Base Founder Jesse Rarely Admits Strategic Mistake, Social Dream Shattered

Author: Yu Gu, ChainCatcher

On July 15, Base founder Jesse Pollak published a lengthy post announcing that he would hand over the leadership of the Base App to Coinbase, while dedicating his full attention to the Base blockchain itself, with the goal of establishing Base as the "global financial blockchain." Jesse will continue to lead the Base chain but will no longer be responsible for the Base App; the Base App will be taken over by Jordan Fish, known in the crypto community as Cobie.

What is most noteworthy about this adjustment is not Jesse's departure from the Base App, but his rare admission of Base's strategic miscalculation over the past two years in pursuing a social direction.

In the past, Base attempted to position itself as the consumer entry point to the crypto world. From Farcaster to Zora, from creator coins to miniapps, and then the Base App, Base hoped to bring more ordinary users on-chain using "on-chain social + creator economy."

But now, Pollak personally admitted: Base bet correctly on builders, but bet incorrectly on social. This statement can almost be seen as a phase verdict on Base's social experiment.

On-chain social did not become the center of the next wave of adoption; what truly emerged were prediction markets, perpetual contracts, stablecoins, and tokenized assets. Users are not unwilling to go on-chain, but they are unwilling to go on-chain specifically for social interaction itself.

They are more willing to go on-chain for trading, payments, yield, and speculation.

I. What Did Jesse Say?

In the long post, Jesse detailed the reflections and adjustments over the past six months. He admitted frankly: "Q1 2026 was a punch in the gut." Over the past two years, Base made a two-track bet: first, believing builders would unlock the next wave of crypto adoption; second, believing adoption would be driven by "new native on-chain social experiences" (creators, content, messaging).

The result: "Our bet on builders was right, but our bet on social was clearly wrong." Builders indeed drove the adoption wave—prediction markets, perpetual contracts, stablecoins became the strongest growth engines—but social was not at the center. Instead, "The entire social side of the market we've been trying to build—Farcaster, Zora, miniapps, and yes, creator tokens—completely collapsed."

He stated bluntly: "I was wrong. Whether the timing was wrong... or I was just completely wrong, only time will tell, but either way, I was wrong." The collateral damage was significant: Base fell behind in key areas—perpetuals (despite Avantis, etc.), prediction markets (despite Limitless, etc.) lagged behind established competitors; there was also significant room for improvement in unlocking enterprise-grade tokenization and payments. People lost confidence, and CT reminded him of his mistakes every week.

Jesse said this past year has been an exercise in "eating shit." But the lesson he learned was: when things feel worst, the best approach is to put your head down and build. He has shifted his focus from the App back to the chain, started coding again, launched Azul, Beryl, B20, privacy, ledger functions, and re-examined assumptions: Does crypto need social to grow? Does Base need an App? Can Base become bigger than Coinbase?

The conclusion shifted towards clarity: "Better money is enough—we are seeing this in real-time through stablecoins, prediction, perpetuals, tokenization... I am now focused on bringing a billion people on-chain by making global finance actually work." The three main pillars for 2026 specifically:winning on trading (all assets, including tokenized stocks, memes, App tokens, etc.), payments (global stablecoins that work for individuals and businesses), and agency (AI agents accelerating everything, because crypto is computer-native money, AI will create trillions of new economic participants).

He has returned the Base App to Coinbase, to be led by Cobie, and allowed it to expand beyond the Base ecosystem (something he, as Base's leader, "won't love"). He emphasized that builders remain the cornerstone, and Base will continue to support them through Base Layer, Batches, ecosystem funds, etc.

II. Why Did Base's Social Dream Shatter?

Base's bet on social was not without logic.

Jesse is the soul of Base and the most important shaper of Base's community culture. The early explosion of friend.tech on Base once led the market to believe that Jesse and Base might become the main arena for on-chain social and creator economy. friend.tech proved one thing: when social relationships are financialized, on-chain products can capture massive attention in an extremely short time.

This also reinforced Base's preference for social. The rapid decline of friend.tech did not affect Base's judgment.

Farcaster, Zora, creator coins, miniapps, Base App—these layouts were actually based on a complete vision: if Coinbase provides the compliant entry, Base provides the low-cost on-chain environment, Farcaster provides the social graph, and Zora provides content and creator assetization tools, then Base had a chance to build a consumer-level on-chain ecosystem different from traditional DeFi.

But this logic ultimately did not succeed. The problem is that on-chain social easily turns into on-chain speculation.

The explosion of friend.tech was not essentially because users found a better social experience, but because users discovered that social relationships could be traded. The same goes for creator tokens—they turn content, influence, and community relationships into assets, but in many cases, asset trading is far more important than content consumption.

Once speculative fervor fades, social relationships do not naturally remain.

Farcaster faced the cold-start problem of social networks, Zora faced the tension between content consumption and asset issuance, and creator coins easily turned into short-cycle attention trades. Base invested significant resources, hoping these products would bring mainstream users, but what ultimately remained were more crypto-native users, airdrop hunters, short-term traders, and creator token players.

