Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Wenser (@wenser2010)

After being long regarded as the "King of L2", the three-year "Era of Exploration" for Base has officially come to an end.

This morning, Base co-founder Jesse Pollak reflected on the development direction of the ecosystem over the past two years, admitting that its previous bet on on-chain native social interactions was a mistake. He stated that social directions like Farcaster, Zora, Miniapps, and creator tokens failed to become the core driving force for cryptocurrency adoption, resulting in Base lagging behind some competitors in areas like perpetual contracts, prediction markets, tokenization, and payments. Furthermore, he emphasized that the Base APP will be managed by Coinbase, under the leadership of community leader Cobie, who has been heavily invested in talent acquisition.

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

Now in 2026, Base, which had previously vacillated over coin issuance, helplessly faces a period of awkward development, perhaps reaffirming a truth—no transactions, no cryptocurrency.

Base Transformation: Founders to Write Code, One-Stop APP Handed to Coinbase Team

Let’s first focus on Jesse’s “Confession of the Base Ecosystem” in this article.

In this lengthy piece, Jesse first acknowledged his mistakes—while betting on blockchain technology to drive successful crypto applications, the choice in niche areas mistakenly relied on social experiences to drive crypto applications.

Looking back, the Base ecosystem seems to have been stuck in a "self-entertainment state"—

• In leadership, Jesse often spoke of the "creator economy", always interacting with community members under that banner, encouraging all creators to issue tokens and NFTs, calling it "on-chain creator economy will rewrite industry development". However, the reality is that the on-chain creator ecosystem within Base is incredibly poor, and the earnings of most creators are even lower than those of developers promoting tokens on pump.fun;
• In terms of development strategy, Base has always been high on the “Onchain Summer” slogan, but the reality is that Base has consistently trailed Solana and BNB Chain, adopting a follow-the-leader strategy; when the Solana meme coin craze hit, Base also jumped in; when the BNB Chain's Chinese memes gained popularity, Base scrambled to imitate as well, with previous collaborations with physical brands like McDonald's often being mere marketing activity without substantial actions.
• As for transaction activity, previous data indicated that over 80% of activity on the Base chain generated from a few addresses refreshing each other, resulting in a very limited number of real users; even the trading volume driven by Coinbase’s main focuses like x402 and AI Agent payments has struggled to achieve a significant breakthrough, remaining in a state of self-closure.

The failures of SocialFi platforms like Farcaster and Zora are already apparent; the former's founder has gone to Tempo to work on payments; the latter, after issuing its token, considered it "mission accomplished," but its token has since dropped more than 80%.

The beautiful vision Jesse had of “using social media to make cryptocurrency accessible to billions globally” has not materialized, after all, Web2 social media products are plentiful, not to mention a series of giant products that already offer better user experiences, earlier advantages, and richer creator content.

Many times, you think you are playing memes, creating buzz, and engaging the community, but in reality, you are constructing your own information cocoon, artificially creating small circles, and deliberately raising the entry barrier.

Handing the flagship product of the ecosystem, the Base APP, over to the Coinbase team seems more like returning the Base ecosystem to the embrace of Coinbase, accepting their unified arrangements, existing as part of the Coinbase ecosystem. This move somewhat expands the openness of the Base APP and naturally makes the Base APP no longer exclusively belonging to the Base ecosystem.

For crypto projects, focusing on finance, trading, and investment remains the industry's mainline; in the past two years, on-chain perpetual platforms and prediction market platforms, which fearlessly thrive amid market fluctuations, have precisely tapped into this trend, even benefiting from high volatility and high-risk market conditions to earn more protocol and platform revenue.

In light of this, Base has finally had an awakening, no longer clinging to "decentralized social" or "creator economy" but instead turning to three major directions—trading, payments, and AI Agent.

New Chapter for Base: Focus on Trading, Payments, AI Agent Development

To recognize and correct mistakes is a great virtue.

