From APP integration to native token issuance: A quick look at the Base Ecosystem Core Project

Author: Kevin, Movemaker Researcher: Source: X, @MovemakerCN

Base App is no longer an on-chain wallet in the traditional sense, but has been reshaped into a comprehensive digital ecosystem platform that integrates asset management, content creation, social interaction and trading functions.Since its name changed by Coinbase Wallet in mid-July 2025, Base App is accelerating its strategic transformation to Web3 “super apps” or “integrated apps”, seamlessly integrating social, payment, transactions and decentralized applications into a unified platform.

This transformation is a key step for Coinbase to promote large-scale users into the Web3 ecosystem.Base hit a record high of 3.5 million daily active users in July 2025, a growth mainly due to incentive activities such as Onchain Summer and the rapid popularity of dApps within the ecosystem.As the core entrance to the Base ecosystem, the user activity of Base App is closely related to the leap in on-chain data.

In terms of application experience and ecological construction, the update range of Base App is also eye-catching.At the BaseCamp 2025 conference, the team publicly stated for the first time that it is exploring the issuance of native tokens for the Base network, which may be an important part of inspiring ecosystem creators and developers.

At the same time, the Base team announced an open source cross-chain bridge project connecting Base and Solana to promote cross-chain transfer of assets and liquidity, further expand the asset interoperability of Base App users, and transform Base App from “one wallet” to a multi-functional platform.

The renamed Base App has made substantial progress in integrating rich on-chain functions: mini apps are directly embedded in users’ dynamic streams, allowing them to experience Remix game platforms, Noice content rewards, and Decentralized Pictures, a new model of co-creating movies without switching tools; users can buy and sell millions of crypto assets, use NFC induction payment to achieve free USDC payments in seconds, and even just hold USDC to enable an annualized reward program of up to 4.1%, maximizing fund utilization.

At the same time, Base App deeply integrates social experience with financial activities.Based on Farcaster, users can directly view friends’ on-chain transaction dynamics in the information flow and complete token exchange in the same interface, realizing a new interactive method of “social is finance”.Users can freely set their own social profiles, create and manage communities, and achieve efficient collaboration through built-in group chat and content sharing functions. All operations are completed within the App without jumping, which significantly improves the efficiency of community interaction.The AI ​​Agent embedded in the platform directly integrates financial operations such as transactions, remittances and portfolio optimization into the chat experience, allowing users to make financial decisions immediately in conversation.The USDC transfer function in the chat interface further lowers the payment threshold and arrives for free within a few seconds, making payments of digital currency as natural as sending messages.

Base App’s actions in the payment field cannot be ignored. The “Base Pay” system it launched has been integrated with e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, simplifying the crypto payment process.At the same time, the introduction of “Base Account” as a universal identity credential reduces the complexity of users switching between different dApps, paving the way for a smoother ecological experience.The developer tool “Base Build” provides strong support for the construction and promotion of mini apps, enriching the application ecosystem within the app, and further consolidating the status of Base App as an ecological hub.More than $500,000 in creator revenue has been paid through the Base App since the launch of the beta in July, and more than 50% of posters have earned revenue, indicating that its built-in social and content monetization features have begun to play a substantial role, and the creator economy has initially shown vitality.

This strategic upgrade from wallet to comprehensive platform is obviously an important attempt by Coinbase to draw on successful models of super applications such as WeChat.By simplifying complex blockchain interactions such as transactions, payments, and identity management and combining them with social features familiar to users, Base App tries to drastically lower the barriers for average users to enter the Web3 world.Judging from the current Base chain activity and creator economy performance, this strategic direction has shown potential.Looking ahead, whether Base App can truly become a super application leading the next wave of Web3 users with its ever-improved ecosystem, the pace of new functions being launched and possible native token issuance will be the focus of the entire industry.

After understanding the strategic transformation and functional layout of Base App, it is obviously not enough to truly grasp its future potential just by staying on the product itself. What is more important is to see through the capital distribution and growth momentum of the entire Base ecosystem.After all, the vitality of a public chain depends not only on the ease of use of the entry application, but also on which projects in its ecosystem are attracting funds, users and developers.

