Author: ZENECA
Translator: Baihua Blockchain
In this article, I will share why I still think Base is very important, the areas I am currently focusing on in Base, and how you can participate in it from an operational perspective. I will provide an ecosystem overview and share some indicators that make me more confident that the "Base era" is about to arrive.
However, before delving into the details, it is necessary to state some obvious things: Most of the content involved in this article, as well as the vast majority of projects in the current crypto market (especially those related to memecoins), have extremely high risks, huge bubbles, and almost everything may plummet 95%-100% from the current level. Like others, I am trying to trade this market, and I will sell when I think the price is close to the peak, and gradually lock in profits as the price rises. In fact, I have already realized some of the gains.
Don't be a stubborn "diamond hand" holder, and don't be unwilling to sell because of moral blackmail from others. Ultimately, you have to do what is best for yourself. If your investment has reached an amount that can change your life, then sell, cash out, and change your life.
I have seen too many people "sit back to the starting point" from the peak, so I want to point out these risks here first. The following are my personal views, which may be wrong, the timing may be off, and there may be other issues. The importance of "doing your own research" (DYOR) has never been more prominent.
Next, let's start with Coinbase and talk about why I'm optimistic about Base.
Reason 1: Coinbase is a big player
Coinbase is one of the largest and most influential cryptocurrency trading platforms in the world, and is an important company in the crypto industry. Whenever a memecoin is listed on Coinbase, crypto investors around the world are excited, because they know that this usually means the price of that Token will (generally) rise. This is because Coinbase provides a convenient channel for ordinary users (or general crypto enthusiasts) to trade these Tokens.
Coinbase's mission is to increase global economic freedom and bring 1 billion people into the on-chain ecosystem. While they would be happy to have 1 billion users on any blockchain, they obviously particularly hope to attract these users to their own Base chain.
I think most people still underestimate the power of Coinbase's marketing machine and the importance of the company as a whole.
As one of the largest trading platforms in the US, Coinbase not only occupies an important position in business, but also often represents the entire crypto industry in legal and political struggles.
Last year, when the SEC decided to sue Coinbase, it was one of the few moments in the crypto field where almost everyone was united under the same goal. Nothing unites a group more than a common enemy. Of course, there were some opponents, but fuck the opponents, they are insignificant and hardly worth mentioning.
About Coinbase, I also want to add that the company seems to be full of sincerity from top to bottom, and the employees are all very excellent. It's not that other trading platforms can't do this, but the atmosphere emanating from Coinbase is particularly positive.
In short, Coinbase is a very important player. They have their own Layer 2 blockchain, which will most likely also be a major event worth watching.
Speaking of Base, we can't help but mention Ethereum - a blockchain that everyone loves and hates. However, I think the Ethereum era is also about to arrive...
Reason 2: The Ethereum Era
By the way, Ethereum is also a big player. I know that nowadays criticizing Ethereum has become a popular trend on social media, but to be honest, I think these voices are just a few who shout louder on Twitter. The really influential people mostly don't hang out on Twitter all day. Of course, this applies to all blockchains, but especially to Ethereum (partly because many people have already moved to Farcaster).
I won't deny that Ethereum has experienced some failures. In the past 12-18 months, it has "lost" to Solana (SOL) in many ways. It's slow, the fees are high, and the entire ecosystem seems fragmented and clumsy due to the many L2s (and L3s).
Even so, Ethereum is still the second largest blockchain by market capitalization, with a market capitalization nearly 4 times that of its competitors.
Among the 328 blockchains tracked by DeFi Llama, Ethereum still accounts for more than 50% of the total locked-in value (TVL). What a "dead chain" (laughs).
Obviously, Ethereum's price performance this year has lagged behind almost all other coins. But I think this situation is about to change.
This is the ETH/BTC chart over the past about five years. Clearly, Ethereum's performance has not been ideal in the past two years! But anyone with even a little understanding of charts, markets, and investing will tell you that this is a buying opportunity, not a selling time.
