Base deploys Beryl testnet upgrade, sets June 25 mainnet activation

Base has rolled out its Beryl upgrade to the Base Sepolia testnet, with mainnet activation scheduled for June 25. The Coinbase-incubated Ethereum Layer 2 network said the release introduces B20, a native token standard for issuing stablecoins and other assets directly inside Base's node software, while also reducing the chain's standard withdrawal delay to Ethereum from seven days to five. B20 is designed to be compatible with existing ERC-20 infrastructure. It implements the full ERC-20 specification and includes ERC-2612 permits, which allow token holders to approve spenders with a signature instead of a separate transaction. Base said the main distinction is that B20 tokens run as precompiled contracts (built into node software) written in Rust rather than as conventional smart contracts (self-executing blockchain code) deployed as EVM bytecode. The standard launches with an Issuer Toolkit that includes role-based access control, mint and burn functions with optional supply caps, transfer controls, and a freeze-and-seize mechanism intended for regulated issuers. Two versions are available at launch: a general-purpose asset variant and a stablecoin variant with fixed six-decimal precision and an issuer-defined currency code. Base said the toolkit relies on code audited by the company and Spearbit, and future updates are planned to let issuers pay gas fees in B20 tokens instead of ETH. On withdrawals, Beryl focuses on the single-proof route most bridging providers use. Base said the shorter delay builds on Multiproofs, introduced in the earlier Azul upgrade, which activated on mainnet in May. While Multiproofs already enabled a one-day finalization path when both a TEE (trusted execution environment) and a zero-knowledge proof confirm a transaction, that route has seen limited use because generating the ZK proof is expensive. Base said narrowing the role of the delay to detecting and disabling a faulty prover makes further reductions possible. Beryl also includes Reth V2, the latest version of the Rust-based execution client, which Base said reduces disk usage for full, minimal, and archive nodes and supports higher block gas targets without overloading sequencer or RPC nodes. The company said Beryl arrived roughly four weeks after Azul's mainnet activation, a cadence it attributed to its February shift away from a shared dependency on Optimism's OP Stack toward its own unified technology stack. Base's next upgrade, Cobalt, is targeted for September and is expected to add native account abstraction (smart wallet features built into the protocol), gas sponsorship, transaction batching, additional B20 features, and a unified node binary for consensus and execution clients.