Base co-founder Jesse Pollak's promotion of what appears to be a RUG token has sparked strong criticism from the community.
TL;DR
Since April 2025, Jesse Pollak, head of Base (Coinbase L2), has repeatedly promoted meme tokens with volatile price fluctuations, including "Base is for everyone" (which plummeted by 90%), the personal token $JESSE (which a sniper controlled 50% of the supply and profited $1.3 million), and the Soulja Boy token (launched on December 13, 2025). These tokens all exhibit typical pump-dump characteristics, drawing strong criticism from on-chain detectives like ZachXBT and the community, who accused him of using his influence to endorse speculative activities and severely damaging the credibility of the Base brand.
Core Analysis
Promotional Token Event Timeline
| time | Tokens | Promotional activities | Market performance | Rug characteristics |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-04-16 03:00 UTC | "Base is for everyone" | Base's official account posted a Zora casting link, which Jesse then shared. | Its market value surged to $20 million within an hour, then plummeted by 90% to $1.4 million. | The top 3 addresses controlled 47% of the supply, and profited $666,000 by selling at the peak. |
| 2025-11-20 17:00 UTC | $JESSE | Jesse announced the launch on his personal Twitter account (Contract: 0x50f8...d59). | It peaked at $25 million on the day of its release, then dropped 36% after being targeted by a price drop. | Two snipers bought 50% of the supply in the launch block and sold it off within 15 minutes, making a profit of $1.3 million. |
| 2025-12-13 21:51 UTC | Soulja Boy token (Base chain) | Jesse tweeted to promote the Base App and purchased the token. | Short-term surge after release | Soulja Boy has been promoting 73 tokens since 2023, most of which are scam projects. |
Detailed Analysis of the "Base is for everyone" Token
Contract information : 0xD769...eec5 (Base chain), total supply 1 billion tokens.
Evidence of pump-dump :
- Concentration : Three wallets added to the liquidity pool to purchase 47% of the supply in the same block.
- Profit model : Snipers sell at the price peak ($0.012), with a single transaction accounting for 10-15% of the total supply, causing the market value to plummet from $14 million to $1.4 million within 5 minutes.
- Abnormal trading volume : Within 24 hours of the promotion, the trading volume reached $27.1 million, with 7,300 buy orders concentrated in the buy the dips phase after the sharp drop.
- Liquidity : Initial liquidity is only $10,000-$20,000, not locked, but there is no clear withdrawal of funds from the pool.
Jesse responded by describing tokenized content as the core of Web3's future, distinguishing between "content tokens" (no expectations) and "meme tokens" (high expectations), and emphasizing that Base officials were not involved and promised not to sell or distribute tokens.
$JESSE token on-chain data
Contract information : 0x50f8...d59 (Base chain), total supply 500 million tokens, 18 decimal places.
Details of a sniper's gains :
- Sniper A : Invested $190,000 to launch the block, sold it for $860,000, netting $626,000 (after deducting $44,000 in gas fees).
- Sniper B : Profited $707,000
- In total , two addresses controlled over 250 million coins (>50% of the supply), generating a combined profit of $1.3 million.
Online performance :
- Peak market capitalization of $25 million (November 20, 2025, 5:00 PM UTC)
- It fell 36% to $16 million in 15 minutes.
- It stabilized at around $16 million as of December 2025.
- Cumulative trading volume exceeds $50 million
- After its launch, it spread to over 10,000 token-holding addresses, but the top 10 addresses still control 40% of the token.
Exchanges listing : Ourbit (spot), MEXC (futures, 20x leverage, $72,000 24-hour trading volume)
Jesse has pledged publicly that he will not sell his token holdings and will use the proceeds to purchase tokens from other creators.
Soulja Boy Token Promotion Event
Background : Soulja Boy (rapper) promoted 73 token projects since 2023, most of which have been proven to be scams.
Jesse's participation :
- On December 13, 2025 at 21:51, UTC tweeted on the X platform: "@baseapp pays you instantly" along with a link to the Base App.
- The Chinese media outlet ChainCatcher described it as "drove traffic and invested".
- ZachXBT tweeted, questioning why a platform was provided to promoters with a long history of fraud.
Trading activity : Primarily traded on the BaseChain DEX, with no listings on major exchanges.
Community Sentiment and Criticism Analysis
Key Opinion Leader (KOL) Views
| KOL | Key points of criticism | Credibility assessment |
|---|---|---|
| ZachXBT | Criticism of Jesse's collaboration with Soulja Boy (who has promoted 73 fraudulent projects) raises questions about Base's platform review standards. | Gao - A renowned blockchain detective, specializing in data-driven analysis. |
| Lookonchain | It was pointed out that snipers bought into the "Base is for everyone" token early and profited $666,000 at the high price. | High-level on-chain data analysis professional account |
| Community users | Jesse was directly mocked as "Shills rug a day" (selling RUG coins daily), and accountability and transparency were demanded. | The sentiment is emotional but reflects widespread dissatisfaction. |
Negative narrative themes
- Regulatory Paradox : As the head of L2 at a regulated exchange like Coinbase, he promoted high-risk speculative tokens, creating a contradiction that triggered a crisis of trust.
- Abuse of influence : Using Base's official account and personal influence to provide traffic and legitimacy endorsement for pump-dump.
- The recurring pattern —the promotion of the problematic token three times consecutively in April, November, and December 2025—indicates systemic rather than accidental behavior.
- The experiment's pretext : packaging pump-dump as an "on-chain experiment" and "creator economy" is seen by the community as an attempt to shirk responsibility.
Community emotional polarization
Negative dominance (approximately 70-80%) :
- Direct hostility: Tags such as "Base rug" and "Accountability Jesse" are spreading on the X platform.
- Trust Collapse: Questioning Base's Brand Reliability as an Enterprise-Level L2 Server
- Meme dissemination: Creating satirical memes and narratives to amplify negative impacts.
Neutral/Supportive Tone (approximately 20-30%)
- Defending the Experiment: A minority of users agree with Jesse's explanation of the "on-chain content experiment".
- Voluntary participation: Emphasizing that investors should bear their own risks and should not blame promoters.
Overall Tone : As of December 15, 2025, sentiment leans negative. Jesse's subsequent promotion of his personal $JESSE token further exacerbated skepticism, despite his promise not to sell off his holdings; historical events have already caused long-term damage to trust.
in conclusion
As the lead of the Base protocol, Jesse Pollak promoted at least three tokens with obvious pump-dump characteristics between April and December 2025. On-chain data shows that snipers and early holders profited over $2 million from this promotion, while ordinary investors suffered losses of over 90%. Public criticism from on-chain detectives like ZachXBT and strong backlash from the community indicate that this series of actions has severely damaged Base's credibility as an enterprise-grade blockchain. Although Jesse positioned these tokens as a "cultural experiment" and promised not to sell them personally, the repetitive promotional pattern and lack of effective risk warnings have raised questions about whether he "used his influence to fuel a speculative bubble."