18-24 months ago was when you should have used ETH to exchange BTC or SOL.
I'm not saying you have to use BTC or SOL to exchange ETH now, but it's certain that the timing now is much better than any time in the past few years.
Yes, yes, I'm going to mention this old saying again, but it's really so accurate and applicable. The best time to buy SOL was when the panic sentiment was most severe after the FTX collapse.
I have to admit that in this market, I reacted a bit late to the amazing performance of SOL (at least relatively speaking, I entered when SOL was around $40). And as a stubborn ETH Bull, I may have held on longer than a qualified trader should have. But I have reasons for being bullish on ETH, many of which are mentioned in this article.
Many people's dissatisfaction with ETH mainly comes from the friction in using the chain, such as high gas fees and slow transaction speeds. L2s have solved many of these problems, and they are also catching up quickly in their own weak areas. So we come to...
Reason 3: Usage friction is disappearing rapidly
An important reason for Solana's recent success is its focus on consumer applications and end-user experience. They try to minimize usage friction as much as possible, and it is undeniable that the threshold for ordinary people to use the Solana blockchain is much lower compared to other major blockchains. Low transaction fees and fast transaction speeds are certainly important, but things like mobile-friendly wallets like Phantom and applications like Moonshot have had a huge impact on user acquisition.
Add to that the popularity of memecoins, especially the heat of the Pump Fun protocol, and the network effects brought by these factors, it's no wonder this has been so successful.
But I think Base is seeing similar trends, or is already very close. For example, just today, Phantom announced that it will support Base:
In the past few weeks, I've communicated with people in dozens of Discord/TG chat rooms, and I've heard countless times people say, "Ah, I only have SOL in my wallet, I don't know how to use Base."
I think this is just the beginning, and we will see more and more protocols and applications start to support Base, and there will also be more native Base applications.
In addition, many people are still haunted by the high gas fees on Ethereum in 2021 and the poor user experience of MetaMask, but they have not yet experienced the convenience of interacting with Base using native Coinbase Wallet (which earns 4.7% native yield on the USDC it holds), Rabby, Rainbow, or Phantom.
4. Reason Four: Powerful Team
When it comes to traditional investment companies or projects, I have always believed in betting on excellent talent. Base has a very capable and highly reliable team of members who are working their magic:
Brian Armstrong casually meets with Trump to discuss cryptocurrency policy. By the way, Brian is truly an extraordinary person, and you can read this article from 2020 (yes, sorry, I'm asking you to read more), and reflect on what the world was like at that time, and the attitudes of most major tech companies on political positions, and then compare it to the completely different approach taken by Brian in leading Coinbase.
Then there's the face of Base, Jesse Pollak, who is also leading Coinbase Wallet.
I've actually saved dozens of tweets because I'm looking for some that I can post here to showcase his personal qualities, especially how he has shaped Base into what it is today. Browsing his Twitter timeline is simply endless fun. I recommend you check it out yourself, but for the lazy ones, that's 99% of you (if I were in your shoes, I would be too), here are a few of my favorite tweets:
Jesse on a 21-day global tour, visiting builders and leaders, spreading the good news:
On trying to break into Instagram and TikTok:
On understanding meme culture (recommended to watch the video):
There's more. The above are just two outstanding individuals working to achieve Base's goals. Backing this team feels quite reassuring.
5. Reason Five: Excellent Data Performance
The data shows that activity on Base has increased significantly, and capital inflows have also been quite considerable. For me, the most important indicators in predicting whether a chain is likely to achieve major success are: 1) the number of builders/developers creating applications; 2) whether capital is flowing into the chain.
Looking back over the past three months, Base's net capital inflows have been almost on par with Solana:
Looking back over the past week, Base's performance has far exceeded all other platforms:
Trading volume has also been steadily increasing, with a recent uptick:
Over the past few days, many of Base's AI agents have gained a lot of attention on Twitter:
Overall, it's clear that traffic and attention are moving towards Base. Whether it can be sustained or is just a temporary fluctuation remains to be seen. Many claim this is just temporary, and Solana will maintain most of the attention in this cycle. I obviously disagree, but I'm not arrogant enough to think I'm definitely right and everyone else is wrong.
