How Socialfi, Memecoins and AI Pushed Base to the Top of the L2 Ladder

Base will transition to a unified, internally maintained stack, anticipated to be its greatest architectural shift since launch.

After debuting in 2023 as a rollup constructed on Optimism’s OP Stack, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer 2 is now consolidating its software into an in-house distribution, which may unlock sooner upgrades and better autonomy over its technical roadmap.

It has been three years since Base launched its testnet. The community has skilled SocialFi explosions and ridden its personal memecoin wave. It even went by way of a part that each fascinated and unnerved Crypto Twitter as AI brokers started transacting on its chain.

Right here’s the way it received right here.

Buddy.tech headlines Base’s “Onchain Summer season” fest

Base’s mainnet opened to builders in July 2023, and customers adopted in August. The interval after Coinbase lower the ribbon was promoted as “Onchain Summer season.” In the first week, Base attracted 700,000 new users, who introduced with them about $242 million in inflows.

Buddy.tech was the headline act of Coinbase’s summer season pageant. It was a social app that allowed customers to purchase and promote entry to their connections. The loudest voices on Crypto Twitter examined the trade’s latest toy, which additionally attracted the rich and famous outside the community. In lower than two weeks after launching, it generated over $1 million in day by day charges, surpassing Bitcoin at the time.

It didn’t final lengthy.

By the finish of August, charges and transaction volumes had tanked, and the platform was declared “dead.”

Somewhat over a 12 months later, the group relinquished management of the undertaking by ditching the admin rights of its smart contracts.

Base rides its personal memecoin wave

The memecoin frenzy grew to become one of the defining crypto tales in recent times, drawing in political figures and public personalities. Finally, it prompted the US Securities and Alternate Fee to state that such tokens fall exterior the scope of securities legal guidelines.

Solana is the go-to blockchain for memecoins. Its knowledge reveals the memecoin increase gaining momentum in late 2023, when its day by day energetic addresses started climbing towards Ethereum’s ranges. In March 2024, Solana decisively surpassed Ethereum on that metric when Base customers began exhibiting some post-Buddy.tech indicators of life.

From March 19 to 25, Cointelegraph Journal discovered greater than 380,000 ERC-20 tokens deployed on Base. That exercise introduced contemporary liquidity into Base’s DeFi ecosystem, and by June 2024, the layer 2 had flipped Ethereum in energetic addresses. It held on to that lead till December 2025.

AI brokers start transacting on Base

In the latter half of 2024, AI brokers claimed the driver’s seat in crypto. As with memecoins, early experiments took off on Solana, equivalent to Goatseus Maximus, ai16z and Reality Terminal.

Builders launched agent-linked tokens, autonomous buying and selling bots and social accounts that introduced themselves as autonomous onchain actors.

Associated: Can Solana shed its memecoin image in 2026?

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong argued that crypto gives a pure monetary rail for AI techniques, as brokers lack the authorized identification required to open conventional financial institution accounts.

On Base, focus shifted to AI brokers succesful of holding balances, tipping customers and interacting immediately with good contracts. In October 2024, Coinbase launched “Primarily based Brokers,” a toolkit that allowed customers to build AI agents equipped with crypto wallets.

Probably the most seen Base-native experiment was Virtuals Protocol, which enabled customers to create brokers tied to tokens and onchain addresses.

One such Virtuals agent, Luna (not associated to Terra), became the first on Base to autonomously execute onchain suggestions.

Virtuals later expanded to Solana in January 2025 to faucet into its bigger retail base. Nonetheless, exercise throughout AI-agent tokens quickly slowed, and Virtuals cooled with it.

The second coming of SocialFi on Base

Base’s 2023 debut was adopted by the breakout of Buddy.tech. In 2025, SocialFi returned to Base in a distinct kind, sparked by deeper integration with Coinbase’s shopper ecosystem.

That push was tied to Coinbase’s “tremendous app” ambitions. Tremendous apps are platforms that help a spread of Twenty first-century requirements, equivalent to messaging, digital banking, journey sharing and even meals supply.

Associated: Banks can’t seem to service crypto, even as it goes mainstream

Such platforms exist already in Asia. WeChat in China is utilized in the on a regular basis lives of greater than 1 billion customers, combining messaging, funds and commerce. South Korea’s KakaoTalk and Japan’s Line serve related capabilities of their respective markets. Social media giants like X and Meta have stated they’re exploring related fashions.

In July 2025, Coinbase rebranded its wallet as the Base App, making its Ethereum layer 2 the default execution layer inside its pockets ecosystem.

At the heart of this part was Farcaster, a decentralized social community the place accounts are linked to crypto addresses. Posts, suggestions and token launches linked immediately to onchain exercise.

At the similar time, Zora, which permits creators to mint and distribute tokenized content material, noticed bursts of exercise in mid-2025 that contributed to measurable spikes in Base transactions and token launches. Tokens had been usually promoted on Farcaster.

The second coming of SocialFi on Base lasted longer than Buddy.tech, however curiosity light after the preliminary hype interval. On Feb. 9, 2026, Coinbase introduced it might sunset its Creator Rewards program and Farcaster-powered social feeds. The change doesn’t immediately have an effect on Zora customers, although exercise there has additionally cooled from its peak.

Base turns into Ethereum’s most energetic layer 2

All through the first three years, Base showcased the distribution energy of the largest US alternate, related to how BNB Chain’s consumer exercise is influenced by Binance.

Except for their technical variations, Binance has tried to distance itself from the blockchain it based by making an attempt to give it its personal model, whereas Coinbase has stored Base shut to its orbit.

Coinbase and its blockchain have ridden the tides of rising tendencies equivalent to memecoins and AI brokers whereas changing into the heart of creator economies and SocialFi functions.

These tendencies got here and went, however they did push Base to the prime of the Ethereum layer-2 ladder. It now leads in customers, transactions, charges and whole worth locked, in accordance to knowledge from Nansen and DefiLlama.

Traits onboarded customers and distribution introduced scale. Now, Base is consolidating its basis. Whether or not the unified stack cements its lead or merely bookends its first progress period will outline its subsequent three years, as Ethereum’s focus shifts from L2s back to scaling the main chain.

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