The user activity of Base blockchain has soared in the past few months, but which tracks and protocols these traffic finally accumulates are the core factors that really determine the competitiveness of Base network.Whether it is DeFi protocols, social dApps, game applications or infrastructure tools, their market value, liquidity and innovation direction directly affect whether Base App can continue to retain users as a “super application” and support the value anchoring of its potential native tokens.

Therefore, next we will take a look at the 20 projects worth paying attention to in the Base ecosystem. By sorting out the market positioning and capital performance of these projects, we will judge the true thickness of the Base ecosystem and further reveal the source of its future growth.This is not only a supplementary observation of the transformation results of Base App, but also an important reference for evaluating the future strategic direction of the entire Base network.

Aerodrome Finance

• Market value: US$1.07 billion

• Raceway: DEX, DeFi and lending

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Bitget, Bybit, Coinbase, Gate and Upbit

Brief review

Aerodrome plays a liquidity hub in the Base ecosystem. The core trading pairs include WETH/USDC, WETH/cbBTC and USDC/cbBTC, providing in-depth and efficient market matching for major assets on Base.

Aerodrome can be regarded as the culmination of DEX.It is clever to borrow Curve and Convex’s token economic model to manage token and community governance, while also adopting a centralized liquidity market maker similar to Uniswap V3 to improve funding efficiency.Simply put, it can not only inspire users to provide liquidity, but also make traders’ slippage lower, cleverly combining the interests of all parties.

Aerodrome is undoubtedly the absolute leader in the Base ecosystem.Its relationship with Base and Coinbase is very strong. Coinbase Ventures not only invested in it, but is also actively participating in its community governance and personally voting to guide liquidity. It is clearly intended to build it into a “monetary” exchange and liquidity center of the Base chain.With the continuous increase in Base’s ecological activity, and the future Coinbase main application may directly integrate DEX on Base, Aerodrome, as its first choice, has almost booked a steady stream of institutional mobility and users.Judging from the data, its locked position (TVL) and protocol revenue have dominated the list for a long time on the Base chain, forming a strong forward flywheel effect.It can be predicted that as long as Base develops, Aerodrome will be one of the biggest beneficiaries.

• Financing situation: In February 2024, it was strategically invested by the Base Ecosystem Fund led by Coinbase Ventures, and the specific investment amount has not been disclosed publicly.

• Team introduction: Launched by the Velodrome team, core members include co-founders Alexander Cutler and Tao Watts.The core members of the team have extensive experience in the field of decentralized finance.

Virtuals Protocol

• Market value:$840 million

• Raceway: AI, Launchpad

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Binance, Bybit, MEXC, Upbit

Brief review

Virtuals Protocol is a phenomenal new-entry platform on the Base chain, and its gameplay directly hits users’ pain points.First of all, the market value of fundraising for all new projects is set to be extremely low, allowing early participants to get chips at the “baby price” and there is huge room for imagination.Secondly, it does not open the tokens if it goes online like many local dog markets, but instead unlocks tokens linearly like an institutional wheel, and throws all funds into the liquidity pool, preventing the project party from directly smashing the market and running away.If the project is not raised, all the money will be returned to the user. In addition, the platform has a certain screening of the project, and the risk of participation is relatively low.

As soon as Virtuals was launched, it became the absolute core of the Base ecosystem’s new track with its innovative mechanism, but “success is Xiao He and failure is Xiao He.”The early effect of getting rich attracted a lot of quick money, resulting in new projects generally facing huge selling pressure of “smashing the market if it goes online”.Although the official “green lock mechanism” launched to stabilize the ecosystem has curbed selling, it has also lengthened the profit cycle, which has directly led to complaints from the community. Many speculators believe that “long-term gains will lead to losses” and are quite dissatisfied with the project party’s operations.

However, if you put aside these speculative noises, Virtuals’ fundamentals are actually quite solid.Its greatest achievement, and its core value, is that it has successfully incubated several well-known AI Agent projects, and these projects have been integrated into the Base App.This is a very eye-catching and practical result in the entire AI+Crypto track.Although some of the team’s operations that link the price of the currency to specific behaviors are debatable, overall, the team’s direction is correct.The future value of Virtuals does not depend on the emotions of short-term speculators, but on whether these “AI fruits” it incubates can eventually mature and produce real cash flow.Therefore, for long-term investors, the current currency price fluctuations and community negative sentiment may be the time to test patience.