The data looks good, but data can be temporary.
6. Reason Six: Airdrop Speculation
Let me be clear, this is purely speculation, I have no inside information and don't know if there will be a Base Token. They have already stated that there will be no Token, but similarly, Optimism and many other chains have made similar promises.
However, with the significant changes in the legal and regulatory environment, I don't completely rule out the possibility of an airdrop at some point in the future.
That said, I won't be putting too much effort into this, as I personally treat it as a bonus rather than something I'm always focused on. I suggest just using the chain and doing some experiments or trials, as this is usually the best way to participate in airdrops when the protocols do eventually launch them.
Alright, those are the six reasons why I'm bullish on Base and believe Base Szn may be coming soon. Now let's dive into some areas worth paying attention to and where I've been spending time on Base:
7. Base Chain Ecosystem
1) Virtuals Protocol
You may have already heard about Virtuals, if not through my tweets/retweets, then perhaps through other discussions on your timeline. In simple terms, Virtuals is a platform that provides a launchpad for on-chain AI agents.
In their own words:
Over the past few months, it has seen a slow but steady adoption, with a recent uptick a few weeks ago, and an exponential growth over the past few days.
I don't need to tell you that AI is currently a big topic in the crypto space and is likely to be a mainstream topic and industry for the foreseeable future, if not forever. We've already seen meme coins like GOAT and ZEREBRO exploding on Solana, and many other projects performing well.
Currently, the market capitalizations of the top AI Tokens and agents on Virtuals are still only a small fraction of the giants on Solana, but if you look at the capital flows and expect an ETH season + Base season, I think focusing on the Virtuals ecosystem will be one of the best places to be.
The two Tokens I'm most bullish on and hold the most of are AIXBT and VADER, in addition to the native Token VIRTUAL. I hold Tokens for around 20 agents on the platform, and there are many more that I think will perform well, given that they already have significant market caps, their performance could far exceed the aforementioned Tokens.
You can find new Virtual AI agent Tokens being released (and you can also release your own Token). I recommend reading their full whitepaper to get a comprehensive understanding of the protocol.
Additionally, this is a good thread from last month that provides a high-level overview of Virtuals in an easy-to-understand way: link.
2) Farcaster
Base and Farcaster are closely related. While Farcaster supports and uses multiple chains, Base is currently almost devouring the entire world. As you can see from this chart, for most of this year, Base has accounted for 60% to 80% of all chain transactions by Farcaster users, and this figure has recently reached over 95%.
Regarding Farcaster, two recent integrations have garnered a lot of attention, namely clanker and anoncast.
Clanker is an AI agent deployed on Farcaster that deploys Tokens for users, and anyone can simply @ mention it to request it to create a Token for them. It uses its own funds to create liquidity pools for the Tokens and generates some fees for the creators. People have viewed it as a "pump fun" for Base, but I don't think this is a completely equivalent comparison.
This website is a great place to track the release of new clanker Tokens.
Anoncast is a very cool technology that allows people to post content on Farcaster or even Twitter with 100% anonymity using zk-proof technology (which I wrote about last year). You can post content through this website and you need to hold an anon Token (as a utility tag).
As developers and experimenters try out various new implementations, things are moving quickly, and it's worth keeping an eye on and delving deeper into the evolution of Farcaster.
I recommend watching this interview where ThreadGuy interviewed one of the co-founders of Farcaster, Dan Romero.
3) "Old" Coins, Memes, Traditional Memes, etc.
Although the current focus is mainly on the two areas mentioned above, especially Token related to AI which have garnered most of the attention, I believe it's also worth keeping an eye on some of the older Tokens that have been around on Farcaster for a while and have loyal communities.
