Asia Morning Brief: Is Coinbase Planning a New Look for Its Wallet App?

Coinbase Gears Up for Wallet Rebrand as “A New Day One” Approaches

Coinbase is preparing to unveil significant changes at its upcoming “A New Day One” event, with a major focus on the future of Base amid the memecoin boom—and the shake-up starts with a rebrand of its wallet.

Though the Coinbase Wallet app itself isn’t disappearing, it’s about to shed its familiar name.

On its official X account, the wallet’s name has been visibly crossed out and replaced with a cryptic “TBA” and several question marks, leaving users buzzing with speculation.

“There’s a lot of talk about what’s coming, but my guess is it’ll be called ‘The Base App.’ That aligns with Base’s plans to integrate new in-app experiences directly into the wallet,” said Bradley Park, an analyst at DNTV Research in Seoul, speaking to CoinDesk.

Adding weight to this theory is the fact that Jesse Pollak, the creator of Base, was appointed to oversee Coinbase’s Wallet team last October.

During last year’s Devcon event in Bangkok, Pollak highlighted the importance of decentralization for Base. Many in the community believe the wallet’s rebrand could emphasize that decentralized vision and create a clearer distinction from the Coinbase brand itself.

This won’t be Coinbase Wallet’s first identity shift: it originally launched under the name “Toshi,” which was retired in favor of “Coinbase Wallet” back in 2018.

Cathie Wood Backs Ethereum’s Zero-Knowledge Push

In other crypto news, Ethereum has captured fresh institutional attention. ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood praised Ethereum’s strategic moves toward integrating zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) into its base protocol layer.

“Ethereum is making the right choices for scalability and privacy to stay ahead in the institutional space,” Wood commented, though she admitted not following every technical detail.

The proposed upgrade would allow validators to confirm cryptographic proofs of block validity rather than re-processing all transactions. These proofs could be verified in under 10 seconds on hardware that costs under $100,000 and consumes less than 10 kilowatts of power.

Such advances promise significant improvements in network capacity and decentralization, although they come with risks, like dependence on external prover networks, which could fail or collude. The Ethereum Foundation plans to address these issues through prover diversity, protocol upgrades, and eventually enabling individuals to contribute to proof generation from home setups.

Should Ethereum succeed, it would become the first major blockchain to embed ZKPs directly into its base protocol, strengthening its position as the backbone for decentralized apps and institutional operations. Alongside innovations like cheaper data storage via blobs and progress in zk-rollups, Ethereum aims to remain the leader in scalable blockchain technology.

Market Update

• BTC: Bitcoin rose 1% over the weekend, briefly touching nearly $119,000, driven by trading volumes three times higher than usual. Meanwhile, BlackRock’s IBIT fund surpassed $80 billion in assets under management, underscoring strong institutional demand despite late-session profit-taking.
• ETH: Ethereum crossed the $3,000 mark for the first time since February, gaining 3% on record institutional inflows and robust trading volume, signaling solid bullish momentum.
• Gold: Gold advanced to $3,371, fueled by central banks maintaining aggressive buying exceeding 1,000 tonnes per year since 2022. The rally has pushed gold past key technical levels, with analysts now eyeing $3,578 and higher targets.
• Nikkei 225: Asian markets opened lower Monday after President Trump’s unexpected announcement of 30% tariffs on imports from the EU and Mexico, sending Japan’s Nikkei 225 index down 0.33%.

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