• Financing situation

Pre-Seed: $1,200,000, powered by a16z Crypto Startup School (CSS).

Seed: US$2,000,000 led by a16z CSS, Delphi Ventures and PKO Investments, with Animoca Brands, GCR and others participating.

• Team introduction: The team consists of senior AI and gaming industry professionals from companies such as Google, Unity and Microsoft.

MORPHO

• Market value: $700 million

• Raceway: DeFi, Lending

• Is it native or not: Multi-chain

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Bitget, Bybit, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC, OKX

Brief review

Morpho’s initial entry point was very clever. It did not directly fight with lending giants like Aave and Compound, but was like an “optimizer” grafted on them.Through the point-to-point matching mechanism, it can provide users with deposit and loan interest rates that are more fragrant than those of giants, and at the same time, it uses these mature agreements as a reserve fund pool, so that users can use it with confidence.After gaining a foothold, Morpho completed a gorgeous transformation, upgrading from an application product to a minimal and trustworthy lending “infrastructure”.Now, anyone can freely create a risk-isolated, customized independent lending market on Morpho like a LEGO.

Morpho’s development path is textbook-level. First, “standing on the shoulders of giants” quickly accumulates users and reputations. After obtaining a16z investment, it quickly grows into a leading lending platform, and then decisively transforms into a underlying infrastructure, opening up a higher ceiling.It launched the Base Chain in June 2024, which can be said to be a strong alliance and quickly became a significant DeFi protocol in the Base ecosystem.It is particularly worth mentioning that it launched the first RWA vault that has been officially certified by Coinbase on Base. This unique positioning makes it have almost no direct competitors in the Base ecosystem, and also makes it closer to Coinbase and has huge potential for future development.

• Financing situation: Morpho has completed several rounds of financing since 2021:

1. October 2021: Seed round of financing of US$18 million, with investors including a16z, Variant Fund, Coinbase Ventures, etc.

2. Mid-2022: raising $18 million, led by a16z and Variant Fund, and also participants include Nascent, Semantic Ventures, Cherry Ventures, etc.

3. August 2024: Raise $50 million, led by Ribbit Capital, and other investors include a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Variant, Brevan Howard, Pantera, Blocktower, etc.

• Team introduction: Headquartered in Paris, France, it was co-founded in 2021 by Paul Frambot (CEO), Merlin Egalite and Mathis Gontier Delaunay.According to public information (Seedtable, Dealroom), the team size ranges from 11 to 50 people.

Keeta

• Market value: US$450 million

• Raceway: L1, RWA

• Is it native or not: Multi-chain

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Kraken

Brief review

Keeta is a high-performance public chain specially designed for the RWA track.Its core selling points are two: one is the ultimate compliance, which deeply caters to the needs of traditional financial institutions through built-in KYC/AML, digital identity authentication and other functions; the other is its super high performance, which claims to reach tens of millions of TPS and sub-second transaction confirmation, aiming to solve the efficiency bottleneck of large-scale circulation after RWA tokenization.Its team is also very interesting. The CEO once worked in venture capital institutions, and the CTO is a former core developer of the old public chain Nano, with rich experience.

Keeta’s project was born with a “golden spoon” in its eyes. Its most dazzling halo comes from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.Schmidt not only led its seed round, but also served as an advisor to stand up for it. Even a simple follow on Twitter could make its token price soar, which shows its market influence.This kind of endorsement from the top big guy made Keeta attract a lot of attention from the beginning.

However, the challenge is equally huge.First of all, the tens of millions of TPS it claims is still on paper, and the market is waiting to see whether it can fulfill its promises on the real main website.Secondly, no matter how bright the halo is, it can only attract speculators. Keeta ultimately needs to truly win the trust and adoption of financial institutions, so that they are willing to put real money RWA on the chain, which will take a long time to verify its security and reliability.The project currently has some doubts about information transparency and community construction, and needs to be improved urgently.It can be said that Keeta’s starts very gorgeously, but whether it can transform this expectation into real commercial implementation is the biggest test it faces next.

