Author: Grapefruit , ChainCatcher
Editor: Marco, ChainCatcher
In the last two days of March, the MEME coin mfercoin on the Base chain created an increase of more than 100 times in 6 hours after its launch, which caused a sensation in the crypto community.
mfercoin is a meme token issued by Sartoshi, the founder of the well-known NFT project Mfers. Its opening price was around US$0.0015, and it once rose to US$0.31, with a cumulative increase of more than 200 times. It has now fallen back to US$0.18.
Then, Doodles founder Poopie issued the meme coin POOP, which had a market value of over 50 million U.S. dollars at the opening. Catching up with Base’s meme hype became the top priority for crypto community users.
In fact, since the Ethereum Cancun upgrade, the data on the Base chain has entered a state of explosive growth. In the second week after Cancun went online (March 25), Dune data showed that Base added about 850,000 new users last week, the highest number of new users in history.
TVL increased by more than US$1.5 billion in 10 days. According to L2Beat data, the value of crypto assets locked on the Base chain exceeded US$3 billion (now US$3.2 billion) on April 1, an increase of 65.4% in the past 7 days. TVL jumped to third in the Layer2 sector, with Arbitrum (TVL of US$17.13 billion) and OP Mainnet (TVL of US$8.52 billion) ranking first and second respectively.
In addition to the growth of TVL on the chain, the price of tokens in the ecosystem has also risen. Among them, the price of DEGEN, a MEME coin in the social application Farcaster platform, has been rising from around $0.0014 on March 13, continuously setting new historical highs. The highest price on April 1 was over $0.06, and the increase was more than 40 times in the past half month; the price of AERO, a token of the DEX platform Aerodrome, has increased by more than 100% in the past 7 days and is now quoted at $1.4.
The surge in TVL and the price of meme tokens within the ecosystem has made the Base ecosystem the hottest topic in the current crypto market. A large number of KOLs at home and abroad have begun to focus on the Base chain and its ecological applications.
Based on the past experience of public chain ecosystem development, once a public chain takes off, the on-chain ecosystem will also explode, such as native DEX, lending, native Meme, NFT, Social, etc. There will be new opportunities. So, what opportunities are there to participate in the Base ecosystem? Why is the Base ecosystem so popular recently?
Why did the Base chain data surge?
There may be two major driving forces behind the recent significant growth in Base chain data. One is that the EIP-4844 plan reduces the Base chain gas fee, boosting its chain transaction demand and ecological development; the other is Coinbase's continued empowerment of the Base chain.
Since the EIP-4844 plan was adopted on March 16, the gas fee on the Base chain has dropped from around US$0.58 to US$0.07 in a short period of time, and the cost of submitting data to L1 DA has also dropped from hundreds of thousands of US dollars per day to thousands or hundreds of US dollars, attracting a large number of users. The number of active user addresses on that day increased to 850,000, and the number of completed transactions exceeded 2.06 million, setting a historical record.
However, the number of active users on the Base chain soon pushed up the Gas fee, even exceeding the fees before the Cancun upgrade. On March 26, the Gas fee for each transaction on the chain was as high as US$9.9.
In response to this, Base core contributor @jessepollak tweeted that although EIP-4844 reduced Base fees, it released more than 5 times the transaction demand than before, causing a surge in on-chain gas fees. The team is already working hard to reduce network gas fees.
Roberto Bayardo, a member of the Base team, said that starting from March 27, the target throughput will be increased by 50% and the impact will be observed. If everything goes well, the throughput will be increased again next week to at least twice today's target.
As of March 29, the GAS fee per transaction on the Base chain was around US$0.5, which was the same as before the Cancun upgrade.
Base is a Layer 2 network launched by Coinbase. Backed by Coinbase's huge user base and strong asset accumulation, it naturally cannot avoid the support of relevant resources, which enables the Base chain and Coinbase exchange and wallet ecology to form a linkage.
First of all, in terms of resource interconnection between exchanges and chains, Base published a statement on February 29 stating that one of the key focuses in 2024 is smart wallets.
Coinbase's new smart wallet (AA wallet) has been launched on the Base Sepolia test network. Ordinary users no longer need cumbersome operation steps such as seed phrase and extensions. They can directly use mobile phones, computers, and Google accounts to create accounts. Novice users can directly use Coinbase account balances to pay gas fees or purchase tokens on the chain, etc., which lowers the user threshold and lays the foundation for the Base chain to attract users and funds on a large scale.
In addition, Coinbase intends to transfer part of its exchange business to the Base chain. On March 27, Max Branzburg, vice president of consumer products at Coinbase, said in a post that Coinbase will store more corporate and customer USDC balances on Base.
With the support of the EIP-4844 plan and Coinbase, the Base chain has also ushered in new opportunities, and on-chain applications and MEME have entered a period of rapid growth.
According to DeFiLlama data, there were 240 applications on the Base chain as of April 1, with a locked TVL of more than US$1.1 billion, an increase of more than 149% in the past half month. The on-chain DEX platform Aerodrome captured more than US$2.61 million in fees, ranking among the top 15 in the entire crypto market.
However, it should be noted that the Base ecosystem is still in its early stages and there are more risks. Users should be cautious when choosing projects. For example, the popular OVER and BACK Meme coin combination that was betting against each other on March 20th disappeared in less than a day.
How much do you know about Base ecosystem applications?