This is also why Jesse said the entire social side of the market "completely collapsed." It wasn't without hype, but it didn't form sustainable adoption.

In contrast, the demand for stablecoins, prediction markets, perpetual contracts, and tokenized assets is more direct. Users go on-chain not to "own social relationships," but for faster trading, lower-cost payments, higher yields, stronger speculative opportunities, or access to markets unavailable in traditional finance.

This is a brutal but necessary correction for Base. Social can be part of on-chain applications, but it is difficult to become the center of Base's next growth phase.

III. The Positive Pressure from Robinhood Chain

If it were just the failure of the social experiment, Base would have enough time to adjust slowly.

But the sudden rise of Robinhood Chain rapidly amplified Base's sense of crisis.

In early July, after its launch, Robinhood Chain quickly accumulated trading activity. According to Token Terminal data, 11 days after its mainnet launch, Robinhood Chain processed 7.6 million transactions in a single day, while Base processed 9.2 million in the same period. The gap between the two is much smaller than previously expected by the market.

More importantly, Robinhood Chain's growth is not purely on-chain spin. It is tied to Robinhood's tokenized stock platform, launched tokenized stock products in over 120 countries, and has Robinhood's approximately 23 million brokerage business users as a potential entry point. Data also shows that Robinhood Chain has already achieved a daily trading volume exceeding $500 million on Uniswap deployments, second only to Ethereum mainnet, and once surpassed Base to become the second-largest spot activity deployment on Uniswap.

Of course, Robinhood Chain's early data has obvious subsidization factors. Robinhood covered Gas fees for users for the first 90 days after the mainnet launch, a subsidy expected to last until the end of September 2026. That is to say, whether the current high transaction volume can continue after the subsidy ends remains to be seen.

But for Base, the real danger is not whether Robinhood Chain is currently "inflated," but that it represents a new competitive model.

Base's past advantages were Coinbase exchange traffic, U.S. compliance brand, and developer ecosystem; Robinhood Chain, however, possesses another more direct entry point: stocks, ETFs, options, retail accounts, and tokenized U.S. stocks. It is not competing for traffic among crypto-native users but directly bringing traditional brokerage users into the on-chain financial world.

If Base's past ideal was to "make on-chain social a consumer entry point," Robinhood Chain's answer is simpler and more direct: users are already trading, so bring the traded assets on-chain.

This is a frontal pressure on Base.

IV. Base's New Starting Point

This shift by Jesse is essentially repositioning Base.

In the past, Base's narrative leaned more towards on-chain consumer. It hoped to bring ordinary users on-chain using low cost, strong distribution, and social products. But now, Base's narrative is shifting to on-chain finance: trading, payments, stablecoins, AI agents, settlement layer.

This aligns more with the overall industry trend. Over the past year, the on-chain demand that truly emerged has almost always been related to finance: stablecoin payments, tokenized stocks, prediction markets, perpetual contracts, RWA, on-chain lending, AI agent payments. Social can bring narratives, but finance brings transactions, revenue, fees, and retention.

Base's advantages are still evident. Backed by Coinbase, it possesses a strong compliance brand, exchange entry point, developer community, stablecoin use cases, and corporate client resources. Meanwhile, Base is not a blank slate in the AI track. Venice and Virtuals are the two most representative cards in the Base ecosystem—the former represents the direction of AI applications with privacy and open models, while the latter represents the direction of AI agent assetization and agent economy.

If what Jesse said about "AI will create trillions of new economic participants" holds true, then Base's opportunity is not only to accommodate human traders but also to accommodate the wallet, payment, settlement, and trading activities of AI agents.

This is also the most imaginative part of Base's new narrative: stablecoins solve the payment medium for machines and people; prediction markets and perpetual contracts provide trading scenarios; tokenized assets provide tradable targets; AI agents may become new on-chain users. If Base can connect these modules, it will no longer be just Coinbase's Layer 2 but may become the main settlement layer within the Coinbase system for next-generation financial activities.

Base's biggest advantage has never been solely about Coinbase's entry point, but the users, compliance, stablecoins, institutional relationships, and financial infrastructure capabilities behind it. The social experiment may have failed, but if Base can re-establish its advantage in trading, payments, stablecoins, AI agents, and tokenized assets, it remains one of the most strategically valuable networks among Ethereum Layer 2s.

The real problem is that the market won't give Base much more time to tell stories. Robinhood Chain is rapidly approaching with tokenized stocks and subsidized trading, Stripe is reconstructing merchant-side entry points with stablecoin payments, and Solana and Hyperliquid continue to apply pressure on trading experience and market microstructure.

The rise of Robinhood Chain once again proves: in the Layer 2 competition, no one's position is unshakeable. Base, once the "top player" with Coinbase's backing, now faces a frontal challenge from a competitor with equally strong platform support.