This article elaborates on the author's optimism about Base, analyzing the influence of Coinbase, the potential of Ethereum, improvements in Base's user experience, and the strength of the team, while sharing the latest developments in the Base ecosystem, especially the rise of AI agents and Farcaster.

Author: ZENECA

Translation: Blockchain in Plain Language

In this article, I will share why I believe Base remains very important, the areas I am currently focusing on within Base, and how you can get involved from an operational perspective. I will provide an overview of the ecosystem and share some indicators that make me more confident that the "Base era" is approaching.

However, before diving deeper, it is necessary to clarify some obvious points: Most of the content discussed in this article, as well as the vast majority of projects in the current crypto market (especially those related to memecoins), carry extremely high risks, with a massive bubble. Almost everything could plummet by 95%-100% from current levels. Like others, I am trying to trade in this market; I sell when I believe prices are nearing their peak and gradually lock in profits as prices rise. In fact, I have already realized some gains.

Don't be a stubborn "diamond hand" holder, and don't hesitate to sell due to moral pressure from others. Ultimately, you must do what is most beneficial for yourself. If your investment has reached a life-changing amount, then sell, cash out, and change your life.

I have seen too many people ride their investments from the peak all the way back to square one, so I want to highlight these risks upfront. The following are my personal views, which may be incorrect, may be poorly timed, or may have other issues. The importance of "Do Your Own Research" (DYOR) has never been more pronounced.

Next, let's start with Coinbase and discuss why I am optimistic about Base.

1. Reason One: Coinbase is a Major Player

Coinbase is one of the largest and most influential cryptocurrency trading platforms in the world and is an important player in the crypto industry. Whenever a memecoin is listed on Coinbase, memecoin investors worldwide rejoice, knowing that this usually means the token's price will (generally) rise. This is because Coinbase provides a convenient channel for ordinary users (or general crypto enthusiasts) to trade these tokens.

Coinbase's mission is to increase economic freedom globally and bring 1 billion people into the on-chain ecosystem. While they would be pleased with any chain having 1 billion users, it is clear that they particularly hope to attract these users to their own Base chain.

I believe that most people still underestimate the power of Coinbase's marketing machine and the importance of the company itself.

As one of the largest trading platforms in the U.S., Coinbase not only holds a significant commercial position but also often represents the entire crypto industry in legal and political battles.

Last year, when the SEC decided to sue Coinbase, it was one of the rare moments in the crypto space where almost everyone united under a common goal. Nothing brings a group together like a common enemy. Of course, there are some dissenters, but to hell with them; they are insignificant and hardly worth mentioning.

I would also like to add that Coinbase seems to be filled with sincerity from top to bottom, and the employees are all very capable. It’s not to say that other trading platforms can’t achieve this, but the atmosphere that Coinbase exudes is particularly positive.

In short, Coinbase is a very important player. They have their own Layer 2 blockchain, which is likely to be a significant event worth watching.

Speaking of Base, we must mention Ethereum—a blockchain that is both loved and hated. However, I believe the ETH era is also about to arrive…

2. Reason Two: The ETH Era

By the way, Ethereum is also a major player. I know that complaining about Ethereum on social media seems to have become a trend, but honestly, I think these voices are just a few loud opinions on Twitter. Most influential people do not spend all day on Twitter. Of course, this applies to all blockchains, but it is especially true for Ethereum (partly because many have moved to Farcaster).

I will not deny that Ethereum has indeed experienced some failures. Over the past 12-18 months, it has "lost" to Solana (SOL) in many ways. It is slow, expensive, and the presence of numerous L2s (and L3s) makes the entire ecosystem seem somewhat fragmented and clunky.

Even so, Ethereum remains the second-largest blockchain by market capitalization, with a market cap nearly 4 times that of its competitors.

Among the 328 blockchains tracked by DeFi Llama, Ethereum still accounts for over 50% of the total value locked (TVL). What a "dead chain" (laughs).

Clearly, Ethereum's price performance this year has lagged behind almost all other cryptocurrencies. But I believe this situation is about to change.