• Financing situation: Seed Round (June 2023): $17,000,000 led by Steel Perlot, a venture capital firm owned by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

• Team introduction: Founder and CEO is Ty Schenk.Team members include Roy Keene, Tanveer Wahid, and Ezra Ripps.The team size ranges from 11 to 50 employees.

Avantis

• Market value: US$340 million

• Raceway: DEX, DeFi, RWA

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Bitget, Bybit, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC, Upbit, Binance

Brief review

Avantis is a decentralized derivatives (perpetual contract) exchange on the Base chain, where users can trade various assets such as cryptocurrencies, foreign exchange, gold, crude oil, etc., with a maximum leverage of up to 500 times.Its core gameplay is the “general leverage layer”, which reduces transaction costs through mechanisms such as “zero fee contracts” and “loss refunds”.For liquidity providers (LP), it designed a unique risk stratification model: you can choose to put money into Junior Tranche with higher risk and returns, or you can choose Senior Tranche with relatively stable risk and returns, giving users flexible choices to different risk preferences.

Since Avantis went online, data has grown very rapidly, with the cumulative transaction volume, number of users and agreement fees, which have become the largest derivatives agreement in the Base ecosystem in a short period of time.Its success is inseparable from the “all-star” teams and investors behind it.The CEO was once an investor in Pantera Capital, and most of the team members have backgrounds such as McKinsey and Barclays.The financing is even more luxurious, and it has been led by Pantera and the Founders Fund of the legendary Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, which is a rare top endorsement in DeFi projects.

Of course, there are also some bottlenecks in the project, such as due to the speed of the Base chain itself, there are occasional delays or failures in orders, and the mobile experience also needs to be optimized.However, the team has clear plans for this and is developing Avantis v2 and an exclusive EVM compatible chain, aiming to achieve a more efficient and free trading experience in the future, and plans to expand trading categories to stocks, sports and other fields, with great ambitions.

• Financing situation: Avantis completed two rounds of financing, with a total amount of $12 million:

1. 2024: Seed round $4 million

2. June 2025: $8 million in Series A funding led by Pantera Capital and Founders Fund

• Team introduction: Avantis’ core team includes:

1. Harsehaj Singh: Co-founder and CEO

2. Brank: Co-founder

Kaito

• Market value: US$289,417,444.76

• Raceway: AI, InfoFi

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Binance, Bitget, MEXC, OKX

Brief review

Kaito is conducting a grand experiment that attempts to reshape the value allocation of content and attention in the form of Web3.Its core logic is to solve the pain points of the current inefficiency (information cocoon) and unfairness (creators and users cannot share the value of the platform).To this end, it created a set of AI-powered “Proof-of-Attention” mechanisms that quantify invisible “attention” into earnable points (Yaps).The entire ecosystem revolves around this mechanism: content creators (Yappers) earn Yaps by publishing high-quality, highly interactive content, while project parties gain real market attention through this platform.Finally, through rankings and Launchpad and other products, creators, users and project parties are deeply bound into a community of interests.

Kaito is undoubtedly the absolute leader of the current InfoFi track, and the product matrix it builds has formed a preliminary moat.But there is a paradox in its pattern: it may be speeding up the consumption and killing of real attention while trying to quantify and reward attention.

Kaito’s incentive mechanism is designed like a high-reward casino game, which is extremely addictive, which has led to a large number of creators falling into the “involved” of posting frequently, repetitive and homogeneous for rankings and rewards. This is no longer a real value sharing, but more like a “game of performing attention.”This phenomenon has caused fatigue among creators and boredom among ordinary readers.

From a business perspective, Kaito’s profit model is still in infancy, with extremely high customer acquisition costs (more than US$100 million has been distributed, far exceeding its financing amount), and it relies heavily on the data supply of Web2 platforms such as X, which poses a risk of supply cuts.It can be said that Kaito is a contradiction that shoulders a great vision, but the business model has not yet been verified and the core mechanism has a tendency to “self-destruct”.It is at the culmination of the “monetizable attention” narrative, but it also shows obvious signs of fatigue.The real challenge is whether it can iterate into healthier mechanisms that reward deep value rather than superficial skills before exhausting market patience.

• Financing situation: KAITO raised a total of US$10.8 million through two rounds of financing in 2023, and the main investors include Sequoia Capital, Dragonfly, Spartan Group, etc.

