Author｜Jiawei @IOSG
Source: Jon Charbonneau
A while ago, I couldn't help but laugh when I came across Jon Charbonneau's tweet. When Base is called "the white man's BNB chain," what exactly is being said behind this joke?
In his article "Blockchains are cities," Haseeb compares Ethereum and Solana to New York and Los Angeles, respectively. If we use the same analogy:
BNB Chain is a port city that never sleeps, carrying a massive flow of traffic from Binance . Cargo ships come and go, the market is bustling, and street stalls and exchanges stand side by side. It doesn't care where you come from, only whether you can participate immediately. Gas is low, the pace is fast, new projects launch daily, some people make money, some leave. You don't need to understand city planning, nor do you need to identify with any particular ideology—just know where the excitement is, where the opportunities are, and you can survive.
Base is a rapidly developing new city that inherits Ethereum's values. Roads are still being laid, the community is taking shape, and rules are being repeatedly discussed. It lacks the hustle and bustle of a port, but it has attracted a large number of engineers, creators, and organizations to move in early. They are not in a hurry to make quick money, but are thinking: if a batch of truly mass-market on-chain applications emerges in the next decade, where should they be born?
The same encrypted world is diverging into different cities, different residents, and different lifestyles.
Understanding the differences between these two cities is perhaps far more important than arguing which chain is better.
Two parallel cultures
If we put BNB Chain and Base on the same map, they seem to be in competition; but if we change our perspective to users and culture, we will find that it is more like the parallel growth of two worldviews.
BNB Chain and Base essentially represent two different user structures, traffic sources, and growth logics. The former is rooted in Asia and emerging markets, while the latter has grown within the European and American developer communities. Rather than simply viewing them as competitors, it's more accurate to see them as the result of a natural stratification of crypto users.
▲ Source: bnbchain.org
BNB Chain has a very clear user profile.
A large number of users come from Binance's long-standing retail investor base, and many are using on-chain products for the first time. They are primarily located in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and are not fixated on whether "decentralization is pure," focusing instead on extremely practical matters.
Is the gas low enough? Are transactions fast enough? Can I participate in popular projects immediately?
For these users, the blockchain isn't an ideology, but simply a tool. As long as it's easy to use, inexpensive, and profitable, whether it's centralized or semi-centralized isn't the primary concern. This also explains why the BNB Chain ecosystem has always revolved around efficiency, scale, and application density.
▲ Source: base.org
Base's user base is different.
They are more of a "spillover" group from Coinbase and the Ethereum ecosystem, often possessing a deeper understanding of blockchain and being more willing to discuss underlying design issues. These users are concerned with the relationship between Coinbase and the Ethereum mainnet, the degree of decentralization, the L2 technology roadmap, and even whether the culture and narrative are orthodox.
In their view, blockchain is not just a tool for completing transactions, but also a space for self-expression, community building, and creative experimentation.
It is precisely this difference in user attributes that has profoundly shaped the distinct cultural genes of the two chains.
BNB Chain has chosen a path closer to the Web2 consumer internet: ecosystem integration, concentrating as many functions, applications, and scenarios as possible into a single system. For users in emerging markets, this "everything is available" model greatly reduces decision-making costs and learning barriers, and also makes the on-chain experience closer to the internet products they are familiar with.
Base, on the other hand, is more like an open experimental field, willing to reserve enough space and patience for developers and creators. It is not in a hurry to cover all scenarios, but prioritizes allowing the right culture and tools to take root first.
From this perspective, BNB Chain and Base are not competing for the same group of users, but rather growing in their respective areas of expertise.
They are not opposites, but rather two reasonable answers given by the same industry in different cultural contexts.
Differences and similarities of vertical integration
Over the past few years, major exchanges have almost simultaneously done one thing:
No longer content with being just a "transaction matching platform," it has extended its business reach to more accessible areas such as public blockchains and wallets .
The underlying business logic is actually not complicated.
If an exchange can only interact with users in the single moment of "buying" and "selling," then user value is discrete and short-lived. However, once the exchange controls the blockchain and wallets, the user's value path will be extended, becoming a multi-point contact and a recurring lifecycle.
When users complete the process of depositing funds, logging onto the blockchain, using dApps, participating in new projects, and then returning to the exchange to trade within the same system, the exchange is no longer just an endpoint, but rather the beginning and end of the entire on-chain journey. With each additional step, the user's switching costs increase, and thus, stickiness strengthens. This is precisely the result that vertical integration truly aims for: transforming one-off transaction relationships into long-term retention relationships.
More importantly, this structure can directly amplify liquidity and trading volume.
The constant emergence of new tokens and projects on the blockchain is essentially a capability to "continuously create new assets." When an exchange controls both the blockchain and the power to list tokens and price contracts, this on-chain "token creation capability" can be seamlessly transformed into spot trading pairs and derivative products, ultimately accumulating into continuous transaction fee revenue.
From this perspective, both BNB Chain and Base are typical examples of vertical integration strategies employed by exchanges, except that they amplify different advantages.
▲ Source: IOSG
BNB Chain's core competitiveness comes from Binance itself.
As a top-tier global exchange in terms of user base and trading depth, Binance possesses exceptional capabilities for real-time traffic distribution . New projects launched on BNB Chain do not need to educate the market from scratch and rarely experience a lengthy cold start period. A large number of users can directly migrate from exchanges to participate on-chain, and then quickly return to exchanges to trade after completing their interactions. This frictionless pathway makes BNB Chain more like a high-speed channel designed specifically for applications.