This is the ETH/BTC chart from the past five years. Clearly, Ethereum's performance over the past two years has not been ideal! But anyone with even a slight understanding of charts, markets, and investments will tell you that this is a buying opportunity, not a selling time.

18-24 months ago was when you should have exchanged ETH for BTC or SOL.

I am not saying you must exchange BTC or SOL for ETH right now, but it is certain that the timing for exchanging now is much better than at any time in the past few years.

Yes, yes, I am going to bring up this old cliché again, but it is just too accurate and applicable. The best time to buy SOL was during the peak panic after the FTX collapse.

I must admit that I reacted a bit late to SOL's miraculous performance in this wave (at least relatively speaking, I entered when SOL reached about $40). And as a stubborn ETH bull, I may have held on longer than a competent trader should. But there are reasons why I have remained bullish on ETH, many of which are mentioned in this article.

Much of the dissatisfaction with ETH comes from the friction experienced when using the chain, such as high gas fees and slow transaction speeds. L2 has solved many of these issues, and they are rapidly catching up in their own weak areas. So we come to…

3. Reason Three: Usage Friction is Rapidly Disappearing

One important reason for Solana's recent success is its focus on consumer applications and end-user experience. They minimize usage friction as much as possible, and undeniably, the barrier to entry for ordinary people using the Solana blockchain is much lower compared to other major blockchains. Low transaction fees and fast transaction speeds are important, but mobile-friendly wallets like Phantom and applications like Moonshot have had a huge impact on user acquisition.

Coupled with the popularity of memecoins, especially the hype around the Pump Fun protocol, and the network effects brought about by these factors, it is no surprise that all this success has occurred.

But I believe Base is experiencing a similar trend or is very close to it. For example, just today, Phantom announced support for Base:

In the past few weeks, I have communicated with people in dozens of Discord/TG chat rooms, and I can't count how many times I have heard someone say, "Ah, I only have SOL in my wallet, and I don't know how to use Base."

I think this is just the beginning; we will see more and more protocols and applications starting to support Base, and there will also be more applications native to Base emerging.

Additionally, many people still have lingering memories of the high gas fees and poor user experience of MetaMask on Ethereum in 2021, but they have yet to experience the convenience of interacting with Base using Rabby, Rainbow, Phantom, or the Base-native Coinbase Wallet (which offers a 4.7% native yield on held USDC, quite nice).

4. Reason Four: Strong Team

When investing in traditional companies or projects, I always firmly believe in betting on excellent talent. Base has a very strong and extremely reliable team that is working their magic:

Brian Armstrong casually met with Trump to discuss cryptocurrency policy. By the way, Brian is truly an incredible figure; you can read this article from 2020 (yes, sorry, I'm asking you to read more again) and reflect on what the world was like back then, as well as the political stances of most large tech companies at that time, and compare that with the distinctly different approach taken by Brian leading Coinbase.

Then there's the face of Base, Jesse Pollak, who simultaneously leads both Base and the Coinbase wallet.

I have saved dozens of tweets as I searched for some to post here to showcase his personal qualities, especially how he has shaped Base into what it is today. Browsing through his Twitter timeline is an endless delight. I recommend you check it out for yourself, but for the lazy 99% of you (if I were in your position, I would be too), here are a few of my favorite tweets:

Jesse visiting builders and leaders during a 21-day global tour, spreading the good news:

On trying to break into Instagram and TikTok:

On understanding meme culture (video recommended):

And more. The above are just two of the outstanding individuals working hard to achieve Base's goals. Supporting this team feels quite reassuring.

5. Reason Five: Strong Data Performance

Data shows a significant increase in activity on Base, along with considerable capital inflow. For me, the most important indicators to predict whether a chain might achieve significant success are: 1) the number of builders/developers creating applications; 2) whether funds are flowing into the chain.

