from the story.
The company is separating brand roles: Base refers to the chain and its builder ecosystem, while Coinbase Wallet is the self-custodial consumer app.
Many core assets, communities, and discovery features remain native to Base, so the wallet is still a path into that network even as it expands elsewhere.
The earlier social layer—feeds, creator coins, and mini-app social mechanics—has been de-emphasized in favor of a finance-first interface.
Some products remain limited by geography, including for US users.
The reversal is a reminder of how quickly consumer crypto products can change course.
Coinbase tried to turn a wallet into a social destination and found that users mainly wanted to trade, move assets, and reach new markets quickly.
The company is now betting that a familiar wallet brand plus multichain access will do that job better than a Base-branded super app.Users who already have the mobile app can update it on iOS or Android to see the restored Coinbase Wallet experience.
