Base Meme Summit Full Recap: Stock Memes, Community Belonging, and a Party No One Wanted to Leave

Original author: 深潮 TechFlow

Base's Meme conference was held in a metaverse venue.

The host appeared in an ice cream avatar. After praising the venue design, Jesse Pollak talked about the time he was at the beach and received the news that BALD had surged. Veterans of the community took the stage one after another; one mentioned that his newborn child arrived in the same week as a Coinbase listing, and another admitted that several products he built had not survived. When it came to the project showcase segment, the host repeatedly reminded speakers to "please keep it under sixty seconds," while those on stage still wanted to say a couple more words.

On October 22, this Base Meme Summit, lasting about an hour and a half, brought together the Base team, four established Meme communities, more than a dozen new projects, and traders from different markets. 深潮TechFlow participated as a media partner, and after listening to the whole session, several key points stood out clearly:

• Base TVL has just surpassed Solana, making it the second-largest ecosystem. Jesse presented this figure alongside growth in lending, payments, and trading, trying to show that Base is entering a new phase.
• Stock Memes dominated much of the discussion. From the expansion target for tokenized stocks (500 types by year-end) to paired projects for Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, and Micron, communities are already experimenting with different reward and distribution mechanisms.
• Communities shouldn't focus only on Coinbase listings. Jesse stated clearly that he worries some projects treat a Coinbase reply or listing as the ultimate standard, and he wants to reduce this dependency.
• Chinese-speaking communities are the participants Base hopes to attract next. Jesse looks forward to seeing Memes that grow organically from Chinese and Asian cultures.
• Older projects are concerned with what happens after the hype fades. Having listed on exchanges and weathered peaks, products, brands, and communities still need to move forward.
• New support arrangements were announced at the event. These include Trencher Grants of up to $5,000 and the GMGN Global Championship Base track.

Jesse: I Only Truly Understood Memes After Joining the Community

In his opening, Jesse took the audience back to 2023. At that time, some teams still had doubts about this chain closely tied to Coinbase.

BALD suddenly appeared—a Meme token related to Brian Armstrong's baldness—and attracted massive attention before Base had even officially opened. Jesse said he was at the beach when he received the news, and his reaction was: this precisely proves that Base is a permissionless network, and what happens on it is beyond the team's arrangements.

Surging, crashing, excitement, and controversy were all outside the team's control. He used this episode as the first footnote to Base's openness.

But he also admitted that when he first saw communities like Toshi, AYB, Basenji, and TYBG emerge, he didn't fully understand their appeal. What truly changed his perspective was deeper conversations with community members later on.

When asked about his most memorable experiences, Jesse gave three answers.

The first was his time in the TYBG group in early 2024. Holding a Meme, participating in discussions, and watching other members spread it together. This experience helped him understand something he couldn't grasp as an observer. In his view, Memes connect culture, attention, and economic participation: a person contributes ideas, spreads content, brings friends into the group, and also has the opportunity to share in the value created by this community.

The second was a community self-funded offline gathering. He remembered branded custom poker tables and participants coming from various places, related to the Dimes community and The Howard. He was a bit uncertain about the year and event name, eventually attributing it to a certain Onchain Summit. What impressed him most was: these people felt like his own kind of people.

The third was shaving his head to fulfill a promise when Base TVL reached $10 billion. He said the filming process was "a bit scary," but precisely because everyone participated together, it became a genuine community memory.

Speaking about the current state, Jesse mentioned that Base has just surpassed Solana in TVL to become the second-largest ecosystem. Lending, payment, and trading activity are all growing.

But he did not avoid the downturn of 2025 and early 2026. He acknowledged making mistakes and going through difficult times.

On the technical side, he mentioned upcoming faster block times and other transaction-level improvements. His expectation is that these investments and community activities will form a positive cycle by late 2026 to 2027.

How Can Chinese-Speaking Traders Find a Sense of Belonging on Base?

Zolo, a partner at 深潮 TechFlow, was introduced to the stage by host Nick to ask Jesse a question on behalf of Chinese-language media.

Zolo observed that the Chinese Meme market has already gone through several narrative cycles: cultural Memes, utility Memes, AI Memes, and most recently stock Memes. His question was: six months from now, what will make Chinese Meme traders feel that Base is their place? Does it require a breakout Meme that grows organically from the Chinese community, or something else?

