Base's New Wave: Beyond Trading and Memes, 5 New On-Chain Use Cases Worth Watching

Original Author: ollieblocmates, blocmates

Original Translation: TechFlow

TechFlow Introduction: The prevailing consensus is that crypto has shrunk to four winning categories—perpetuals, memecoin launchpads, stablecoin issuers, and trading apps. As technological optimists, blocmates is touring major networks in search of use cases that remain viable beyond speculation. This stop: Base. This network—with over $5 billion in TVL, processing roughly 12 million transactions daily, and settling about 90% of x402 transactions—is nurturing a range of products that haven't yet entered the spotlight: Hydrex, a MetaDEX aggregating liquidity; SwapRoyale, a fantasy trading competition app; BlockRun, a permissionless AI gateway; PixieChess, real-money chess where pieces are collectible NFTs; and Tokensto, which turns idle AI tokens into cash. The author argues that the surface area of interesting on-chain activity remains wider than current consensus acknowledges.

The prevailing consensus is that crypto has shrunk to four winning categories—perpetuals, memecoin launchpads, stablecoin issuers, and trading apps.

From a revenue perspective, there's some truth to this narrative.

However, as technological optimists, we believe there are more viable use cases for crypto beyond the dominance of speculation.

To prove our point, we're touring major networks to see what interesting things are brewing in their ecosystems.

Today's stop: Base—the native network of Base App.

Despite being mired in controversy over the gap between network direction and actual activity, a look at the charts reveals a healthy network with TVL exceeding $5 billion.

Chart: Source: DeFiLlama

It's worth noting that this metric is significantly skewed. Morpho alone accounts for over 80% of the network's total value locked, exceeding $3 billion.

As of mid-August 2026, the network processes approximately 12 million transactions daily (among the highest transaction volumes of tracked chains), with roughly 283,000 daily active addresses.

Base also settles approximately 90% of x402 transactions (the emerging standard for micro-payments between agents) and leads in on-chain spot trading volume for major L1 assets like BTC, ETH, and SOL.

Over the past year, its share of global DEX volume rose from 8.8% to 12.1% (a 38% increase), with total volume growing 38% year-over-year.

Furthermore, a number of refreshing products have emerged on the network, some of which haven't yet entered the spotlight. Here are a few worth watching.

Hydrex

Let's start with Hydrex. This is a Base-native MetaDEX (meta-DEX)/automated market maker that aggregates native pools with external liquidity sources within the Base ecosystem, routing trades through Uniswap, Morpho, and others to provide optimal pricing.

Hydrex runs an improved ve(3,3)-style incentive engine, where weekly community governance directs HYDX emissions and protocol revenue toward the highest-yielding liquidity and volume.

Holders of locked tokens can capture 100% of fees generated by Hydrex LPs through weekly distributions, plus partner incentives, creating a tight flywheel that rewards long-term commitment.

Hydrex has some really cool features, like single-signature token swaps and liquidity provision, automated liquidity managers, and HYDX emissions backed by real reserve contributions.

SwapRoyale

Yes, we agree that perpetuals are one of crypto's "Four Horsemen," but have you tried the DraftKings version?

SwapRoyale brings something particularly compelling to the concept of trading—it's genuinely one of the most interesting projects currently built on the Base network.

Image: Source: SwapRoyale

SwapRoyale is a fantasy trading competition app currently in iOS public beta. Users pay a fixed entry fee and receive a $100,000 virtual portfolio to participate in live trading competitions.

At a time when consumer apps are finally starting to win the market (fomo being the most recent obvious proof), SwapRoyale is one of the purest expressions of this thesis: take something people already love (trading), wrap it in a competitive, skill-based format, and polish the UX until it's seamless.

Here's how it works:

• Users sign up with email
• A wallet is automatically created
• Fund via Coinbase, Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, debit card, or any crypto wallet
• Zero platform fees for deposits and withdrawals
• Users can view and join competitions: available assets, prize pools, payout structures, duration, maximum trades, and minimum participants

Competitions come in three formats:

• Guaranteed Prize Pools (GPP)—high volatility, big prizes
• Double/Triple-Up—low volatility, stability play
• Free competitions to practice the format risk-free

SwapRoyale currently has over 300 daily active players, has distributed over $100,000 in prizes, and has more than 1,500 paying players.

