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Base

Official Website: base.org

Base (ETH) is a Layer-2 network for Ethereum built by Coinbase. A Layer-2 is a separate chain that processes transactions off of Ethereum's main chain and posts them back to it, giving you much lower fees and faster confirmations while inheriting Ethereum's security.

This wallet type supports the Base network. Do not send funds to or receive funds from other networks using this wallet.

Addresses

In Cake Wallet's Base wallet, there is only one address per wallet, which is standard for the Ethereum ecosystem. Keep in mind that this has lesser privacy compared to some other assets, where new addresses are automatically generated.

Your Base address starts with 0x followed by a series of alphanumeric characters. This is the same 0x address format used on Ethereum and other EVM chains, so the same address can receive funds on many chains.

Seed Format

Cake Wallet uses a 12-word BIP39 seed for Base wallets by default. Under Advanced Settings on the wallet creation screen you can choose a 24-word BIP39 seed instead, and you can add a seed passphrase. When creating or restoring a wallet, you can use the seed phrase or the private key. The derivation path used is m/44'/60'/0'/0.

Because Base shares the same seed format and derivation path as Ethereum, its seed can be shared with your other Cake Wallet currencies as part of a wallet group.

Fee Levels

Transaction fees are a necessary part of sending ETH or ERC-20 tokens.

ETH is consumed as a 'gas' fee when making any transaction from a Base wallet. This also applies to sending ERC-20 tokens. For example, to send USDT, you pay a network fee in ETH, not USDT. Thus, sending 10 USDT costs a small amount of ETH, and the recipient receives the full 10 USDT.

Cake Wallet offers three fee levels for transactions:

  • Slow: Cheaper but may take longer to confirm.

  • Medium: Recommended for most transactions. Balanced speed and cost.

  • Fast: Expensive but confirms quickly.

These fee levels are determined automatically using current network fee rates.

MEV protection

When you send a Base transaction, Cake Wallet broadcasts it privately through Blink rather than the public mempool. This protects your transaction from MEV — "maximal extractable value" attacks such as front-running and sandwiching, where bots watch the public mempool and reorder or insert transactions around yours to profit at your expense.

Blink protection is enabled by default. If a private broadcast ever fails, Cake Wallet automatically falls back to a normal broadcast so your transaction still goes through. You can turn it off with the Use Blink Protection toggle under Connections in settings.

Base and Ethereum are the only two chains in Cake Wallet with Blink protection.

Tokens

Cake Wallet's Base wallet can store ERC-20 tokens in addition to ETH. Some common tokens such as USDC, USDe, DAI, and USDT are displayed by default. To show other ERC-20 tokens, open the Assets tab on your home screen, tap the Tokens button, and enable them.

Adding a new token

You can add a new ERC-20 token from the same Tokens screen: search for your desired token, then tap to enable it.

If the token does not appear, you can add it by contract address. Paste the address of the custom token you wish to add, then click the + button.

Transaction history

Transaction history is populated using the BaseScan API. You can enable or disable this API lookup under BaseScan History under SettingsConnections.