Although Base has taken many wrong turns, it seems that Jesse and Coinbase's CEO, among others, have recognized the problems and provided solutions.

Previously, Brian Armstrong had responded to community doubts stating, “The main business of Base focuses on trading, payments, and AI Agent services (in that order). I believe these three are closely interconnected. For example, to conduct payment transactions, foreign exchange resources are required; and agent services involve a large amount of transaction and payment activities. By the way, most resources are currently being allocated to trading business. Perhaps these businesses have not yet realized external applications, but that is indeed the case.”

Jesse also stated in today’s long article that in the future, Base will position itself as "the blockchain for global finance," focusing on trading, payments, and AI Agent by 2026. Specifically,

• Trading will cover tokenized stocks, meme coins, and application tokens;
• Payments will be centered around global stablecoins for individuals and enterprises;
• AI Agents will leverage cryptocurrencies as computer-native currencies to serve future large-scale machine economy participants.

The focus of Base’s future business is not just casual talk but rather a relatively optimal choice based on current industry trends and its own advantages.

In terms of trading, although Base's active user base is limited, its advantages, such as low gas friction costs, the Ethereum ecosystem, and backing from Coinbase's compliance background in the US, can ensure its foundational advantage and value in the development of tokenized stocks, meme coins, and legitimate projects;

Concerning payments, Base's low interaction costs, foundational x402 protocol, and support from Circle’s USDC also lay the groundwork for personal and institutional payments, as well as stablecoin adoption. Additionally, with a “one-stop application” like Base APP, if it can connect with more supply-side brands, merchants, and institutional users, it is expected to promote the large-scale adoption of stablecoins in the US and even globally.

On the AI Agent service front, this step appears to be a proactive layout for the future AI Agent economy. Although AI Agents are still in their early stages of development, news about collaborations with OpenAI’s GPT 5.6, Anthropic's Fable 5 model, and recent announcements about Apple's AI partnership with Alibaba’s Qianwen model indicate that the day when AI Agents leverage cryptocurrencies for widespread payments, trading, and consumption will come soon. Previously, according to Alibaba’s official news, as of May this year, Alipay's AI autonomous order payment process has already completed 300 million transactions (covering AI payment, AI ordering, AI consumption scenarios such as payments completed through Qianwen, Rokid, and other AI applications).

Of course, the change in Base's strategic direction also accompanies changes among the personnel behind the large organization Coinbase.

Coinbase Organizational Personnel Changes: Some Exit, Some Continue to Code

Previously, Coinbase's engineering head Brock Miller publicly stated he had left and joined Anthropic as a member of the technical team. When cryptocurrency is no longer in vogue, some individuals choose to adapt to the trend and join the AI revolution.

In early July, Coinbase's Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal announced his departure and will be taking a position at a startup. He added, “I will continue to serve as an advisor to Coinbase and participate in issues related to Coinbase's trust charter through the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.” Subsequently, Coinbase announced that Molly Abraham would lead the company's legal team as General Counsel, and Ryan Van Grack would become Vice Chair with broader public-facing responsibilities.

This is an example of someone leaving but still maintaining a collaborative relationship with Coinbase.

As for those who are coding, none other than Base founder Jesse—he personally stated: "I have started coding again and launched several products".

Of course, the departures or changes of the above personnel may not entirely reflect personal desires, but also contain the impact of the development of AI Agents.

Recently, Rob Witoff, the head of the Coinbase platform, stated that the company now has over 95% of its code written or assisted by AI, a significant increase from the 40% reported earlier this year in February. He mentioned in an interview: "In fact, 100% of Coinbase employees use AI every day." He further stated, most Coinbase engineers currently run 5 to 10 AI Agents simultaneously. The combined working capabilities of these AI Agents equate to around 1,200 employees.

He anticipates that by 2030, Coinbase's AI Agents could assume work comparable to that of 100,000 employees. However, he noted that critical areas like core cryptography still need human input, with AI primarily used for code testing, vulnerability checks, and prototype development.

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

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