This question shifted the discussion from the macro vision of the entire ecosystem to the specific experience of Chinese traders.

Jesse first talked about his recent experience at TOKEN2049. The level of activity among Asian builders and traders, especially Chinese community participants spread across different regions, left a deep impression on him. In the following weeks, he spent more time engaging with these groups, even starting to use AI to communicate in Chinese on social platforms.

He acknowledged that in the past, many influential Memes on Base came from Western, English-speaking communities. Going forward, he hopes to see Memes from Chinese and other Asian cultures grow naturally on Base, and mentioned o1.exchange and Jerry as an example of infrastructure combined with community leadership.

Regarding the possibility Zolo raised, he gave an affirmative response: a successful Chinese-native Meme can indeed create a stronger sense of belonging. The first group of people gathers, the community grows, participants benefit, and then they bring friends in—this process has the potential to continue. What Base can do includes providing better tools, more participation in social platform conversations, and more offline engagement.

On Attention: Don't Treat Coinbase Listings as the End Goal

Gigi from the FOMO community asked: Meme explosions depend on attention, and Coinbase's distribution capability doesn't automatically translate into the cultural momentum that Memes need. How does Base plan to attract this attention?

One part of Jesse's answer is particularly noteworthy for the Base community: he worries that some projects treat Coinbase listings, official replies, or retweets as the ultimate measure of success. Coinbase is a starting advantage, but the community's goals shouldn't all revolve around it.

Jesse's answer can be roughly summarized in three directions.

Support more projects being born, and also support communities that have already stayed. He mentioned Meme launch platforms and the incentive experiment of Feel.cash stock-paired Memes, while emphasizing that platforms need to take care of existing communities, not just help new projects cold-start.

Bring people in through more trading entry points. He mentioned products like FOMO, GMGN, Binance Wallet, and Robinhood Wallet, particularly valuing GMGN's coverage among Chinese and Asian traders. A recently launched GMGN promotional campaign was also mentioned.

Improve Base's own community atmosphere. He was less definitive on this point. He admitted that Base hasn't always done this well in the past, and joked about his millennial identity: his own cultural instincts might sometimes be outdated.

Culture is hard to build through a single event or a few official tweets. When the official team is no longer at the center of the conversation, how much the Base community itself can create that's worth participating in still needs time to answer.

Stock Memes: The Most Discussed New Direction at This Summit

Trader Faded asked: can RWA actually attract ordinary users to actively trade, or will people ultimately still care about Memes and culture?

Jesse believes the two types of demand can coexist. Memes are already a lasting feature of internet culture and won't disappear. New assets like stocks entering on-chain may bring new users rather than replace Meme trading. Some stock users, once on-chain, may also explore Memes along the way.

According to his introduction at the event, tokenized stocks on Base have grown from about 10 initially to about 50, with a target of expanding to about 250 within a few weeks and over 500 by year-end. The latter two are expansion targets, not completed numbers.

Toady Hawk's question was more specific: how do Coinbase's tokenized stocks differ structurally from competing products, and what can builders do with them?

Jesse said Coinbase's solution is backed by underlying assets, carrying voting rights, dividends, and bankruptcy-remote protection, unlike pure synthetic exposure or debt instruments. He also mentioned that these stocks can be lent and borrowed on Aave and Morpho for yield or leverage strategies, citing a 2%-3% yield as an example.

His point is that once stocks enter on-chain, they can be instantly composable with existing DeFi protocols and community products. And in the latter half of the summit, several projects were already showcasing these experiments.

Trading volume for tokenized stocks has reportedly surpassed Robinhood, according to Jesse; specific rights arrangements should still be subject to each product's legal documentation.

Five Projects, Five Approaches

Blue Chip: Binding Nvidia stock to a Meme community. Toady Hawk introduced that the project pairs with tokenized Nvidia stock, with the community continuously creating content and organizing events. He said it brought over $50 million in trading volume to the paired stock within a month, and claimed it received a Coinbase listing about two weeks ago, making it the first stock Meme listed on a regulated US exchange.

