Base, the layer-2 network incubated by Coinbase, exploded in popularity this year.
Two traders captured more than $1.3 million in profits by exploiting Base’s new “flashblocks” system during the debut of the network founder’s creator coin.
The move marks the first time Coinbase signaled support for Binance’s flagship BNB token, coming amid scrutiny over exchange listing practices.
Jesse Pollak, Coinbase's head of Base, said that local currency-pegged stablecoins can provide meaningful local utility.
Social Network Zora has seen its native token, ZORA, record a massive rally following a spike in user activity and recent key integrations, leading some investors to suggest that momentum will continue. Related Reading: Ethereum Bullish Fundamentals Clash With Short-Term Leverage Risks ZORA Hits New Highs On Monday, the native token of the decentralized social network Zora jumped nearly 50% to hit a new all-time high (ATH) of $0.145. The platform allows users to make social media posts into tradable tokens by automatically minting them, with over 2.06 million tokens created since its launch, according to Dune data. In April, the team launched its native ZORA token, airdropping 10% of the supply to early users. The launch received a negative response due to concerns of an unfair allocation and potential centralization. As the price nosedived within hours, some users considered the airdrop was “the biggest disaster with Scroll and Zksync” and the “biggest SCAM in 2025 so far.” Despite the initial backlash, the token has seen a remarkable performance since July, surging 1,573% in the monthly timeframe to hit a market capitalization of $438.9 million. Notably, its ongoing rally has been driven by numerous factors, including crucial integrations and large holders increasing their balances. Since mid-July, users can mint their tokens using the Zora platform without leaving the Base App, making it more accessible and convenient for investors. Following the integration, Base overtook Solana in terms of tokens launched. Moreover, Binance announced the launch of the ZORA/USDT perpetual futures trading pair with up to 50x leverage on July 25, a week after the Base App integration. The news fueled the token’s rally to its previous high of $0.09 on July 27. New Leading Launchpad? As noted by Base’s lead developer, Jesse Pollak, Zora led in tokens created by launchpads on Base and Solana last month, accounting for more token launches than leading Solana platforms Pump.fun and LetsBonk. The massive momentum was momentarily halted by the start-of-August pullback, which saw ZORA drop 50% from the July highs. Nonetheless, the token and the platform have seen a significant recovery over the past week, with its price rallying 128% and token creation activity surging nearly 27% since August 4. On August 10, the platform saw the largest token issuance since July 31, according to Dune data, with 47,743 tokens from 21,052 unique creators, seemingly driving ZORA’s Monday price breakout. ‘Onchain Culture’ Gets Momentum A week before ZORA’s launch, Coinbase’s Layer-2 (L2) Network, Base, faced backlash over rug-pull allegations after it promoted an unofficial memecoin that crashed by over 90%. As reported by NewsBTC, Base’s official X account posted an image with the text “Base is for everyone” and a link to Zora with the caption “Coined it,” sparking a speculative frenzy among the crypto community. Base explained that they had posted on Zora because they believe everyone should bring content on-chain and use the tools that make it possible. “Memes. Moments. Culture. If we want the future to be onchain, we have to be willing to experiment in public. (…) We’re going to keep bringing culture onchain,” the Base team argued. Related Reading: Ethereum Surpasses MasterCard In Asset Rankings, Bullish Targets Set Following Zora’s recent rally, market watcher Ansem highlighted that “Zora is currently the newest thing with the most momentum,” suggesting that “innovation will happen on base/abstract/megaeth/lighter & others,” instead of on the Ethereum mainnet. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko is facing backlash from the crypto community over his comments about meme coins and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Yakovenko made these remarks against these tokens despite his network being home to most of the top meme coins by market capitalization. Crypto Community Reacts To Solana Founder’s Comments The crypto community criticized Anatoly Yakovenko following his X post, in which he described meme coins and NFTs as “digital slop” and ones that have no intrinsic value. The Solana founder added that, like a mobile game loot box, people spend $150 billion a year on mobile gaming, in reference to his ideology about meme coins and NFTs. Related Reading: These Two Bearish Scenarios Put Solana Price At $162 After Fakeout Crypto marketer Anastasiia Bobeshko described the Solana founder’s comments as being funny, considering the traction that memes have brought into the Solana ecosystem. She further noted that the network made $1.6 billion in the first half of 2025 thanks to these meme coins. Another member of the crypto community, Ethereum developer Hanniabu, had earlier echoed a similar sentiment, suggesting that the network would be nothing without meme coins. Null, a member of the BONK community, declared that the Solana network would have never been where it is today without meme coins. Yakavenko replied sarcastically, saying, “Absolutely. Without lootboxes, iOS would have negligible revenues for Apple.” Meanwhile, Crypto community member Art Chick asked the Solana founder if he had a problem with memecoin traders spending $150 billion a year on his chain, but they don’t see it as mobile gaming. Yakovenko responded and alluded to an earlier reply in which he explained that what is important is the need to monitor data, fix problems, use snipers, and work towards sandwich-resistant market implementations. Difference Between Solana and Base Meme Coins It is worth noting that the Solana founder’s comment about meme coins stemmed from when he criticized a comment from Base’s lead developer Jesse Pollak, who suggested that Zora meme coins (which are Base tokens) are more valuable than those from Solana’s Pump.fun. In response, Yakovenko asked Pollak if Zora coins have any claims on future cash flows from creators, something which Pump.fun has. Related Reading: Top Meme Coins Stealing The Spotlight As Bitcoin Price Hits $118,000 ATH Pollak then clarified that each coin’s value depends on their fundamentals, which is why he believes that not all meme coins are the same. However, the Solana founder doesn’t believe meme coins as a whole have any “intrinsic value.” Despite his comment, these meme coins, especially the top ones like Fartcoin, BONK, PENGU, and TRUMP, continue to contribute to a significant amount of the daily trading volume on the network. Notably, the Solana price surged to a new all-time high (ATH) of $294 in January, around the time the TRUMP meme coin first launched. SOL witnessed a significant surge in its demand at the time, with investors requiring the altcoin to purchase the meme coin. At the time of writing, the Solana price is trading at around $183, down over 5% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap. Featured image from Adobe Stock, chart from Tradingview.com
Coinbase's 'A New Day One' event is set to highlight where Base is going in the era of memecoins – and it all starts with a wallet rebrand.
