In this post, I'll share why I think Base is still important, the areas I'm currently focusing on at Base, and how you can get involved from an operational level. I’ll provide an overview of the ecosystem and share some indicators that make me even more convinced that the “Base Era” is coming.
Before we get into that, though, it’s worth stating the obvious: much of what’s covered in this article, and the vast majority of projects in the crypto market today (especially memecoin-related), involves extremely high risks. The bubble is huge and almost everything could plummet 95%-100% from current levels. I try to trade this market like everyone else, I sell when I think the price is near a top and lock in profits over time as the price goes up. I've actually cashed out some of my gains.
Don't be a stubborn "diamond hand" currency holder, and don't be unwilling to sell because of other people's moral kidnapping. At the end of the day, you have to do what's best for you. If your investment has reached a life-changing amount, sell it, cash it out, and change your life.
I have seen too many people take large sums of money from the peak all the way back to where they started, so I will explain the risks here. The following is my personal opinion, it may be wrong, it may be poorly timed, or there may be other issues. The importance of “doing your own research” (DYOR) has never been more important.
Next, let's start with Coinbase and talk about the reasons why I am optimistic about Base.
Reason 1: Coinbase is a big player
Coinbase is one of the largest and most influential cryptocurrency exchanges in the world and a major player in the crypto industry. Whenever a memecoin is listed on Coinbase, memecoin investors around the world rejoice because they know that this usually means that the price of the token will (generally speaking) increase. 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 economic freedom around the world and bring 1 billion people into the on-chain ecosystem. While they would be happy to have 1 billion users on any chain, it is clear that they are particularly interested in attracting these users to their own Base chain.
I think most people still underestimate the power of Coinbase's marketing machine, and its importance as a company.
As one of the largest trading platforms in the United States, Coinbase not only occupies a significant commercial position, but also regularly fights legal and political battles on behalf of the entire crypto industry.
Last year, when the SEC decided to sue Coinbase, it was one of those rare moments I had in the crypto space where almost everyone was united behind the same goal. Nothing inspires group cohesion like a common enemy. Sure, there were some naysayers, but screw the naysayers, they were so insignificant they were barely worth mentioning.
One more thing I would like to add about Coinbase - there seems to be a lot of sincerity in this company from top to bottom, and the employees are excellent. That’s not to say that other exchanges can’t do the same, but Coinbase gives off a particularly positive vibe.
All in all, simply put, Coinbase is a very important player. They have their own Layer 2 blockchain, and this will most likely be a big event worthy of attention.
Speaking of Base, we have to mention Ethereum - a blockchain that everyone loves and hates. However, I think the ETH era is coming...
Reason two: ETH era
By the way, Ethereum is also a big player. I know it seems to be a popular trend nowadays to complain about Ethereum on social media, but honestly, I think these voices are just a few of the louder opinions on Twitter. Most truly influential people don't spend all day on Twitter. This is true of all blockchains, of course, but especially true of Ethereum (partly because so many people have moved to Farcaster).
I won’t deny that Ethereum has experienced some failures. It has "lost" to Solana (SOL) in many ways over the past 12-18 months. It's slow, expensive, and with so many L2s (and L3s) out there, the whole ecosystem feels a bit fragmented and clunky.
Even so, Ethereum is still the second largest blockchain by market capitalization, with a market capitalization almost 4 times that of its other competitors.
Among the 328 blockchains tracked by DeFi Llama, Ethereum still accounts for more than 50% of the total lock-up volume (TVL). It’s really a “dead link” (laughs).
Clearly, Ethereum’s price performance has lagged almost every other coin this year. But I think that's about to change.
Here’s a chart of ETH/BTC over the past five years or so. Obviously, Ethereum’s performance in the past two years has not been ideal! But anyone who knows anything about charts, markets, and investing will tell you that times like these are opportunities to buy, not to sell.
18-24 months ago is the time when you should exchange ETH for BTC or SOL.
I'm not saying you have to trade BTC or SOL for ETH right now, but what is certain is that the time to trade is much better now than at any time in the past few years.
Yes, yes, I’m bringing this cliché up again, but it’s so accurate and applicable. The best time to buy SOL was when panic was at its worst after the FTX crash.
I must admit that I was a little late to SOL's miraculous performance in this market (at least relatively speaking, I entered the market when SOL reached about $40). And I've probably been a die-hard ETH bull for longer than a competent trader should. But there are reasons why I have been long ETH, and many of those reasons are mentioned in this article.
Many people's dissatisfaction with ETH mainly comes from friction when using the chain, such as high gas fees and slow transaction speeds. L2 solves many of these problems, and they are quickly catching up in areas where they are weak. So here we are...
Reason 3: Friction of use is quickly disappearing
A big reason for Solana's recent success is its focus on consumer applications and end-user experience. They try to reduce friction as much as possible, and it is undeniable that the barrier to entry for ordinary people to use the Solana blockchain is much lower compared to other major blockchains. Low transaction fees and fast transaction speeds are important, but mobile-friendly wallets like Phantom and apps like Moonshot have had a huge impact on new user acquisition.