• Team introduction: Founder/core personnel include Yu Hu (Founder/CEO), Sandra Leow (Research Partner), WenMoon (Head of Ecosystem and Special Projects), Tianqi Wang (BD), Jiwoo Jun (BD), etc.The number is between 11 and 50 people.

ZORA

• Market value: US$218,064,790.00

• Raceway: Launchpad, Social

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Bitget, Bybit, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC

Brief review

Zora has evolved into the Base ecological head Launchpad, and its core gameplay is “posting coins”.With deep integration with the new Base APP, any creator can easily issue tokens for themselves or for any post.Its token mechanism is designed into a three-layer pyramid structure: the bottom layer is a massive “post token”, the top layer is a “creator token”, and the top layer is the mother coin ZORA.The trading pair of post tokens is the creator token, and the trading pair of the creator token is ZORA. In this way, the trading activity of the lower tokens can be transmitted layer by layer, ultimately stimulating the demand for the top-level mother coin ZORA.

Zora’s success is largely due to its “hugging a thigh” – the fully upgraded Base APP.As a super application created by Coinbase, Base APP undertakes the most direct distribution channel of the Base ecosystem, and Zora, which is deeply embedded in it, is undoubtedly one of the biggest beneficiaries.This powerful channel advantage has caused the number of token creations on Zora to soar, and at the narrative level, some KOLs have regarded it as “quasi-official tokens for the Base Network.”

However, Zora’s model also has obvious shortcomings.First of all, the transaction fee is extremely expensive, with each transaction being as high as 3% of the “tax”, and a 6% purchase and sale once, which discourages a large number of Meme currency traders, making the real Meme trading volume on the Base chain mainly concentrated on platforms such as Virtuals and Clanker.Secondly, although the number of tokens is amazing, most of them are “cheap post coins” that lack long-term value and can be replaced at any time, and truly valuable content is rare.Therefore, although Zora has a good user base, the transaction amount is generally not large.In order for its flywheel effect to continue, there must be some truly valuable and influential top creators and sub-tokens to support its market value in the future.

• Financing situation:

1. Seed Round (2020): $2,000,000

2. Round A (2021): $8,000,000

3. Risk Round (2022): US$50,000,000 led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Kindred Ventures and others.

• Team introduction: ZORA was co-founded by three early Coinbase employees Jacob Horne, Slava Kim and Tyson Battistella.According to public LinkedIn data, ZORA’s team size ranges from about 50 to 100 employees.

SoSoValue

• Market value: US$181,601,545.00

• Raceway: DeFi, Data Analysis

• Is it native or not: Multi-chain

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Bybit, Gate, MEXC

Brief review

SoSoValue is an AI-powered cryptocurrency investment research platform. Its core mission is to level the “information gap” between institutions and retail investors.The platform uses AI technology to process massive on-chain and off-chain data, filters out market noise, and then converts complex information into investment insights that ordinary people can understand through multi-index charts, on-chain tracking, and even customized Telegram robots.Its most prominent function is

The first Bitcoin spot ETF capital flow dashboard, this tool intuitively demonstrates the movements of traditional funds entering and leaving the crypto market, and solved the common confusion between crypto native and traditional financial investors at that time.

SoSoValue’s explosive power is amazing. With its ETF dashboard that accurately enters the pain points of the market, it attracted more than 1.2 million registered users in just five months of its launch, showing a strong PMF.Its success attracted the attention of top capital, and it received a $4.15 million seed round led by HongShan.What’s even more rare is that the founding team itself has invested nearly $10 million in its own funds, showing great confidence and commitment to the long-term development of the project.

In addition to the product itself, SoSoValue is also actively building an ecosystem, expanding its influence through cooperation with platforms such as SafePal with tens of millions of users, and cultivating a decentralized investment and research community through activities such as researcher competitions.It can be said that SoSoValue is not just about being a data tool, its ambition is to become a central hub in the field of crypto investment research, so that valuable research and projects can be “see and heard” fairly.

• Financing situation:

1. Seed Round: $4.15M (2024-06-23), investors include Sequoia China, GSR, Alumni Ventures, CoinSummer Labs, and OnePiece Labs.

2. $15.00M, investors include Sequoia China, Mirana Ventures, SafePal, SmallSpark.