More integrations are being added to enhance the player experience, covering rewards, engagement, and usability.

These integrations will bring a full 76-badge system (with interactive 3D collectibles, revamped streak mechanics, and richer sharing), a weekly Megapot lottery (free entries, real-time prize tracking, and prizes backed by real tickets), and partner rewards redeemable through Trove, Moonshot, and Beezie.

It also includes Blink instant deposits, a more refined first-launch experience, and a full app-wide UX overhaul: new navigation system, unified leaderboards, smoother gestures, haptic feedback, sound effects, animations, and redesigned sharing flows.

This product is already demonstrating strong product-market fit and is definitely worth keeping an eye on as it progresses.

BlockRun

The on-chain agent economy is being built on Base, and this is far more than just a slogan.

We've witnessed some of the most innovative on-chain AI debut on Base, with x402 being one of the key innovations.

BlockRun adds to these exciting projects, serving as the routing and payment layer for the agent economy.

BlockRun is a permissionless AI gateway that allows autonomous systems to discover, pay for, and execute services—without API keys, subscriptions, or credit cards.

Through BlockRun, agents can fund a non-custodial wallet with USDC on Base, call any endpoint, and have the x402 protocol embed payments directly into HTTP requests, settling the round trip in a single interaction.

With BlockRun, users get true metered intelligence, paying only for what they actually use.

Payments settle instantly in USDC, and agents operate at internet speed, unburdened by the friction of traditional API billing.

PixieChess

We also discovered a magical real-money chess game built on Base: every piece is a collectible NFT with unique abilities that rewrite the classic rules.

It's called PixieChess. Players assemble their boards from their collections, then either climb the ladder or burn pieces to enter high-stakes tournaments and matches.

PixieChess is built so that all value stays within the system. Every sale funds the treasury, which in turn funds prize pools, allowing winners to take home real ETH.

PixieChess is based on classic chess: white moves first, players alternate turns, moving one piece per turn. Castling, en passant, and pawn promotion follow standard rules (unless a piece's special ability overrides them).

The goal is to checkmate the opponent's king. However, stalemate, mutual agreement to draw, the 50-move rule (no captures or pawn moves), threefold repetition, or insufficient material all result in a draw.

Each player has a chess clock that only ticks during their turn. Running out of time usually means losing the game (unless the opponent lacks sufficient material to checkmate, in which case it's a draw).

I'm not much of a chess player, but this is genuinely cool and has the potential to break out of the CT (Crypto Twitter) echo chamber.

Tokensto

Almost anyone familiar with AI has experienced this "wake-up moment": paying subscription fees like electricity bills for an AI product you thought was really great, only to end up with a pile of unused tokens.

Or maybe it's not just disappointment—maybe you've accumulated a large stash of tokens, only to scroll past a competitor's viral launch video, and the competitor happens to be 10x better than the one you subscribed to.

Tokensto solves this problem: letting users turn idle AI tokens into cash. It's a fairly simple, easy-to-understand product built on the Base network.

Users paste a provider key (OpenRouter, Venice, or any OpenAI-compatible URL), and it gets listed; if the price is competitive enough, it gets purchased, with proceeds going directly to the user's wallet.

The technology is powered by Surplus (an open inference marketplace), Usdctofiat automatically prices each listing at the top of the order book, and users can withdraw funds directly to off-chain banking apps via Peer (a permissionless on/off-ramp protocol).

Data shows users are responding well—it's only a matter of time before this takes off.

Final Thoughts

Our visit to Base revealed a MetaDEX designed for tighter incentive alignment, a skill-based fantasy trading app that turns market intuition into competition, an agent payment layer that eliminates the friction of traditional API billing, a magical chess game where collectible pieces rewrite rules while keeping value circulating within the system, and a platform that can turn idle AI tokens into cash.

Not all of these experiments will necessarily become category-defining successes, but they show that builders on Base are still willing to explore consumer experiences, the agent economy, and novel game mechanics—rather than simply chasing the next speculative flywheel.

This means that the surface area of interesting on-chain activity remains wider than current consensus acknowledges.

As volume quietly flows in and the "pivot to crypto" chorus grows louder, we believe more projects will surface. We can only hope that this time is different—and that more than a handful of apps truly break through the CT echo chamber.