Coupled with the popularity of memecoin, especially the popularity of the Pump Fun protocol, and the network effect brought about by the combination of these factors, the success of all this is obviously not surprising.
But I think Base is on the cusp of a similar trend, or is very close to it. For example, just today, Phantom announced that it will support Base:
In the past few weeks, I have been communicating with people in dozens of Discord/TG chat rooms, and I don’t know how many times I have heard someone say: “Ah, I only have SOL in my wallet, and I don’t know how to use Base.”
I think this is just the beginning. Next, we will see more and more protocols and applications begin to support Base, and more applications native to Base will appear.
In addition, many people are still worried about the high gas fees of Ethereum in 2021 and the poor user experience of MetaMask, but they have not yet experienced using Rabby, Rainbow, Phantom or Base’s native Coinbase Wallet (which can earn 4.7% for its USDC holdings) native benefits, quite good) and the ease of interacting with Base.
Reason 4: The team is strong
When investing in traditional companies or projects, I always believe in betting on great people. Base has a group of very capable and reliable team members who are working their magic:
Brian Armstrong casually meets with Trump to discuss cryptocurrency policy. By the way, Brian is a really great guy, read this article from 2020 (yes, sorry, I asked you to read more again) and think back to what the world was like back then , as well as the political stance of most large technology companies at the time, and then compare the completely different approach taken by Brian to lead Coinbase.
Then there's the face of Base, Jesse Pollak, who leads both the Base and Coinbase wallets.
I literally have dozens of tweets stored away because I'm looking for something to post here that showcases his personal qualities, especially how he made Base what it is today. Scrolling through his Twitter timeline is endlessly fascinating. I recommend checking it out for yourself, but for the lazy, which is 99% of you (which would be me if I were in your shoes), here are a few of my favorite tweets:
Jesse is on a 21-day global tour visiting builders and leaders to spread the good news:
On trying to break into Instagram and TikTok:
About understanding meme culture (recommended video):
There is more. These are just two of the outstanding people working hard to achieve Base's goals. I feel quite reassured by supporting this team.
Reason 5: Data performance is excellent
Data shows a significant increase in activity on Base, along with considerable inflows. To me, the most important indicators for predicting whether a chain is likely to be a major success are: 1) the number of applications built by builders/developers; 2) whether funds are flowing into the chain.
Looking back over the past three months, Base's net inflows are almost as much as Solana's:
Looking back on the past week, Base far outperformed all other platforms:
Trading volume is also growing steadily, with an increase in recent days:
Many of Base's AI agents have gained a lot of attention on Twitter over the past few days:
Overall, it's clear that traffic and attention are moving toward Base. Whether it is sustainable or just a temporary blip remains to be seen. Many claim this is only temporary and that Solana will retain most of the spotlight this round. I obviously disagree, but I'm not so arrogant that I think I'm necessarily right and everyone else is wrong.
The information looks good, but the information may be temporary.
Reason 6: Airdrop speculation
I want to be clear, this is purely speculation, I don't have any inside information, I don't know if there will be a Base Token. They have made it clear that there will be no tokens, but again, Optimism and many other chains have made similar promises.
However, with the legal and regulatory environment changing significantly, I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility that there might be an airdrop at some point in the future.
Having said that, I wouldn't put too much energy into this, I personally see it as a nice to have, rather than something to always keep in mind. I recommend using the chain as normal and doing some experimenting or trying things out, as this is usually the best way to participate in airdrops when the protocol does launch one.
Okay, those are my six reasons to be bullish on Base and think that Base Szn may be around the corner, now let’s dive into some of the things to watch and where I’m spending my time with Base:
Base chain ecology
1)Virtuals protocol
You've probably heard of Virtuals by now, if not through my tweets/retweets, then probably through other discussions on the timeline. Simply put, Virtuals is a platform that provides a launch platform for on-chain AI agents. In their own words:
It has been seeing slow and steady adoption over the past few months, starting to pick up a few weeks ago and going parabolic in the past few days.
I don’t think I need to tell you that AI is a huge topic in crypto right now, and will probably be a mainstream topic and industry for some time to come (if not forever). We’ve seen AI meme coins like GOAT and ZEREBRO take off on Solana, and many other projects are doing well as well.
Currently, the market value of the top AI Tokens and proxies on Virtuals is still only a fraction of the giants on Solana, but if you look at capital flows, and an ETH season + Base season is expected, then I think focusing on the Virtuals ecosystem Will be one of the best places.
The two tokens I am personally most optimistic about (and the ones I hold the most) are AIXBT and VADER, in addition to the local token VIRTUAL. I hold about 20 proxies' tokens on the platform, and there are many proxies that I think will perform well, and given that they already have large market caps, they may perform far better than the above tokens.
You can find new Virtual AI agent tokens being released (and you can also release your own tokens). I recommend reading their full white paper to fully understand the protocol.
Also, here's a great thread on Virtuals from last month that provides a high-level overview in an easy-to-understand way: Links.
