cbETH is Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH: ether staked through Coinbase and wrapped into a token that never rebases. Instead of a balance that grows, each cbETH is worth more ETH over time, and the rate between the two is the whole story of the position.
On Base, cbETH arrives through the canonical bridge as a plain token. It moves, it trades, it sits in pools and lending markets, but it carries no record of what it is worth. That number lives on Ethereum, where Coinbase updates the rate as staking rewards accrue, and it reaches Base through an exchange-rate feed that publishes it there.
That gap is where the work is. A pool that prices cbETH below the rate is a discount on staked ether; one that prices it above is an exit worth taking. A loan backed by cbETH is only as safe as the rate it is valued at. A yield worth measuring is the distance the rate travelled between two looks at it.
In a plug, the published rate is a step like any other. It can value a balance, gate a swap on how far the market sits from the rate, or decide when a position moves, checked every block rather than whenever someone remembers to look.
A cbETH position on Base that is valued at what it is actually worth, and acted on when the market forgets.
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