Welcome to the NZRT Wiki Podcast. Today we’re looking at Ethereum & Base Network.

So first, a quick framing note. NZRT deploys on Base, which is a low-cost Ethereum Layer 2 network built by Coinbase. Base settles back to Ethereum’s main chain, so you get the security of Ethereum with much lower costs. That’s the core reason NZRT uses it, and it’ll make more sense as we walk through the pieces.

Let’s start with some Ethereum basics, because you need these to understand everything that follows.

Ethereum is a proof-of-stake Layer 1 blockchain. Think of it as the foundation — it’s a smart contract platform, meaning you can deploy programs directly onto it that run without a central server. The thing that actually runs those programs is called the EVM, short for Ethereum Virtual Machine. The EVM executes the bytecode of smart contracts, and it runs the same way on every node in the network, which is how you get trustless, consistent execution.

The language most developers use to write those smart contracts is called Solidity. If you’ve seen any Ethereum development work, you’ve probably come across it.

Now, running code on Ethereum costs something. That cost is measured in units called gas. Gas is just the unit of computation — every operation in a smart contract uses a certain amount of it, and you pay for that gas in ETH, which is Ethereum’s native currency.

Speaking of ETH, it’s worth knowing the denominations. The smallest unit is called Wei. One ETH equals ten to the power of eighteen Wei — so an enormous number. In practice, when people talk about gas prices, they usually use Gwei, which is one billion Wei. You’ll see Gwei come up a lot in tooling and configuration, so it’s good to have that in your vocabulary.

Now let’s talk about Base specifically.

Base is what’s called an Optimistic Rollup. That’s a type of Layer 2 solution where transactions are processed off the main Ethereum chain, but the results are periodically posted back to Ethereum for final settlement. The “optimistic” part means transactions are assumed to be valid unless someone challenges them. This approach lets you dramatically reduce costs while still inheriting Ethereum’s security guarantees.

Base was built by Coinbase, its native token is ETH just like Ethereum, and its block time is around two seconds — much faster than Ethereum’s main chain. If you ever need to look up a transaction on Base, the block explorer is at basescan dot org. There’s also a testnet version of Base called Base Sepolia, which is where you’d go to test things without spending real money.

Two numbers worth memorising: the Chain ID for Base Mainnet is 8453, and for the Base Sepolia Testnet it’s 84532. You’ll need these when configuring wallets or developer tools.

On that note, let’s talk about how you actually configure your environment to connect to Base.

When you’re setting up a tool like MetaMask or a development framework like Hardhat to point at Base Mainnet, you’d provide a few key pieces of information. You’d name the network Base, point the connection URL to the mainnet Base endpoint — which you can get either directly from Base or through a provider like Alchemy — set the Chain ID to 8453, set the currency to ETH, and use basescan dot org as the explorer URL.

For the testnet setup — Base Sepolia — it’s the same idea. You’d name it Base Sepolia, point the connection URL to the Sepolia endpoint, use Chain ID 84532, and note that the ETH here is testnet ETH, meaning it has no real value. The explorer for testnet is at sepolia dot basescan dot org. And if you need testnet ETH to actually do anything, Coinbase runs a faucet where you can get some for free.

Faucets, by the way, are just web tools that send you small amounts of testnet currency so you can pay for gas while you’re developing and testing.

That covers the core concepts you need to work with Ethereum and Base at NZRT. To recap: Ethereum is the Layer 1 foundation, the EVM runs smart contracts written in Solidity, gas is what you pay in ETH for computation, and Wei and Gwei are the sub-units of ETH you’ll encounter in tooling. Base sits on top of Ethereum as an Optimistic Rollup — faster, cheaper, same ETH token, Chain ID 8453 for mainnet and 84532 for testnet. When you’re configuring your wallet or dev tools, those two Chain IDs are the key thing to get right.

If you want to go deeper, the wiki also links out to related topics on smart contracts, the Alchemy provider, and the contract deployment process — so those are good next reads if you’re getting hands-on with Base development at NZRT.

That’s it for this episode of the NZRT Wiki Podcast. Thanks for listening.