Written by:@Jun__Yoo
Compiled by:AididiaoJP,Foresight News
On July 15, Base founder Jesse Pollak published a lengthy post that sparked widespread discussion in the industry. Against the backdrop of Robinhood Chain's rapid rise through meme coin campaigns and the pressure on Base regarding 'what the next story to tell should be,' Jesse admitted the failure of previous strategies and announced a renewed focus on the chain itself.
This post not only triggered debate about the future of the Base App but also led to varied interpretations of topics like $JESSE. The three most noteworthy points are: his courage in publicly admitting mistakes, Base's strategy for the next phase, and the core 'Agents' of that strategy.
Admitting Mistakes is the Starting Point for Change
The most impressive aspect of the post was Jesse's opening line: "I was wrong, and I am sorry," before he elaborated on the new strategy.
The crypto market often rewards strong convictions and aggressive stances. In such an environment, publicly admitting a misjudgment is not easy, especially when leading a vast ecosystem involving numerous builders, investors, and users.
His previously vigorous push for an on-chain native social strategy wasn't entirely unfounded at the time. Social media influence continued to grow, and crypto products like Fomo and Polymarket also achieved growth through social distribution and viral marketing. In this context, the assumption that "on-chain native social experiences could expand crypto adoption" had its merits.
The reasons for failure can be analyzed in depth from multiple dimensions such as product, distribution, timing, and user demand, but the key is that he didn't conceal the failure. He admitted that the heavily promoted on-chain social and creator coin strategy for 2024-2025 did not deliver the expected adoption.
This does not mean the concept of on-chain social is completely dead. It might re-emerge through different product forms and distribution methods and be subject to re-evaluation. (From this perspective, I'm also looking forward to Cobie's next counter-move after taking over the Base App.)
Jesse stated that leadership of the Base App would return to Coinbase, and he himself would focus on the chain's infrastructure. He not only admitted a misjudgment but also reallocated roles and clarified the next priorities. As the leader of a major protocol, making such a public statement at the risk of reputational damage is noteworthy.
He concluded by writing: "My experience building in this space for the past decade has taught me that when things look the worst, the best thing to do is put your head down and keep building."
Base is Already on the Frontlines of the Next Battle
Jesse clearly positioned Base's focus on three areas: Trading, Payments, and Agents. This article focuses on Agents, particularly agent payments and commerce.
In his words, Trading covers all assets from tokenized stocks to meme coins and app coins; Payments refer to stablecoins usable globally by individuals and businesses; and Agents are the cross-layer spanning both trading and payments, accelerating the development of both. He did not position Agents as a third, independent track alongside the other two but believes crypto is computer-native money, and AI will create trillions of new economic participants.
At least in on-chain agent payments and agent-native ecosystems, Base is currently among the leading networks.
The Coinbase Developer Platform team released the x402 protocol in May 2025. Coinbase then collaborated with Cloudflare to lay the groundwork. On July 14, 2026, protocol contributions were finalized, and the x402 Foundation officially operates under the Linux Foundation with 40 members. It is no longer tied to any specific company or chain. Nevertheless, a significant portion of early deployments and payment activities took shape on Base, and many x402 implementations were built there, which is hard to deny.
Projects like Virtuals Protocol and Bankr, which grew on Base first before expanding multichain, should be viewed in the same context.
This suggests Base has an early lead in agent ecosystem and builder density. The convergence of agents, builders, and future capital driving transactions in one place is an important leading indicator.
Jesse's push for a builder-led growth strategy is also worth noting. Through Base Batches, Base provides grants and investment opportunities for early-stage teams. In 2026, it also connected the bot track operated by Virtuals with Network School's demo day.
Hackathons and grant programs don't always produce sustainable products. Developer support measures input, not direct output.
But in the early stages of platform competition, where builders congregate and which chain they use as the default deployment venue still matters. Lowering the cost of experimentation before the market solidifies increases the probability that the next meta killer app will emerge from that ecosystem. Base's efforts are meaningful at this level.
