Original Title: Base Stole 3 Years of My Life
Original Author: @weretuna
Original Translation: Peggy, BlockBeats
Editor's Note: Base once attracted countless developers with "Build on Base. We will support you.", but there is often a layer of silence between promises and reality.
The author of this article, @weretuna, is the co-founder of @pndmdotorg, a studio focused on creating viral Ponzi-style chain games on Solana. This article, using the team's three-year experience as a thread, tells the story of their journey from investment and waiting to disappointment, and then the turning point after migrating to Solana and quickly gaining traction: what determines the success or failure of an ecosystem is never slogans, but who is willing to provide real resources and attention to applications. For all builders still "waiting for support," this is a stark reminder.
Below is the original text:
"Build on Base. We will support you."
That was their promise back then. We believed it for three whole years. During these three years, we launched over 10 products: games, AI agents, prediction markets, zkTLS-related products. We almost devoted our entire lives to developing on Base.
What did we get in return?
Nothing. Not a single retweet. Not a single reply. Not even a group chat.
Last year, we created @infecteddotfun—the most breakout, wildly popular game on Base. We grew a brand-new account to 50,000 followers in one month. It went viral across various platforms, and everyone couldn't stop discussing it.
But Base didn't even retweet our launch post.
At that moment, I finally understood completely: something was wrong.
And it was seriously wrong.
Why We Believed
When I first discovered Base, it was almost a "no-brainer" choice. Back then, the fragmentation of L2 was a complete mess. Building a product was hard enough; choosing which chain to build on was even harder.
Then Base launched—backed by Coinbase, with built-in "friend tech." Jesse and the team pushed the "app-first" narrative very hard. For the first time in a long while, I felt like someone finally cared about applications, not just infrastructure.
It seemed like a truly "builder-first" chain. They said they cared about developers. They said they would help with marketing. They said they were different.
Looking back, it was just better marketing. We fell for it.
The Slow Realization
As time passed, my faith in Base began to waver.
The first real crack appeared when they started strongly promoting Farcaster and Zora—not necessarily because these products were the best, but because they had invested in these companies. That's when I understood how the game really works.
The crypto industry loves to pretend that blockchains are "permissionless and open": anyone can come, and the best products will win. Because truly product-market fit (PMF) applications are few and far between, I always thought this space encouraged experimentation and diversity.
But the reality is: either you build what they like, or you belong to that circle. Everyone else is just "background" used to bring attention and liquidity to the chain.
Yet on X, they still say: "Build on Base, and we'll help you go viral."
And we believed it. We spent 3 years developing. We launched over 10 applications. We staked our lives on it.
But they never replied to us on X. No reply on Discord. No reply on Telegram. We couldn't even get a group chat.
Support? Zero.
I think the reason is simple: we weren't building what they liked.
Doing It Ourselves
So we decided to stop waiting. Fine, we'll go viral on our own.
We spent months brainstorming and finally created @infecteddotfun—a game about "spreading a virus on the blockchain."
It exploded.
A brand-new account, reaching 50,000 followers in one month. Became one of the most breakout games on Base.
Only then did the Base team finally start replying to us. They said: "We will support your launch." They said: "Leave it to us." They said: "Just wait a bit longer."
So we waited.
The launch day arrived. Guess what? Still, nothing.
No tweet. No retweet. No support whatsoever.
Imagine: you spend 5 months building a product, finally get it to a point where they promise "support," and at the critical moment, that support just vanishes.
When I asked for reasons, the answers were vague, politically charged, and completely illogical.
Watch What They Do, Not What They Say
The worst part isn't actually what happened to us.
The worst part is, this happens to everyone. But no one dares to speak up. Because once you're on Base, you become a "hostage." You don't want to ruin the relationship, in case you might need them someday. So you stay silent.
And Base continues to pretend they support developers.
If you only want to support a select few chosen projects, that's fine. Just say so. Don't pick "favorites" while cosplaying as a chain that "supports all builders." What they say and what they do are completely different.
So we left.
After Leaving, Everything Changed
We migrated to Solana.
Six months later, we created @addicteddotfun, the biggest crypto game of 2025. $4 million in revenue in 48 hours.
We didn't suddenly become smarter. We just left a chain that treats developers like NPCs. Our next game, @jaileddotfun, is also about to launch on Solana. All future games will be built on Solana.
We will never build another product on Base or Ethereum again.
Conclusion
I used to think the competition between Ethereum and Solana was a good thing. Developers should build wherever they want. But after wasting 3 years of my life, I think it's actually a net negative for the industry.
Too many excellent builders are still trapped in ecosystems like Base. I'm not surprised at all: many would suddenly get 10x, even 100x growth, just like us, if they moved to Solana.
Developers should go where the users are. And right now, users and liquidity are on Solana. This isn't a "chain maximalist" stance; it's results-oriented—based on our own data and the experiences of our friends.
I've already wasted enough time on Base.
So you don't have to waste yours.
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