Coinbase’s Layer-2 (L2) Network, Base, has faced intense backlash over rug-pull allegations after it promoted an unofficial memecoin that crashed by over 90%, sparking a debate about the future of memecoins and on-chain content. Related Reading: Aptos (APT) To Continue Moving In ‘No Man’s Land’ – Can It Reclaim $5? The Rise And Fall Of Base’s Unofficial Memecoin On Wednesday, Base’s official X account posted an image with the text “Base is for everyone.” Moments later, they shared a link to the on-chain social protocol Zora and the caption “Coined it,” sparking a speculative frenzy among investors. The protocol allows users to make social media posts into tradable tokens, automatically minting them. After Base’s post was turned into a token, the crypto community quickly skyrocketed its market capitalization to $17 million. However, online reports showed that the memecoin collapsed by around 92% after the top holders, who owned 47% of the supply, sold the memecoin just over an hour after launching. Some community members noted that the token was “HORRIFICALLY sniped,” while on-chain data analytics platform Lookonchain highlighted that “3 wallets bought a large amount of ‘Base is for everyone’ before Base posted and sold them, making a profit of ~$666K.” As a result, the community criticized the network’s team for the memecoin, calling the incident a rug pull and asking them to “stop launching worthless tokens that will all inevitably go to 0. You are diluting your brand and the value of real base assets.” Zora data shows Base has earned around $81,000 from the memecoin, which has recovered from the initial sell-off with a peak market capitalization of $26 million before retracing to the $9 million-$10 million range. Base’s Public Experiment Base responded to the backlash, clarifying they will never sell their holdings, but they weren’t an official network token either. The team explained that they posted on Zora because they believe everyone should bring content on-chain and use the tools that make it possible. Memes. Moments. Culture. If we want the future to be onchain, we have to be willing to experiment in public. That’s what we’re doing. To be clear, Base will never sell these tokens, and these are not official network tokens for Base, Coinbase, or any other related product. The content we share is creative, and we’re going to keep bringing culture onchain. The public on-chain experimentation opened a debate about memecoin culture and on-chain content, with Base’s creator, Jesse Pollak, weighing in. In a series of X posts, Pollak explained that “not all coins are the same,” outlining the differences between these two types of tokens. Is On-Chain Content The Future For Creators? According to his posts, a contentcoin is one piece of content with singular value and no expectations. Additionally, multiple of them can be created by the same person, with “big ones” potentially turning into memes. On the contrary, a memecoin is an “aggregation of content,” with aggregated value and high expectations, where the creator “should” only create one. He also noted that big ones turn into projects. Related Reading: Is The Storm Over For Ethereum? Analyst Says ‘Face-Melting’ Rally Comes Next Pollack considers that “someone has to normalize putting all of our content onchain. and i’m not afraid for it to be us. why? because in the wake of the chaos, we’ll normalize the behavior and create a better future for creators.” Nonetheless, many users remain skeptical, with community members also criticizing Base’s post announcing investors can mint a deleted scene of the “Vitalik: An Ethereum Story” documentary, where the project’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, shows what’s in his backpack. “Through ‘the financialization of everything’ we come to learn that most things are worthless,” the user stated. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
Jesse Pollak, the creator of the Ethereum layer-2 network Base, expects the Coinbase Wallet feature to be available for users in 50 countries by the end of 2025.
Two industry observers believe Pollak’s involvement in Coinbase Wallet and Base may finally offer a solution to crypto’s long-standing UX issues that have hamstrung adoption.
Memes on Base have helped to onboard thousands of people to the layer-2 network and will be key for the next million, says Base creator Jesse Pollak.