Base Abandons Social Direction, Founder Admits Strategic Failure

Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Wenser (@wenser 2010 )

The "Age of Exploration" of Base, long regarded as the "King of L2s", has officially come to an end after three years.

Early this morning, Base co-founder Jesse Pollak published a post reviewing the development direction of the ecosystem over the past two years, admitting that his previous bet on on-chain native social was a mistake. He stated that social directions like Farcaster, Zora, Miniapps, and creator coins failed to become the core driving force for crypto adoption. Consequently, Base has lagged behind some competitors in areas such as perpetual contracts, prediction markets, tokenization, and payments. Additionally, he emphasized that the Base App will be handed over to Cobie, a community leader whom Coinbase acquired with a significant talent acquisition investment.

Previously, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also acknowledged in response to community skepticism that "betting on content tokens was a mistake."

In 2026, Base, which had wavered on the issue of issuing tokens, finds itself in an awkward phase of development. This perhaps reaffirms a fundamental truth: No trading, no crypto.

Base's Pivot: Founder Returns to Coding, All-in-One App Managed by Coinbase Team

Let's first focus on Jesse's "Base Ecosystem Mea Culpa."

In this lengthy post, Jesse first admitted his mistake—while betting on blockchain technology to drive crypto adoption was correct, the specific bet on social experiences to drive crypto adoption was a mistake.

Looking back, the Base ecosystem seems to have been in a state of "self-congratulation"—

• Regarding leadership, Jesse has always championed the "creator economy," using it as a banner to engage with the community, encouraging all creators to issue tokens and NFTs, calling it a "revolution for the industry." But in reality, the on-chain creator ecosystem on Base is extremely harsh, with most creators earning even less than developers who pump out tokens based on trending topics on pump.fun.
• In terms of development strategy, Base has long trumpeted the "Onchain Summer" initiative, but in practice, it has been following the lead of Solana and BNB Chain. When the Solana Meme coin craze hit, Base also jumped on the Meme coin bandwagon; when BNB Chinese Memes gained traction, Base quickly imitated. Past collaborations with real-world brands like McDonald's often remained superficial marketing stunts without substantial action.
• Regarding transaction activity, data suggested that over 80% of activity on the Base chain was generated by a small number of addresses trading among themselves, meaning the number of real users was extremely limited. Even transaction volumes in areas primarily promoted by Coinbase, such as x402 and AI Agent payments, have failed to achieve breakthrough levels, remaining in a state of insularity.

As for the failure of SocialFi platforms like Farcaster and Zora, it's already evident. The founder of the former went to Tempo to work on payments; the latter essentially "completed its mission" after its token launch, but the token price has dropped by over 80%.

The idealized vision Jesse had of "using social media to bring cryptocurrency to billions of people worldwide" did not materialize. After all, there are countless Web2 social media products, let alone a series of giant products with better user experience, greater first-mover advantages, and richer creator content.

Often, when you think you're playing with Memes, creating jokes, and energizing the community, you're actually building your own information cocoon, artificially creating small circles, and deliberately raising barriers to entry.

The move to hand over the flagship product of the ecosystem, the Base App, to the Coinbase team, seems more like bringing the Base ecosystem back into the Coinbase fold, subjecting it to Coinbase's unified direction and allowing it to exist as part and parcel of the Coinbase ecosystem. To a certain extent, this expands the openness of the Base App, naturally meaning the Base App is no longer exclusive to the Base ecosystem.

For crypto projects, focusing on finance, trading, and investment remains the industry's main narrative. The on-chain Perp platforms and prediction market platforms that have gained immense popularity in the past two years, regardless of market volatility, have precisely ridden this trend. They even benefit from high-volatility, high-risk market conditions to earn more protocol revenue and platform revenue.

In light of this, Base finally seems to have gotten the message, moving away from its obsession with "decentralized social" and "creator economy" towards three major directions: trading, payments, and AI Agents.

A New Chapter for Base: Focusing on Trading, Payments, and AI Agent Development

It's never too late to admit and correct one's mistakes.