IPOD: Connecting Apple stock through iPod cultural memory. Feel.cash co-founder Juan linked the iPod's music and tech memories to Apple stock tokens. According to him, holders receive daily Apple stock token rewards, with over $35,000 distributed cumulatively. Feel.cash announced that 25% of protocol revenue will be used for IPOD buybacks. He also mentioned that the 25th anniversary of the original iPod was the very next day.

Timu: Designing daily interactions around Micron stock. Community member Fred introduced that the project pairs with Micron stock token MU, and eligible holders can enter a free daily lottery on timucoin.fun to receive Micron stock token rewards, with a chance at a $100 jackpot.

Delivery Guy: Turning trading fees into asset distribution for holders. Opcode introduced that the project features a delivery person character with an Amazon theme. Trading fees go into a treasury, which buys other popular stock Memes and distributes them to "Prime members" holding tokens worth $14.99 or more, mirroring Amazon Prime's monthly fee. In just over a month since launch, it claims over $4 million in trading volume and is building a discovery and review platform called Prime.

BaseStonk: Starting from a launch platform to provide exposure for projects. The platform lead said there have been over 4,500 launches, roughly split between stock tokens and Meme tokens. The BaseStonk token has reportedly distributed over $200,000 in rewards to holders.

Taken together, stock Memes have already produced several different approaches: attracting users with familiar brand imagery, distributing stock token rewards, or reinvesting trading fees into other assets. Which one can retain users long-term remains to be seen.

What Established Communities Discussed Most: What Happens After the Hype Fades

Toshi: Got Listed on Coinbase, Then What?

When Toshi's Coco mentioned the Coinbase listing, he brought up a personal detail: he had just had a child around that time. A major family event and a major project milestone happened to coincide.

He said Toshi listed on Coinbase in January 2025, generating over $1 billion in trading volume on the day, outperforming other Meme listings of the same period. But after the long-awaited listing finally happened, the team quickly had to face the next step.

His answer was to continue expanding the community and turn Toshi into a brand and IP that can reach more people.

Coco has a very practical sense of the pace of two types of work: a collaboration between two on-chain communities might just require pulling together a group chat and making a few phone calls; but building products and reaching a broader audience requires longer development and communication cycles. Some work is already underway, but he didn't disclose it ahead of time at the event.

It's worth noting that Toshi was taken over by the community after the original founder left in August 2023, with no reserved token allocation and no paid marketing—an atypical path to where it is today. Coco said Coinbase had previously held Toshi's X account and later transferred it to the project team.

Degen: Acknowledging Failure, Continuing to Try New Products

Degen founder Jacek has a more "traditional finance" background than most Meme founders. He worked in fintech at Credit Suisse, went through their trader training program, had stints at IBM and mBank, and also did a small Y Combinator crypto startup.

In January 2024, he created the DEGEN token in Farcaster's Degen channel as a user tipping tool. He subsequently built Degen Chain (an L3 on Base) and an app around Farcaster tipping, but he candidly admitted that these products didn't survive.

His current focus is Yeeter (yeeter.fun), an on-chain options project. He started trading options as a teenager, and the emergence of on-chain stocks made him feel the timing was right to explore an options AMM mechanism that allows users to provide liquidity.

He said future products will continue to connect with DEGEN, possibly through trading pairs, gas usage, or fee buybacks. 1confirmation is the sole investor, holding 5% of tokens.

Jacek didn't offer much polish for past failures: "I've failed many times, but the project still has runway to keep trying."

For a Meme founder who already has name recognition, this kind of honesty is more memorable than another grand roadmap.

TYBG: Even When It's Quiet, Someone Needs to Be There

TYBG's Base Disciple recalled the community's experiences making art, clothing, shaving heads, and organizing the first Meme Summit in 2024. This project has no traditional core team; much of the content comes from spontaneous contributions by members.

He said he deliberately made TYBG into a religious parody format, distinguishing it from common animal imagery and short-lived social memes. The project is connected to Lil B and hip-hop culture—the word "Base" itself has a specific cultural meaning in Lil B's context. He encouraged those unfamiliar to research this background.

In his view, communities always have quiet periods. Some people won't speak every day but stay in touch; when new activities appear, they come back. He said TYBG is the only