Overall, Base has captured a relatively high early market share in on-chain agent payments and continues to attract developers and agent projects. Jesse's decision to allocate more resources to this direction clearly states continued support for builders through Base Layer, Base Batches, the Base Ecosystem Fund, and distribution channels from Coinbase and the Base App.
The direction is clear: Base is refocusing resources on trading, payments, and agents. It's a signal—Base will concentrate its strength on what it does best.
However, announcing a direction and actually building a moat are two entirely different things. To translate the current early lead into long-term value capture, I believe Base needs to answer at least the following three questions from an agent ecosystem perspective.
Three Questions for Jesse
Q1. Which stage of agent commerce is Base targeting?
The first question is how Base defines agent commerce. Base's approach and method of ecosystem support will fundamentally differ depending on whether the goal is simple assistance and delegation or fully autonomous transactions.
Consider two scenarios: If the short-term goal is delegated commerce (T2), partnering or integrating with mainstream commerce platforms like Shopify or existing commerce standards like Google UCP would have a greater impact. If the goal is fully autonomous, agent-native commerce (T3), then the focus should be on supporting headless merchant endpoints and agent-native builders. I also believe x402 is one of the core infrastructures in this direction.
The two paths are distinctly different. Since existing commerce will remain predominantly T2 for quite some time, the first path could yield visible results more quickly, including transaction volume and partnerships. If the market's center of gravity starts shifting toward fully autonomous transactions, Base would eventually need to recalibrate. Focusing on T3 from the start might struggle to produce financially significant results in the short term. Transaction counts might rise rapidly, but early activity would likely consist of micro-payments. Nonetheless, in the long run, this path most directly points toward the agent economic endpoint I foresee. Base's current focus is also closer to this path.
Q2. Can Base capture meaningful value in agent commerce?
Simply put, Base needs to more clearly articulate why agent commerce should use Base or crypto. Low-cost micro-payments and fees are attractive but insufficient to form a strong enough moat. Credit card networks and existing payment providers are also responding to the same issues with delegated tokens and payment interfaces designed for agents. Stripe and Tempo's MPP (combining credit cards and stablecoins in a single protocol) is part of this trend. Frankly, credit card networks with powerful 'money printers' are unlikely to cede the agent payments market to crypto without a fight.
Crypto's moat must come from permissionless participation and its trust model. Cost alone isn't enough. Agents and endpoints should be able to transact without separate accounts or merchant agreements. Software should be able to hold assets directly, and transaction terms should be enforceable by code. These advantages are most pronounced in the aforementioned T3 (fully autonomous, agent-native commerce) model. I wonder if Jesse also views this area as crypto's ultimate moat.
Bitcoin micro-payments were attempted a decade ago. They failed to solve issues like high payment costs, volatility, and wallet onboarding difficulties. More importantly, the source of demand for repeated micro-payments—today's agents—was not clearly present then.
Today, three conditions exist simultaneously: Base offers low fees and high network performance, stablecoins are available, and AI agents need to purchase external resources.
I believe this gives us reason to re-examine questions that couldn't be answered in the past.
Q3. What is Base's strategy in this area? How will it support the agent ecosystem?
Supporting builders through Base Batches and Network School might be part of the answer to this question. I want to ask more specifically: Will Base concentrate support on a small set of core projects and infrastructure, or support a broader agent ecosystem? Will it prioritize supporting delegated agents connected to existing commerce, or make headless merchants and fully autonomous agents its primary targets?
If Base targets the latter, grants and hackathons alone are not enough. It will also need tools for easily deployable payment endpoints, a distribution layer for agent discovery services, programmable wallets, identity and reputation systems, and stablecoin liquidity. I'd like to hear Jesse's thoughts on which areas Base should build itself and which should be left to ecosystem builders.
I reiterate my respect for Jesse's decision to publicly admit his mistake and apologize. After reading his post, I've also been contemplating the position Base seeks in the agent economy.
