Coinbase announced today that it is collaborating with BlockBeats to launch an investment model that allows community members to participate, providing further momentum for projects in the Base ecosystem. It also revealed 40 Base projects that have been invested in and supported by Coinbase Ventures over the past year and a half. This article will briefly introduce BlockBeats and outline the Alpha opportunities among the 40+ projects.
What is BlockBeats
BlockBeats was founded in March 2024 by crypto KOL Cobie「@echodotxyz」. Cobie was previously the growth lead at Lido and hosted the popular Web3 podcast UpOnly. The core of BlockBeats is the "lead investment recommendation mechanism", where users can create investment communities as lead investors, share projects with members, and extract a share of the profits.
Since its launch, more than 30 crypto projects, including Ethena, Morph, Usual, Hyperlane, Dawn, Monad, Initia, and MegaETH, have raised funds through BlockBeats. Within a year, a total of $100 million has been raised, with MegaETH raising $10 million in two rounds on the BlockBeats platform - the first round of $4.2 million was completed in 56 seconds, and the second round of $5.8 million was completed in 75 seconds.
The model is similar to a "crypto investor elite club", tending to select high-potential projects recognized by a small circle, such as The Block's CEO Larry Cermak and Aave founder Marc Zeller, who have already created their own BlockBeats communities. Users who want to join need to answer some questions and undergo KYC verification, and some communities also have additional requirements to access specific investment opportunities. Currently, there are 58 community leaders who have created communities on BlockBeats.
This community-driven model manages investments through smart contracts, ensuring that lead investors do not have access to user funds and allowing users to decide when to sell tokens. If the lead investor's investment is successful, they can receive a percentage of the co-investor's profits, incentivizing them to share quality projects. Although its elitist orientation makes its user base relatively niche, this screening mechanism ensures project quality and attracts investors who value trust.
This type of investment model is destined to have a relatively small investor base, but this may change with Coinbase's collaboration. Last month, founder Jordan Fish "Cobie" revealed that they will develop an ICO platform, stating that "there is currently no good way to conduct initial sales, and your best choice may be CoinList, but it has significant limitations for several reasons".
Coinbase's Vice President of Corporate Development Shan Aggarwal and Base founder Jesse Pollak said in a statement that "on-chain investment allows qualified investors to participate in ways that were previously impossible, while allowing founders to access a broader and more vibrant capital base. We are excited to expand the capital channels for Base builders, allowing more people to participate in the next wave of innovation".
The alignment of their ideas also makes Coinbase Ventures the group leader of BlockBeats at this juncture, and it can be foreseen that BlockBeats' target user group will become more "open" than before, and more Base-Build projects will emerge.
Some industry experts suggest that the more relaxed regulatory environment in the US may lead to a revival of public sales. Matt O'Connor, the co-founder of the currently hot ICO platform Legion, said that "once ICOs regain momentum, they may shift their focus away from the meme coin craze". In the current period, there are fewer and fewer real-built products, and more and more wealth is accumulating behind the scenes. If the collaboration between BlockBeats and Base is successful, it will release a wider pool of capital for builders in the industry and allow a broader range of qualified investors to participate in venture capital transactions that were previously unattainable.
Base Alpha
We cannot predict the excellent projects that Base may share on BlockBeats in the future, but among the 40+ investment projects mentioned this time, in addition to the already well-known Aerodrome, Morpho, and Mirror projects, there are many Alpha opportunities worth exploring. The editor has compiled some of the projects that retail investors can participate in and briefly introduced them.
AI and Technology
Sapien
Sapien is a decentralized data factory that allows enterprises, AI models, and agents to obtain datasets from experts in various fields, such as question-answer labeling, data collection, model fine-tuning, testing and evaluation, text classification, sentiment analysis, semantic segmentation, and image classification. According to the official website, 110,000 AI trainers from more than 90 countries have participated in the point system plan. Sapien plans to launch an open, license-free protocol on Base in the future, combining economic incentives, reputation systems, and game mechanics to drive the scalability of AI training.
The project is led by Base co-creator Rowan Stone and Polymath founder Trevor Koverko, and has a deep collaborative relationship with Coinbase. As a decentralized solution for AI data labeling, it is said to have already provided services to excellent companies such as Baidu, Midjourney, Alibaba, and TAL Education, but the specific service model and depth are unknown. Even so, the author believes that under good project conditions, users can currently obtain the tokens that may be issued in the future by participating in the zero-cost point system plan.
HeyElsa
Elsa is an AI Agent designed specifically for blockchain-related tasks. The author has been tracking this project for a long time, and it is rare for the project to persist in building the product instead of rushing to issue tokens in the context of the DeFAI concept ChatBot token craze. Elsa can now stably meet almost all on-chain token interaction needs on multiple chains, including staking and lending, sending and receiving cryptocurrencies, swapping and bridging cryptocurrencies, checking cryptocurrency prices, checking popular tokens, checking investment portfolio settings, and getting the latest news. Users can currently earn points by completing various tasks, which may be related to the subsequent token plan.
Infrastructure
Conduit
Conduit is a crypto infrastructure platform that focuses on helping teams quickly deploy production-grade OP Chains to meet the needs of DeFi protocols, gaming companies, and Non-Fungible Token (NFT) platforms. The project recently completed a $37 million Series A funding round led by Paradigm and Haun Ventures, with Coinbase Ventures participating. The funds will be used to develop customizable blockchain products. With Base pushing for L3 App Chains, Conduit's simplification of the blockchain development process under the demand for Base's Layer 2 expansion is in strong market demand. Although the project has not issued tokens yet, the recent financing shows market confidence, and it may issue tokens in the future to incentivize ecosystem participants.
Supermigrate
Supermigrate is a blockchain project migration service that helps projects move between different networks, and has already supported Base, OP, Mode, and Ink chains. In a multi-chain ecosystem, as Layer 2 develops, the demand for EVM-compatible migration services is increasing, and the demand for this type of infrastructure tool may increase.
Social and Prediction Market
Limitless
Limitless is a decentralized social prediction protocol similar to Polymarket, allowing creators to configure prediction markets and share them with the community. Users can trade the outcomes of real-world events and earn fees, similar to binary options or 0DTE options, providing a low-cost trading experience. The total amount bet in the market has reached $170 million. Users may obtain the tokens that may be issued in the future by actively participating in the prediction market, providing liquidity, or recommending new users.
Neynar
Neynar provides developer tools to help build decentralized social networks, primarily serving social protocols such as Farcaster. The project recently completed a $11 million Series A funding round with the participation of Coinbase Ventures. As the infrastructure for social protocols, while the current business model is based on fiat and Crypto subscriptions, it is not ruled out that the project may issue tokens in the future to incentivize its own ecosystem as a deep participant in the Farcaster product.
The above projects are not commercial investment advice, but are shared for informational purposes only. In the current bear market, please pay attention to protecting your assets. The rapid development of the Base Chain will fully unleash the strong Dev acceleration in its ecosystem to launch products, and Base is also working to increase community and investment in valuable products from various aspects to "release a wider pool of capital", which will bring more opportunities on Base. BlockBeats will continue to track valuable information.
Based.
Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:
Telegram subscription group: https://t.me/theblockbeats
Telegram discussion group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App
Twitter official account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia
