Written by Zeneca
Compiled by: Yangz, Techub News
Translator's note: With the popularity of AI coin issuance platforms Clanker and Virtuals, the industry's attention to the Base ecosystem has "exploded". On November 26, local time, the transaction volume on Base rose sharply to about 11.36 million transactions , the first time in history that the single-day transaction volume exceeded 10 million transactions (more than half of the transactions were withdrawn. Jesse Pollak , head of the Base protocol , responded that the withdrawal of transactions was caused by the preemptive robots trying to frantically capture MEV, and planned to further expand Base). In addition, Solana's Memecoin leader pump.fun was recently "bombed" by the community due to a live broadcast, and for a time, there seemed to be signs that funds were flowing to Base and other ecosystems. Artemis data shows that Base's on-chain capital inflow in the past month has reached US$815 million, ranking first among all chains. In contrast, Solana's net capital inflow is only US$304 million. So, is Base season coming?
If you’ve been following me on Twitter lately, you may have noticed that I’ve been posting more and more about Base. There are a number of reasons for this, but they would be too long to write a single tweet, so here’s a blog post.
The explosion of the Base ecosystem is nothing new to me. I analyzed Base when it was first launched more than a year ago, and if you know nothing about Base, I recommend reading that article . In addition, I also introduced Farcaster at the beginning of this year, and if you are not familiar with it, I also recommend reading it .
In this article, I’ll explain why I’m still bullish on Base, where my focus is, and how to get involved. My goal is to provide an overview of the ecosystem and share some indicators that make me increasingly confident that “Base season” is coming (if it’s not already here).
Before we dive in though, it’s important to note that most of what’s covered in this blog post and most of what’s out there in crypto right now (especially regarding Memecoins) is extremely risky and a massive bubble and pretty much everything is going to crash. I’m trying to trade it like everyone else and when I think the top has been reached I sell my position. So far, I’m profitable.
Remember, don't be a die-hard "Diamond Hand" community member, and don't be persuaded to hold on by others. You have to do what's best for you, and if you make enough money to change your life, you sell it, take the money out, and actually improve your life. I've been through so much in this industry that I have to add this disclaimer before I go into detail. The following are my opinions, which may be wrong, may be inappropriate, and there may be many other reasons. DYOR!
Reason 1: Coinbase is awesome
Coinbase is one of the largest and most important cryptocurrency exchanges (and companies) in the world. If Coinbase lists a Memecoin, Memecoin traders everywhere will be delighted. This is because Coinbase provides easy access to tokens for the “average person” or average cryptocurrency enthusiast, so they know what a Coinbase listing means for the price (usually — up!).
Coinbase's mission is to increase economic freedom in the world and bring 1 billion users to the on-chain world. No doubt Coinbase would be happy for the industry if there were 1 billion blockchain users, but it's clear that they are specifically trying to get users to join their own Base chain.
In my opinion, most people still underestimate the size of the Coinbase marketing machine and how important a company they are. As the largest exchange in the United States, they have been waging legal and political battles on behalf of the entire cryptocurrency industry.
The moment the SEC decided to sue Coinbase last year was one of the few rare moments I’ve experienced in this industry where almost everyone united behind the same cause, and nothing can bring people together better than a common enemy.
In addition, Coinbase is also special, they seem to be a real company, from top to bottom are good people. This is not to say that other exchanges are not like this or can not be like this, but the atmosphere of Coinbase seems to be particularly good.
Overall, Coinbase is awesome.
Reason 2: ETH Season is coming
When talking about Base, we have to mention Ethereum, which makes people love and hate it. In my opinion, ETH Season is also coming.
I know it's popular to complain about Ethereum now, but to be honest, I really think it's a minority of people on CT who are advocating this statement. Most of the real experts don't spend all day on CT. In fact, every chain will be complained about, but I think Ethereum has been complained about a little too much. I don't deny that Ethereum has "lost" to Solana in many ways, especially in the past 12-18 months. It is slow, costly, and its ecology seems fragmented among all L2 (and L3). However, Ethereum is still the second largest blockchain by market value, nearly 4 times that of the third place. Among the 328 blockchains tracked by DeFiLlama , Ethereum still accounts for more than 50% of the TVL.
Ethereum’s price action has lagged behind essentially every other cryptocurrency this year, but I think that’s about to change.
Here is a chart of ETH/BTC over the past 5 years or so. Clearly, things haven’t been great for ETH over the last few years! However, anyone who understands charts, markets, and investing will tell you that you should be buying at times like these, not selling.
The time to exchange ETH for BTC or SOL was 18-24 months ago. I'm not necessarily saying that now is the time to exchange BTC or SOL for ETH, but it is definitely a better time than at any time in the past few years.
“Be greedy when others are fearful, be fearful when others are greedy.” Yes, I’m quoting this old Buffett quote again, but to be honest, it’s so accurate and applicable. The best time to buy SOL was during the peak of fear after the FTX crash, and I admit that I missed that opportunity (at least relatively speaking, I entered the market when SOL was around $40).
I have been a staunch ETH bull. This may be incomprehensible to short-term traders, but there is a reason why I have been stubbornly bullish on ETH. A lot of the reasons people dislike Ethereum have to do with friction, such as gas costs and slow transfer speeds. However, L2 solves a lot of problems and catches up in areas where they are lacking.
Reason 3: Friction is disappearing fast
One of the reasons Solana has been so successful recently is their focus on consumer applications and end-user experience. They have made it as frictionless as possible, and it is undeniable that it is much easier for the average person to interact with Solana than with any other major chain. Low fees and fast transaction speeds are one thing, but mobile-friendly wallets like Phantom and apps like Moonshot have also had a huge impact on new user acquisition.
Add to that the popularity of Memecoin, especially pump.fun, and the resulting network effects, and it’s no surprise.
But I think that for Base, many of the above advantages are coming or will soon come. First, Phantom has announced the addition of support for Base.
I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve heard in dozens of discord/tg chatrooms over the past few weeks: “Ah, I only have SOL in my Phantom wallet and I don’t know how to use Base.” In my opinion, this is just a tipping point where we’ll see more protocols/apps start to support Base in the future, and more Base native apps will appear.
Additionally, many people are suffering from Ethereum PTSD after experiencing the crazy gas period and poor UI/UX of MetaMask in 2021. They have not experienced interacting with wallets such as Rabby, Rainbow, Phantom, etc. on Base, nor have they experienced Base’s own native Coinbase wallet (which has a native yield of 4.7% on any USDC held).
Reason 4: Investing is investing in people
When it comes to traditional investment in companies or projects, I believe that "investing is investing in people". The reason why Base is so outstanding is inseparable from the team behind it.
Brian Armstrong has been meeting with Trump from time to time to discuss cryptocurrency policy. He is definitely a powerful figure. If you are interested, you can read this article from 2020 and try to recall what the world was like at that time, how most large tech companies acted in taking political stances, and how different Brian's approach was at Coinbase.
In addition to Brian, Base head Jesse Pollak is also worth paying attention to.
To quote and show what Jesse Pollak is like, I went through his tweets and saved dozens of them. I recommend you all check them out, but if you don’t have the time, here are some of my favorites:
Jesse took a 21-day trip around the world to meet with buliders and project leaders.
About understanding meme culture (video recommended).
These are just two of the many outstanding people working towards Base's goals. I feel safe supporting this team.
Reason 5: Excellent indicators
In my opinion, the most important indicator for predicting whether a chain will be successful is the number of builders/developers creating applications and whether there is capital flowing in. The indicators related to Base show that its ecological activities have increased significantly and funds are pouring in in large quantities.
Judging from the situation in the past three months, the net inflow of funds to Base is almost the same as that of Solana. Judging from last week, other chains have been left far behind by Base.
In addition, the transaction volume on Base has also been steadily increasing, with a "surge" trend in recent days.
In the past few days, many AI agents in the Base ecosystem have also been highly followed on Twitter.
Source: cookie.fun
Overall, it is clear that traffic and mind share are shifting towards Base. Whether this will continue or is just a temporary blip is unknown. Many are calling this a temporary thing and that Solana will maintain the most attention during this cycle. I disagree, but I must not be so self-righteous as to think that I must be right and others must be wrong. Metrics look good, but metrics can also be temporary.
Reason 6: Airdrop speculation
To be clear, this is pure speculation. The Base team has made it clear that they will not be launching a token, but so have Optimism and many other chains.
With the legal and regulatory landscape changing significantly, I wouldn't completely rule out a Base airdrop. However, I wouldn't take it too seriously either, and I would personally only see it as "icing on the cake". I recommend using Base as you normally would and trying it around, as this is often the best way to get airdrops when protocols launch.
These are the 6 reasons why I am bullish on Base and think Base season is coming soon. Below, we will take a closer look at some projects worth paying attention to.
Focus 1: Virtuals Protocol
Simply put, Virtuals Protocol is a launchpad for on-chain artificial intelligence agents. The protocol believes that "AI agents are not slaves, but productive assets; AI agents are not passive tools, but income-generating assets that users can invest in and co-own, just like individuals can own company shares. These agents can play a role in different environments, such as Alcompanions, inseparable characters (NPCs) in platforms such as Roblox, or virtual influencers on social media platforms such as TikTok, and they will play a key role in reshaping the virtual economy."
AI has been slowly but steadily expanding its adoption over the past few months, started to accelerate a few weeks ago, and has taken a parabolic upward trend in recent days.
Needless to say, everyone should know that AI is the main trend in crypto right now, and will likely remain the main trend and sector for the rest of this cycle. We have seen AI Memecoins like GOAT and ZEREBRO go crazy on Solana, but the market cap of the top AI tokens and proxies on Virtuals is currently only a small part of the Solana ecosystem. If you look at the fund flow and are looking forward to ETH Season and Base Season, then I think the Virtuals ecosystem is one of the most worthwhile places to watch.
The two tokens I personally like the most and hold the most are AIXBT and VADER, in addition to the native token VIRTUAL. Although I own tokens of about 20 agents on the platform, I think there are many other agents whose tokens will also perform well.
You can find the newly issued Virtual AI agent tokens here (you can also issue your own tokens). I also recommend reading the full whitepaper (I'm asking everyone to read it again) to fully understand the protocol. Alternatively, you can read a great thread about Virtuals from last month. The thread provides a high-level overview in plain language.
Focus 2: Farcaster
Base and Farcaster complement each other to a large extent. While Farcaster has supported many chains, Base has always been in the lead. As can be seen from this chart, for most of this year, Base accounted for 60-80% of all on-chain transactions of Farcaster users, and in recent days, this number has even reached more than 95%.
Specifically for Farcaster, Clanker and Anoncast are the two most popular proxies.
Clanker is an AI agent deployed on Farcaster that allows anyone to create a token by simply @ing the agent and asking for it. Clanker injects its own funds into the liquidity pool and generates fees for the creator. People see it as the pump.fun of Base, but I don't think that's a good comparison. To track new Clanker token issuance, check out this website .
Anoncast is really cool, allowing people to post 100% anonymously to Farcaster and even Twitter using zero-knowledge proof technology (I wrote about this last year). You can post through this site , but you need to hold anon tokens.
As developers continue to experiment with new implementations, it’s important to keep an eye on and get into the Farcaster trenches.
I recommend watching ThreadGuy's interview with Dan Romero, one of the founders of Farcaster.
Focus 3: Old-line tokens, paganism, traditional memes, etc.
Although most of the attention is currently focused on the above two places, and AI-related tokens have occupied most of the attention, I think some of the old tokens on Farcaster are still worth paying attention to. They have existed for a longer time and have some die-hard communities. There are many of these tokens, and you can browse the Base page on Dexscreener and sort by market value to find some good old tokens.
I think if we do get a Base season, at some point the focus will shift back to cute animals and traditional memes instead of AI/Farcaster (or, possibly in parallel with it).
Although the Virtuals ecosystem has experienced explosive growth recently, many of these tokens have experienced varying degrees of decline during the same period. Going back to the old saying "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful", perhaps the less-noticed ones are more worthy of attention.
Focus 4: Other random possibilities
I was going to write a whole section here, but I stumbled across this great tweet that covers 10 apps to try, 10 ways to earn on-chain income, 10 organizations to join, and 10 articles to read. So, without further ado, here’s the tweet .
There are a nearly endless amount of other interesting things to watch on Base, most of which I can't possibly cover. These are just some of the things I've personally been watching over the past few weeks, but I encourage everyone to explore on their own and find what they like.
How to interact with Base
I've received questions from a lot of people who don't even know how to start interacting with Base, so here's a crash course and some tips.
If you have funds on Ethereum in your wallet, you can use websites such as Relay or Bungee to cross-chain funds to Base. These websites are very easy to use and cheap, and cross-chain usually only takes about a minute.
If the funds in your wallet are on Solana, you can also use Relay for cross-chain, or the Phantom wallet now also has a cross-chain option .
If you want to trade on Base, you can be a fool like me and not use a trading bot in 90% of the cases. However, you can use a bot, there are already some bots that support Base, and more should be coming soon. The two most popular bots are BullX and Photon .
The main DEXs for buying and selling tokens on Base are Aerodrome and Uniswap . Personally, I prefer to use the token aggregator LlamaSwap because it finds the cheapest route for me and gets the best price.
The Virtuals token works a little differently, as all AI agents can only be traded with the native VIRTUAL token. The easiest way to trade is through their website , but it is also possible to exchange Virtuals tokens using LlamaSwap , as long as you choose KyberSwap as your DEX.
If you're looking for a wallet for all your Base/EVM tokens, I personally recommend Rabby , but I've heard that Rainbow Wallet is pretty good too. Of course, Coinbase has its own wallet , but to be honest, it's not up to the level of the other two wallets in terms of functionality. (Or am I just too dumb?)
Some thoughts on Solana, Base, and competition among chains
I’ve always thought it’s silly to take competition too seriously. Competition can be friendly, like the US and Canada, or Australia and New Zealand. We can make fun of each other, about Solana’s outages, Ethereum’s high transaction costs, and “Cardano is just Cardano”.
At the end of the day, if you are here to make money (which I guess 99% of people are), then you should just keep an open mind, experiment and go with the flow.
If you care less about making money and more about the future of finance and a decentralized and censorship-free future, then you should stick to your guns.
In this category, you’ll find various degrees of extremism, such as BTC maxis who think anything other than Bitcoin is a scourge to the industry, ETH maxis who think Solana is a disgrace to the industry, and Solana maxis who think ETH/Base is garbage to the industry. Even Bitcoin maxis are split within themselves, with one group hating ETFs and MicroStrategy, while another group is bullish on them.
So no matter where you stand, you will find a group of people who think you are extremely stupid. This is life, you can let it develop, or you can be like me and just follow the money, follow the builder, follow the attention, and most importantly, follow your curiosity.
I recommend you do the same. The best alpha is not found by following my curiosity, my articles, or other people’s articles. The best alpha is found by following your own curiosity, going down the rabbit hole, and thinking for yourself. It has always been this way, and it will always be this way.