Although Base has taken many detours previously, it now appears that Jesse, Coinbase's CEO, and others have identified the problems and proposed their own solutions.

Earlier, Brian Armstrong responded to community skepticism by stating, "Base's main business is focused on trading, payments, and AI Agent services (in that order). I believe these three are deeply interconnected. For example, to facilitate payment transactions, you need foreign exchange resources; and agent services involve a large volume of transactions and payments. By the way, most resources are currently allocated to the trading business. Maybe there aren't external applications yet, but that's the reality."

In his post today, Jesse also stated that Base will position itself as the "blockchain for global finance" in the future, concentrating on three key directions in 2026: trading, payments, and AI Agents. Specifically,

• Trading will cover tokenized stocks, Meme coins, and application tokens;
• Payments will revolve around global stablecoins for individuals and enterprises;
• AI Agents will utilize cryptocurrency as computers' native currency to serve future participants in the large-scale machine economy.

Base's future business focus is not just empty talk but a relatively optimal choice based on current industry trends and its own advantages.

In terms of trading, although Base has a limited number of active users, its advantages such as low gas friction costs, the Ethereum ecosystem, and the backing of Coinbase's US compliance background can ensure its foundational advantages and value in developing tokenized stocks, Meme coins, and legitimate projects.

In terms of payments, Base's advantages like low interaction costs, the foundation of the x402 protocol, and support from Circle's USDC lay the groundwork for personal and institutional payments and stablecoin adoption. Coupled with an "all-in-one app" like Base App, if it can subsequently onboard more supply-side brands, merchants, and institutional users, it has the potential to drive mass stablecoin adoption in the US and worldwide.

Regarding AI Agent services, this move seems more like an early positioning for the future AI Agent economy. Although AI Agents are still in the early stages of development, news like OpenAI's GPT 5.6, Anthropic's Fable 5 model, and Apple's recent AI partnership with Alibaba's Qwen model suggests that the day when AI Agents extensively use cryptocurrency for payments, transactions, and consumption is fast approaching. Earlier, according to official news from Alibaba, as of May this year, the number of autonomous AI payments made via Alipay had already reached 300 million (covering scenarios like AI agent payments, AI ordering, AI consumption, etc., such as payments completed through AI applications like Qwen and Rokid).

Of course, the shift in Base's strategic direction is also accompanied by personnel changes behind the scenes at the large organization that is Coinbase.

Coinbase Personnel Changes: Some Leave the Circle, Others Continue Coding

Previously, Coinbase engineering lead Brock Miller announced his departure and joining Anthropic as a technical team member. When cryptocurrency is no longer the hottest trend, some choose to go with the flow and join the AI revolution.

In early July, Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal announced his resignation to join a startup. He added: "Will continue to advise Coinbase and work on the Coinbase trust charter through the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency." Subsequently, Coinbase announced that Molly Abraham would lead the legal team as General Counsel, and Ryan Van Grack would become Vice Chairman, expected to take on broader and more public-facing responsibilities.

This is a case of someone leaving but maintaining a cooperative relationship with Coinbase.

As for the person writing the code, it's none other than Base founder Jesse himself—he said explicitly: "I've started writing code again and have already launched some products."

Of course, the departures or changes of the above personnel may not entirely reflect their own will, but also involve the impact of AI Agent development.

Recently, Coinbase platform lead Rob Witoff stated that over 95% of the company's code is now written by AI or with AI assistance, a significant increase from the 40% reported in February this year. He said in an interview: "In fact, 100% of Coinbase employees use AI daily." He added that currently, most engineers at Coinbase run 5 to 10 AI Agents simultaneously. The combined working capability of these AI Agents is equivalent to about 1,200 employees.

He predicts that by 2030, Coinbase's AI Agents could handle the workload equivalent to 100,000 employees. However, he stated that key areas like core cryptography will still require human involvement, with AI primarily used for code testing, vulnerability checks, and prototyping.

Not only will the Base ecosystem eventually serve the AI Agent economy, but perhaps most of Coinbase's employees will also be replaced by AI Agents in the future.