1. Decentralized social protocol Farcaster and its ecological applications
Farcaster is a decentralized social media protocol created by former Coinbase executive Dan Romero and others. It is also a Web3 social underlying infrastructure. Developers can build various new social applications based on this social network, and users can freely move their social identities and their data between these applications.
At the end of January this year, Farcaster launched a new feature, Frames, which can transform any content published by Farcaster into an interactive application, similar to the mini-program function in WeChat, with which users can interact.
Warpcast is a social application developed by the Farcaster official team. Its user interface and functions are similar to Twitter. Users can post, follow, comment and interact, build their own communities, etc. on the platform.
Users who want to participate in Farcaster can participate in applications built on it, download and use the Warpcast App. It costs US$5 to register an account, which is about RMB 35.
Currently, there are products such as decentralized video platform Darkula (similar to Titok) and social reference Jam built on Farcaster.
On March 31, Bloomberg reported that Merkle Manufactory, the developer of the social network Farcaster, is about to complete a round of financing led by Paradigm with a valuation of approximately US$1 billion.
Currently, the Farcaster protocol has not issued any coins.
2. DEGEN
DEGEN was originally an airdrop reward token for participants of the Farcaster DEGEN channel. It was just a MEME coin at first, but now it has a large number of developers, crypto content creators and enthusiasts who have purchased the coin, and has become the leading token on the Base chain. It can be used for post rewards in Farcaster ecosystem applications, etc.
The total supply of DEGEN tokens at the genesis stage is 37 billion, and it is planned to eventually airdrop 70% of the total supply of tokens. During the early launch period, 15% of the total supply was airdropped to active members of Farcaster's DEGEN channel. The token distribution rules are based on Farcaster users' likes, reposts and followers to obtain corresponding Degen points and hold some community-related NFTs.
On February 21, DEGEN announced the completion of an angel round of financing of 490.5 ETH (worth approximately US$1.47 million at the time), led by 1confirmation and participated by Farcaster OG and others. The funds will be used to develop the DEGEN ecosystem and community.
DEGEN is now the most active channel on Farcaster, and the DEGEN token has been connected to Drakula, a social video application in the Base ecosystem, which supports rewards using DEGEN tokens.
As of April 1, the DEGEN token was quoted at $0.06 with a market cap of $1.92 billion.
3. DEX leader Aerodrome
Aerodrome is a Ve (3, 3) decentralized trading platform forked from the OP ecosystem's DEX Velodrome. It is the DEX with the largest trading volume in the Base ecosystem.
In early February, Aerodrome’s native token AERO was launched on the Coinbase platform; and on February 27, it announced that it had received investment from the Base Ecosystem Fund led by Coinbase Ventures. The specific amount was not disclosed, and the investment method was to purchase Aerodrome’s native token AERO token.
On April 1, the AERO token was quoted at $1.4 and the FDV market capitalization was $1.25 billion.
4. SocialFi social application Friend.tech
Friend.tech is a SocialFi application built on the Base chain. Its core concept is to turn users' influence on Twitter into tradable tokens "KEY".
Simply put, Twitter KOLs can bind their accounts to Friend.tech and issue social tokens KEY. Users can obtain specific rights by purchasing KEY, such as entering specific channels to browse content.
When it was launched in August last year, Friend.tech was once the blockbuster product on the Base chain and became all the rage.
On March 13, Friend.tech announced that its V2 version will be released a week after April 20. Its V2 version will launch new features such as Money Club, new points plan and custom curve.
5. Pre-sale of MEME ROOST
ROOST is the new MEMECOIN of BASE chain. The pre-sale started on March 22. Users deposited ETH in exchange for ROOST tokens. Within 24 hours of going online, the pre-sale raised $12.5 million, becoming a new hype project in the crypto community. On March 26, ROOST opened at $0.07, and rose to $0.135 at its highest. The current price is $0.05, with a market value of $47.7 million.
6. NFT and MEME Project Base Gold
Base Gold is a MEME project on the Base chain, and its main products are Base Gold NFT and MEME token TYBG.
Among them, the Base Gods NFT avatar series is a comic avatar element based on the image of Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong. The series contains 809 NFTs to commemorate the launch of the Base mainnet on August 9. The current floor price is 1.23ETH.
The total issuance of TYBG tokens is 12.3 billion, the current price is $0.00045, and the circulating market value is $55.39 million.
7. Mfercoin , a meme coin issued by the founder of Mfers
mfercoin is a meme token issued by Sartoshi, the founder of the well-known NFT project Mfers, on the Base chain. The fixed supply is 1 billion, there is no pre-sale, and liquidity will be injected into about 2% of the total tokens after the launch. mfers NFT holders and artists who have cooperated with mfers NFT can all receive airdrops.
According to Dexscreener data, mfercoin became extremely popular after its launch, and the token price continued to rise all the way, from an opening price of around US$0.0015 to a high of US$0.31, with a cumulative increase of more than 200 times. It has now fallen back to US$0.18, with a market value of US$186 million.
8. POOP, a meme coin issued by the founder of Dooldes
On the second day after mfercoin caused a sensation in the crypto market, Dooldes founder poopie announced the issuance of meme coin POOP on the Base chain, with a total issuance of 1 billion coins. The opening market value once exceeded 50 million US dollars.
However, the POOP token was not sought after by users after its opening. It fell all the way from the highest price of $0.03 to the current $0.009, and the price took the shape of a Christmas tree. The market value shrank to $8.9 million, a three-fifths reduction from its peak.