2)Farcaster
Base and Farcaster are closely related. While Farcaster supports and uses multiple chains, Base is pretty much eating the world right now. As can be seen from this chart, Base has accounted for 60% to 80% of all on-chain transactions among Farcaster users for most of this year, and in recent days, this number has reached more than 95%.
Regarding Farcaster, there are two integrations that have attracted a lot of attention recently, namely clanker and anoncast.
Clanker is an AI agent deployed on Farcaster. It deploys tokens for users. Anyone can mention it by @ and simply request it to create a token for you. It uses its own funds to build a liquidity pool for the Token and generates some fees for the builder. People think of it as the "pump fun" of Base, but I don't think it's an entirely equal comparison.
This website is a great place to track new clanker token releases.
Anoncast is a really cool technology that allows people to post content on Farcaster or even Twitter with 100% anonymity using zk-proof technology (something I wrote about last year). You can release content through this website and need to hold an anon Token (a utility that acts as a tag).
Things are evolving rapidly as developers and experimenters try out various new implementations, and it's worth watching and exploring Farcaster's development in depth.
It is recommended to watch this interview, in which ThreadGuy interviewed Dan Romero, one of the founders of Farcaster.
3) "Old" coins, memes, traditional memes, etc.
Although most of the attention is currently focused on the two places mentioned above, especially AI-related currencies that occupy most of the attention, I think it is also worth paying attention to some that have existed on Farcaster for a long time and have some loyal communities. of old coins.
There are too many of these coins to list them all, but by viewing the Base page on Dexscreener and sorting by market capitalization, you will find some good old Memecoins.
My guess is that if we do get Base Season, there may be a moment when the focus shifts from AI/Farcaster content to cute animals and traditional memes (or, maybe in parallel).
Although the Virtuals ecosystem has experienced explosive growth recently, many of these old coins have also declined during the same time period. Recalling the old saying "be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful", it may be time to observe Great time in places that get little attention.
4) Other points worthy of attention
I was going to write a whole paragraph here, but just saw a great tweet covering 10 cool apps to try, 10 ways to earn on-chain revenue, 10 communities to join, and 10 articles worth reading. So, in that case, I won’t ramble on and just look at this 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 ones mentioned above are just what I’ve personally focused on over the past few weeks, but I recommend you explore on your own and find the ones that interest you.
Okay, this is my main focus. Finally, I will say a few words about logistics.
Interactive Flow on Base I get a lot of questions about how to get started on Base, so here is a quick start guide/some tips:
If you have funds in an Ethereum wallet, you can bridge the funds to Base through a site like Relay or Bungee. These platforms are very easy to use and low-cost, and bridging usually only takes about a minute.
If you have SOL funds in your wallet, you can also use Relay for bridging, or select the bridging option directly in the Phantom wallet.
If you want to trade on Base you can be like me and not use a trading bot and trade manually 90% of the time, but there are some trading bots that support Base and I guess there will be more soon. Two of the most popular trading bots are BullX and Photon (disclaimer: these are recommended links).
The main decentralized trading platforms for buying and selling Tokens on Base are Aerodrome and Uniswap. Personally, I prefer to use the decentralized trading platform aggregator LlamaSwap, which can find the cheapest trading path for you and help you get the best exchange rate.
The transaction method of Virtuals Token is a little different, because all AI agents can only use native VIRTUAL Token for transactions. The easiest way to trade is through their website, but you can also use LlamaSwap to exchange Virtuals Tokens, as long as you choose KyberSwap as your decentralized exchange.
If you are looking for a wallet suitable for all Base/EVM Tokens, I personally use and recommend Rabby, and I have heard that Rainbow Wallet is also very good. Of course, Coinbase also has its own wallet, but to be honest, I personally don’t think it’s as functional as the other two wallets (or I’m just not familiar with it).
Summary: Final words on SOL vs. Base, and general thoughts on blockchain competition
I have always felt that the fierce competition between blockchains is actually quite unnecessary. I personally regard "competition chains" as friendly rivals, just like the United States and Canada, or Australia and New Zealand. We joked about Solana occasionally having problems, Ethereum's transaction fees were ridiculously expensive, and Cardano was, well, just what it was.
But at the end of the day, if you're here to make money (and I'm guessing 99% of you are), then you should keep an open mind, try experiments, and go with the flow.
If you care more about the future of finance, a decentralized and censorship-free future, than making money, then go ahead and stand your ground. In this space, you'll encounter all kinds of extreme views: Bitcoin geeks think everything but Bitcoin is bad for the industry; Ethereum geeks think Solana is the scourge of the industry; and Solana geeks think Ethereum Fang and Base are the scourge of this industry.
There are even some of Bitcoin's biggest supporters who hate ETFs and MicroStrategy, while others absolutely love them.
I say all this to say - no matter which side you're on, you're going to encounter a group of people who think you're stupid and think your views are stupid. Honestly, that's life, you can let it affect you, or like me, just accept it and go with the flow, follow the money, follow the developers, follow the attention, and most importantly: follow my own curiosity.
I suggest you try this too. The most valuable information (Alpha) is not to follow my curiosity, my posts, or anyone else's footsteps, but to follow your own curiosity, explore deeply, and think independently.