There are too many to list, but by checking the Base page on Dexscreener and sorting by market cap, you'll find some decent old-school Memecoin.
I suspect that if we do indeed enter a Base Season, there may be a moment where the focus shifts from AI/Farcaster content to cute animals and traditional memes (or perhaps they may occur in parallel).
While the Virtuals ecosystem has recently experienced explosive growth, many of these older Tokens have also seen declines during the same period, and recalling the old adage "be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful", now may be a good time to look at areas that people are not paying much attention to.
4) Other Points Worth Noting
I was planning to write a whole paragraph here, but I just saw an amazing tweet that covers 10 cool apps to try, 10 ways to earn on-chain yields, 10 communities worth joining, and 10 articles worth reading. So, without further ado, let's take a look at that tweet.
https://x.com/davidtsocy/status/1861507879792189769?s=46&t=sQ0QVUQyoiZQeVyh-DXZpg
There are countless other cool things being built on Base, most of which I obviously can't cover. The things mentioned above are just what I've been personally following in the past few weeks, but I suggest you explore and find the areas that interest you.
Alright, those are the main areas I've been following, and let me wrap up with a few words on the logistics side.
I've received a lot of questions about how to get started on Base, so here's a quick primer/some tips:
If you have funds in an Ethereum wallet, you can bridge them to Base using platforms like Relay or Bungee. These are very user-friendly and low-cost, with the bridging process typically taking just a minute or so.
If you have SOL funds in your wallet, you can also use Relay for bridging, or you can directly select the bridging option within the Phantom wallet.
If you want to trade on Base, you can do it manually like me, 90% of the time, but there are also some trading bots that support Base, and I imagine more will emerge soon. Two of the most popular trading bots are BullX and Photon (disclosure: these are affiliate links).
The main decentralized exchanges for buying and selling Tokens on Base are Aerodrome and Uniswap. Personally, I prefer using the decentralized exchange aggregator LlamaSwap, as it can find the cheapest trading paths and get you the best rates.
Trading Virtuals Tokens is a bit different, as all AI agents can only use the native VIRTUAL Token for transactions. The easiest way is through their website, but you can also use LlamaSwap to swap Virtuals Tokens, just make sure to select KyberSwap as the decentralized exchange.
If you're looking for a wallet that supports all Base/EVM Tokens, I personally use and recommend Rabby, and I've also heard good things about Rainbow Wallet. Coinbase has its own wallet as well, but to be honest, I think it's not as feature-rich as the other two (or maybe I just haven't used it enough).
8. Conclusion: Final Thoughts on SOL and Base, and General Perspectives on Blockchain Competition
I've always felt that the fierce competition between blockchains is actually quite unnecessary. I personally see "competing chains" as friendly rivals, like the US and Canada, or Australia and New Zealand. We poke fun at each other, laugh at Solana's occasional issues, the sky-high gas fees on Ethereum, and well, Cardano is just Cardano.
But ultimately, if you're here to make money (which I guess 99% of people are), you should keep an open mind, experiment, and go with the flow.
If you're more concerned about the future of finance, about decentralization and censorship-resistance, rather than just making money, then by all means, stick to your guns. In this space, you'll encounter all kinds of extremist views: Bitcoin maximalists who think everything else is harmful to the industry; Ethereum maximalists who see Solana as a scourge; and Solana maximalists who view Ethereum and Base as the scourge.
There are even some Bitcoin maximalists who hate ETFs and MicroStrategy, while others love them.
I say all this to convey the message that no matter which side you're on, you'll encounter a group of people who think you're an idiot and your views are stupid. Honestly, that's just life - you can let it affect you, or you can, like me, just accept it, go with the flow, follow the money, follow the developers, follow the attention, and most importantly, follow your own curiosity.
I'd suggest you try doing the same. The most valuable information (Alpha) is not to follow my curiosity, my posts, or anyone else's footsteps, but to pursue your own curiosity, dive in, and think independently.