**Looking back over the past three months, the net capital inflow into *Base* is almost on par with Solana:**

In the past week, Base has outperformed all other platforms by a wide margin:

Trading volume is also steadily increasing, with a recent uptick in the past few days:

In recent days, many AI agents on Base have gained significant attention on Twitter:

Overall, it is clear that traffic and attention are moving towards Base. Whether this can be sustained or is just a temporary fluctuation remains to be seen. Many claim this is just temporary, and Solana will retain most of the attention in this round. I clearly disagree, but I am not arrogant enough to think I am definitely right and others are definitely wrong.

The data looks good, but it could be temporary.

6. Reason Six: Airdrop Speculation

I want to make it clear that this is purely speculation; I have no insider information and do not know if there will be a Base Token. They have explicitly stated that there will be no token, but similarly, Optimism and many other chains have made similar promises in the past.

However, with significant changes in the legal and regulatory environment, I do not completely rule out the possibility of an airdrop at some point in the future.

That said, I won't put too much energy into this; I personally consider it a nice bonus rather than something to keep at the forefront of my mind. I recommend using the chain normally and doing some experiments or trials, as this is often the best way to participate in airdrops when the protocol does indeed launch one.

Alright, those are my six reasons for being optimistic about Base and believing that Base Szn may be approaching. Now, let's delve into some areas worth paying attention to and where I am spending my time on Base:

7. Base Chain Ecosystem

1) Virtuals Protocol

You may have already heard of Virtuals, whether through my tweets/retweets or other discussions on the timeline. In simple terms, Virtuals is a platform that provides a launchpad for on-chain AI agents. In their own words:

Over the past few months, it has seen slow but steady adoption, with a rise starting a few weeks ago and a parabolic growth in the past few days.

I think I don't need to tell you that AI is currently a significant topic in the crypto space and may become a mainstream topic and industry for some time (or even forever) in the future. We have already seen AI meme coins like GOAT and ZEREBRO booming on Solana, with many other projects performing well.

Currently, the market value of top AI tokens and agents on Virtuals is still just a small fraction of the giants on Solana, but if you look at the capital flow and anticipate an ETH season + Base season, I believe focusing on the Virtuals ecosystem will be one of the best places to be.

The two tokens I am most bullish on (and hold the most of) are AIXBT and VADER, in addition to the native token VIRTUAL. I hold about 20 agent tokens on the platform, and there are many others that I believe will perform well, considering they already have significant market capitalizations and could outperform the aforementioned tokens.

You can find new Virtual AI agent tokens being released (and you can also launch your own tokens). I recommend reading their full whitepaper for a comprehensive understanding of the protocol.

Additionally, here is a good thread from last month about Virtuals that provides a high-level overview in an easy-to-understand manner: link.

2) Farcaster

Base and Farcaster are closely related. While Farcaster supports and uses multiple chains, Base is currently almost dominating the entire landscape. As shown in this chart, for most of this year, Base has accounted for 60% to 80% of all on-chain transactions by Farcaster users, and in recent days, that number has exceeded 95%.

Regarding Farcaster, there have been two integrations recently that have garnered a lot of attention: clanker and anoncast.

Clanker is an AI agent deployed on Farcaster that deploys tokens for users; anyone can mention it with @ to simply request it to create a token for them. It creates liquidity pools for the tokens using its own funds and generates some fees for the creators. People see it as Base's "pump fun," but I think that is not a completely equivalent comparison.

This website is a good place to track new clanker token releases.

Anoncast is a very cool technology that allows people to post content on Farcaster or even Twitter 100% anonymously using zk-proof technology (which I wrote about last year). You can post content through this website, and you need to hold anon tokens (as a utility for tagging).

As developers and experimenters try various new implementations, things are rapidly evolving, making it worth paying attention to and exploring the development of Farcaster.

I recommend watching this interview where ThreadGuy interviews one of the founders of Farcaster, Dan Romero.

3) "Old" Coins, Memes, Traditional Memes, etc.

Although most of the current attention is focused on the two areas mentioned above, especially with AI-related coins taking up a significant portion of the spotlight, I believe it is also worth paying attention to some older coins that have been around on Farcaster for a while and have loyal communities.

There are too many of these coins to list individually, but by checking the Base page on Dexscreener and sorting by market cap, you will find some solid old-school memecoins.

