Base drops social direction, founder admits strategic failure

Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Wenser (@wenser 2010 )

Base, long regarded as the "King of L2s," has officially ended its three-year "Age of Discovery."

Early this morning, Base co-founder Jesse Pollak reflected on the ecosystem's development direction over the past two years, admitting that his previous bet on native on-chain social was a mistake. He stated that social directions like Farcaster, Zora, Miniapps, and creator coins failed to become the core drivers of crypto adoption, causing Base to lag behind some competitors in areas like 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 through a significant talent acquisition.

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

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

Base's Transformation: Founder Returns to Coding, One-Stop App Handed to 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 wrong.

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

• On the leadership front, Jesse constantly talked about the "creator economy," engaging with the community under that banner, encouraging all creators to issue tokens and NFTs, claiming it would "rewrite the industry's development." In reality, the on-chain creator ecosystem on Base is extremely poor, with most creators earning less than developers on pump.fun who issue tokens based on trending topics.
• Strategically, Base has long held high the banner of "Onchain Summer," but in practice, it has followed a follower strategy behind Solana and BNB Chain. When the Solana Meme coin craze hit, Base also jumped on Meme coins; when BNB Chain's Chinese Meme gained traction, Base quickly imitated it. Past partnerships with physical brands like McDonald's often remained superficial marketing campaigns without real substance.
• In terms of transaction activity, data previously suggested that over 80% of activity on the Base chain was generated by a few addresses trading back and forth, with a very limited number of genuine users. Even the transaction volumes for Coinbase-promoted x402 and AI Agent payments have struggled to achieve a breakthrough, remaining in a state of self-confinement.

The failure of SocialFi platforms like Farcaster and Zora has long been evident. The founder of the former has moved on to work on payments at Tempo; the latter, after issuing its token, can be said to have "completed its task," but the token has dropped over 80%.

Jesse's envisioned beautiful picture of "reaching billions of people globally through social media" has not materialized. After all, there are countless Web2 social media products, not to mention a series of giant products with better user experiences, greater first-mover advantages, and richer creator content.

Often, you think you're playing with Memes, creating memes, and activating the community, but you're actually building your own information cocoon, artificially creating niche circles, and deliberately raising the barriers to entry.

Handing over the ecosystem's flagship product, Base App, to the Coinbase team is more like bringing Base back into the fold of Coinbase, accepting its unified arrangement, and existing as a part and a link within the Coinbase ecosystem. To a certain extent, this increases the openness of Base App, naturally making it no longer exclusive to the Base ecosystem.

For crypto projects, focusing on finance, trading, and investment remains the industry's main theme. On-chain perpetual platforms and prediction markets that have thrived regardless of market volatility over the past two years have accurately caught this trend, even benefiting from highly volatile, high-risk markets to earn more protocol and platform revenue.

In light of this, Base has finally woken up, shifting its focus from "decentralized social" and "creator economy" to three main directions: Trading, Payments, and AI Agents.

Base's New Chapter: Focusing on Trading, Payments, and AI Agent Development

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

Although Base took many detours, it seems that Jesse, Coinbase's CEO, and others have identified the problems and are offering their solutions.

Previously, Brian Armstrong responded to community skepticism by stating, "Base's main business focuses on Trading, Payments, and AI Agent services (in that order). I believe these three are closely interconnected. For example, to process payments for trades, you need foreign exchange resources; agent services involve a large number of transactions and payment businesses. By the way, most resources are currently allocated to the trading business. Perhaps these businesses haven't found external applications yet, but that's the current reality."

In his post today, Jesse also stated that Base will position itself as "the blockchain for global finance," with its 2026 focus squarely on three areas: Trading, Payments, and AI Agents.

• Trading covers tokenized stocks, Meme coins, and application tokens;
• Payments revolve around global stablecoins for individuals and businesses;
• AI Agents will leverage cryptocurrency as native money for computers, serving participants in the future large-scale machine economy.

Base's future focus isn't mere rhetoric; it's a relatively optimal choice based on current industry trends and its own strengths.

For Trading, despite limited active users, Base's advantages like low gas costs, the Ethereum ecosystem alignment, and the U.S. compliant background of backing from Coinbase ensure it maintains foundational infrastructure advantages and value in tokenized stocks, Meme coins, and legitimate project development.

For Payments, Base's advantages include low interaction costs, the x402 protocol foundation, and support from Circle's USDC, laying the groundwork for individual and institutional payments and stablecoin adoption. Coupled with a "one-stop application" like Base App, if it can onboard more brands, merchants, and institutional users on the supply side, it could drive mass stablecoin adoption in the U.S. and worldwide.

For AI Agent services, this step seems more like an early positioning for the future AI Agent economy. Although AI Agents are still in early development, considering news about OpenAI's GPT 5.6, Anthropic's Fable 5 model, and Apple's recent AI partnership selection of Alibaba's Qwen model, the day when AI Agents use cryptocurrency for widespread payments, transactions, and consumption will arrive soon. Earlier, according to official Alibaba news, as of May this year, the number of AI-initiated autonomous payments via Alipay had already accumulated to 300 million transactions (covering scenarios like AI agent payments, AI ordering, AI consumption, such as payments completed through AI applications like Qwen and Rokid).

Of course, Base's strategic shift also comes with personnel changes behind the large organization that is Coinbase.

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

Earlier, Coinbase Engineering Lead Brock Miller announced his departure and that he joined Anthropic as a technical team member. When cryptocurrency is no longer the hottest trend, some choose to follow the current and join the AI revolution.

In early July, Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal announced his departure to join a startup. He added, "I will continue to advise Coinbase and work on the Coinbase trust charter through the OCC." 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, more public-facing responsibilities.

This is a case where, despite leaving, the individual maintains a cooperative relationship with Coinbase.

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

Of course, these departures or changes may not solely reflect personal will; they also encompass the impact of the 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. In an interview, he said: "In fact, 100% of Coinbase employees use AI every day." He added that currently, most Coinbase engineers run 5 to 10 AI Agents simultaneously. The combined working capacity of these AI Agents is equivalent to approximately 1,200 employees.

He estimates that by 2030, Coinbase's AI Agents could potentially handle the workload equivalent to 100,000 employees. However, he noted that critical areas like core cryptography still require human involvement; AI is mainly used for code testing, bug checking, and prototyping.

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