Base founder: Betting on on-chain social was wrong, will focus on trading, payments, and AI Agents

Odaily Planet Daily reported that Base founder Jesse Pollak reviewed the development direction over the past two years, admitting that his previous bet on on-chain native social was wrong. He stated that social directions such as Farcaster, Zora, Miniapps, and creator coins failed to become the core driving force for crypto adoption, causing Base to lag behind some competitors in areas like perpetual contracts, prediction markets, tokenization, and payments.

Pollak stated that in the future, Base will position itself as the "blockchain for global finance," focusing on three major directions in 2026: trading, payments, and AI Agents. Among these, trading covers tokenized stocks, Meme coins, and application tokens; payments revolve around global stablecoins for individuals and businesses; and AI Agents will leverage cryptocurrency as a computer-native currency to serve future participants in the large-scale machine economy.

Additionally, the Base application will be returned to the Coinbase team, with Cobie taking over to drive progress, and may expand beyond the Base ecosystem. Pollak also mentioned that Base will continue to support developers through Base Layer, Base Batches, the ecosystem fund, and Coinbase distribution resources.