I suspect that if we really enter Base Season, there may come a moment when the focus shifts from AI /Farcaster content to cute animals and traditional memes (or perhaps they could occur in parallel).

While the Virtuals ecosystem has recently experienced explosive growth, many of these older coins have also seen declines during the same period. Reflecting on the old saying, "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful," it might be a good time to observe those areas that people are paying little attention to.

4) Other Points Worth Noting

I initially planned to write a whole section here, but I just saw a fantastic tweet that covers 10 cool applications to try, 10 ways to earn on-chain yields, 10 communities to join, and 10 articles worth reading. So, since that’s the case, I won’t ramble on and will just let you check out the tweet directly.

https://x.com/davidtsocy/status/1861507879792189769?s=46&t=sQ0QVUQyoiZQeVyh-DXZpg

There are countless other cool things being built on Base that I obviously cannot cover. The topics mentioned above are just what I have personally focused on in the past few weeks, but I encourage you to explore for yourself and find the areas that interest you.

Alright, that’s the main areas I’m focusing on. Lastly, let me say a few words about logistics.

Interaction Process on Base I have received many questions about how to get started on Base, so here’s a quick start guide/some tips:

If you have funds in your Ethereum wallet, you can bridge funds to Base using websites like Relay or Bungee. These platforms are very user-friendly and have low fees, with bridging typically taking about a minute.

• If you have SOL funds in your wallet, you can also use Relay to bridge, or directly select the bridging option in the Phantom wallet.

• If you want to trade on Base, you can do it manually like I do 90% of the time without using trading bots, but there are also some trading bots that support Base, and I guess there will be more soon. The two most popular trading bots are BullX and Photon (disclaimer: these are referral links).

• The main decentralized trading platforms for buying and selling tokens on Base are Aerodrome and Uniswap. Personally, I prefer using the decentralized trading platform aggregator LlamaSwap, which helps you find the cheapest trading paths and get the best rates.

• Trading Virtuals Tokens is a bit different because all AI agents can only trade using the native VIRTUAL Token. The easiest way to trade is through their website, but you can also use LlamaSwap to swap Virtuals Tokens as long as you select KyberSwap as the decentralized trading platform.

• If you are looking for a wallet suitable for all Base/EVM Tokens, I personally use and recommend Rabby, and I’ve also heard that Rainbow Wallet is quite good. Of course, Coinbase also has its own wallet, but to be honest, I think it lacks features compared to the other two wallets (or maybe I just am not familiar with it).

8. Summary: Final Thoughts on SOL and Base, and General Views on Blockchain Competition

I have always felt that the fierce competition between blockchains is somewhat unnecessary. I personally view "competing chains" as friendly rivals, much like the United States and Canada, or Australia and New Zealand. We tease each other, joke about Solana having occasional issues, Ethereum's exorbitant transaction fees, and Cardano, well, just being itself.

But ultimately, if you are here to make money (I guess 99% of people are), then you should keep an open mind, experiment, and go with the flow.

If you are more concerned about the future of finance, about decentralization and censorship resistance rather than making money, then boldly stick to your views. In this field, you will encounter a variety of extreme opinions: Bitcoin maximalists believe everything besides Bitcoin is harmful to the industry; Ethereum maximalists think Solana is a plague on the industry; and Solana maximalists believe Ethereum and Base are the industry's scourge.

There are even some of Bitcoin's biggest supporters who hate ETFs and MicroStrategy, while others are very fond of them.

I mention this to express — no matter which side you stand on, you will encounter a group of people who think you are foolish and that your views are silly. To be honest, that’s just life; you can let it affect you, or like me, accept it calmly, go with the flow, follow the money, follow the developers, follow the attention, and most importantly: follow your own curiosity.

I suggest you try doing the same. The most valuable information (Alpha) does not come from following my curiosity, my posts, or anyone else's footsteps, but from pursuing your own curiosity, exploring deeply, and thinking independently.

Article link: https://www.hellobtc.com/kp/du/11/5558.html

Source: https://zeneca33.substack.com/p/base-season-my-thesis?utmsource=%2Finbox&utmmedium=reader2

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