Behind this model lies Binance's strong exchange DNA:
BNB Chain is quick to respond to market trends, has a deep understanding of user behavior, and is highly skilled in traffic operations. It does not pursue a slow and meticulous approach to ecosystem building, but rather excels at pushing a new narrative to its maximum scale in a short period of time.
▲ Source: IOSG
The vertical integration path of Base is significantly different.
It doesn't attempt to replicate BNB Chain's speed, but rather leverages Coinbase's long-standing reputation for compliance, fiat currency access, and institutional credibility in the US market to build a completely different trust structure. As the first listed cryptocurrency exchange in the US, Coinbase's experience surviving within the regulatory framework is a scarce resource in itself. This naturally gives Base a "regulatory-friendly" label.
For institutional investors, enterprise applications, and developers sensitive to compliance boundaries, Base provides an environment where they can confidently experiment and build over the long term . Coupled with Coinbase's long-term deep involvement in the Ethereum ecosystem and its continuous investment in developer tools and infrastructure, Base has gradually developed a distinctly "builder-friendly" culture.
If BNB Chain is more like an efficient commercialization testing ground, then Base is closer to a future-oriented infrastructure platform.
The former excels at rapidly converting traffic into scale, while the latter excels at gradually building trust into an ecosystem.
From the perspective of exchanges, there is no right or wrong in these two paths; they simply amplify each other's strengths.
It is precisely this difference that makes BNB Chain and Base the two most noteworthy and representative examples of vertical integration in the current exchange market.
Wallets – The Final Battle?
▲ Source: IOSG, TokenTerminal
Judging from community reviews, Binance Web3 Wallet isn't very popular, but it undeniably leads the way in traffic . For many Binance users, their first experience using Web3 Wallet often stems from a very specific scenario: wanting to participate in IPOs, grab airdrops, or be among the first to join a popular project, but this service isn't currently available on the exchange.
Thus, the built-in wallet of the exchange appeared.
You don't need a seed phrase, you don't need to understand complex account models, and you don't even need to be explicitly aware that "I am now using a separate wallet".
From depositing funds and exchanging tokens to cross-chain communication, authorization, and interaction, the entire process is an extremely smooth and easy one.
Behind this lies Binance's consistent strength: simplifying complex financial operations.
This is precisely why Binance Web3 Wallet is a natural fit for the BNB Chain ecosystem.
Hot topics emerge quickly, project density is high, and user behavior is highly concentrated within a short period.
In an on-chain statistic in 2025, Binance Wallet's daily transaction volume once reached approximately $92.6 million , accounting for nearly 57.3% of the decentralized wallet transaction market share , a figure that even exceeded the total of all independent wallets combined.
Users can complete cross-chain transactions, swaps, mining, and airdrop participation without needing to memorize seed phrase or leave existing apps. This frictionless experience is something that many independent wallets cannot easily replicate.
Coinbase Wallet ( Base App ), on the other hand, has a completely different feel. According to the latest market statistics, Base App has reached approximately 11 million users, ranking among the top in the global self-custodial wallet ecosystem.
It was designed from the outset as a product that could exist independently of the exchange. This also resulted in a significantly higher learning curve for the Base App.
But once this process is complete, the user's mindset shifts: this is "my wallet," not "I'm using Coinbase." This design aligns perfectly with Base's overall direction. Base isn't in a rush to quickly drive all users to a single blockbuster application; instead, it's more concerned with whether anyone is willing to stay long-term, using the same wallet and the same address to repeatedly build their on-chain identity.
Therefore, you will see that the deep users of Base App are often also: early users of Base applications, core participants in NFT, social, and creator tools, and a group of people who are more sensitive to product experience and long-term narrative.
Within the Binance Web3 Wallet ecosystem, applications with strong financial attributes, short cycles, high-frequency interactions, and the ability to quickly absorb exchange traffic are more likely to succeed. In contrast, within the Base App + Base ecosystem, products that are user retention-oriented, more sensitive to UX, community, and long-term relationships, and less eager to monetize but willing to gradually accumulate real users are more likely to thrive.
Conclusion
▲ Source: IOSG
The author believes that the industry is most likely to see two types of ecosystems in the future:
A CEX-led super ecosystem (Binance, Coinbase)
Community-led large-scale public infrastructure (Ethereum, Solana)
BNB Chain and Base do not replace each other.
The global crypto user base is not a homogeneous group. Emerging markets need low barriers to entry, high efficiency, and robust applications; European and American markets need compliance, developer friendliness, and cultural acceptance. Neither of these needs will disappear in the foreseeable future.
A more realistic scenario is that infrastructure such as wallets, cross-chain technology, and account abstraction will gradually eliminate differences in usage; users will no longer "belong to only one chain," but will move between different ecosystems.
From this perspective, BNB Chain and Base are more like two nodes in the same system: one is responsible for pushing Web3 to a larger scale, and the other is responsible for pushing Web3 to a more mature form.
If the early competition among public blockchains was like vying for a "single operating system," then the current competition is more akin to "different platforms jointly building an internet ecosystem." The real winners may not be any particular blockchain itself, but rather the applications and teams that can understand both ecosystems and switch freely between them.