• Team introduction: Founders are Soso and Luffy.The team members have a working background in top financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, as well as technology giants such as ByteDance and Tencent.

AWE Network

• Market value: US$131,036,360.64

• Raceway: AI, Launchpad

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Binance, Bitget, MEXC

Brief review

The predecessor of AWE Network was STP Network, founded in 2019, initially focused on decentralized governance and the RWA track.But with the development of AI technology, the team upgraded the project mission to building an “independent world” – a digital ecosystem that is lastingly evolved driven by AI agents and humans.Its technical core is “Automatic World Engine (AWE), a modular AI native framework.There are two main products for users: one is the community portal World.Fun, where users can create, experience and incubate various AI small worlds; the other is the digital identity system AWNS, which provides users with common identities across different AI worlds through the .aw domain name.

• Financing situation: Private equity round (2019-05-29) raised $7.00M, and investors include NGC Ventures, Alphabit Fund, BlockVC.

Venice.ai

• Market value: $92.58 million

• Raceway: AI

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Bybit, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC

Brief review

Venice AI is a decentralized artificial intelligence platform deployed on the Base chain, with its core philosophy being privacy-protected, censor-free and community-driven.Technically, it does not rely on a centralized server, but handles user requests through a distributed GPU network, and all user data is only saved locally, ensuring that data sovereignty is completely owned by the user.The platform integrates a variety of open source models including Meta Llama 3 and Stable Diffusion. It covers text, images, code generation, and can also parse PDFs and visualize data.

Venice AI is founder Erik Voorhees, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift.Its biggest differentiation advantage lies in its ultimate pursuit of privacy and censorship resistance, which accurately touches the needs of AI users and developers who focus on data sovereignty.Since its launch, the platform’s user growth data has been very impressive (400,000 registered users have attracted 50,000 daily active users).Of course, “no censorship” is also a double-edged sword, which means that the platform needs to deal with the subsequent content risks, and the development of its advanced functions also faces certain technical thresholds and challenges.

• Team introduction: Founder is Erik Voorhees, founder and former CEO of exchange ShapeShift.

OpenxAI Network

• Market value: $88 million

• Raceway: AI

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: No Main CEX Listing

Brief review

OpenxAI Network is a P2P artificial intelligence network that aims to enable anyone to easily create, own and commercialize their own AI applications on the chain, completely freeing from dependence on centralized companies and intermediaries.Its core innovation lies in tokenizing global GPU computing resources (tGPUs) into a freely traded and used liquid asset.This model greatly reduces the threshold and cost of AI development, and is said to save up to 80% of the cost compared to using Amazon AWS or Google Cloud.

OpenxAI Network has a grand vision, which tries to fundamentally solve the current problems of centralized AI, such as corporate monopoly, infrastructure closure and high costs.Trying to become a combination of “decentralized AWS + Hugging Face + Stripe”, that is, it also provides decentralized computing power, open source AI model library and payment capabilities.

However, how to perfectly integrate narrative with user actual experience and deduce an effective business model is the next challenge that OpenxAI faces.

BIM

• Market value: $85 million

• Raceway: DeFi

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: No Main CEX Listing

Brief review

BIM is a multi-chain DeFi protocol, positioned as a “one-stop” revenue optimizer.It integrates various functions such as exchange, cross-chain bridge, pledge, etc. into one interface. When users deposit money into its vaults, the agreement will automatically help you mine and compound interest in various liquidity pools to achieve “lying profit”.The first impression this project gives people is that it is “mediocre and vague”.Income aggregator is a very old and extremely competitive track in the DeFi field, commonly known as the “machine gun pool”.BIM has not shown any differentiated competitive advantages or innovations at all, and it sounds like a replica of countless long-dead predecessors.In a DeFi world where an anonymous team can make money and run away, the lack of this information is a huge red flag.

Definitive

• Market value: $73.04 million

• Raceway: DeFi

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Coinbase, Gate, Kraken, MEXC

Brief review

Definitive is a revenue aggregation protocol built on the Base chain.Its main function is to help users mine, reinvest, adjust positions and other operations in various DeFi applications through a complex set of automation strategies to pursue the best returns.It also provides a series of advanced features such as limit orders, stop loss orders, cross-chain trading and Gas-free trading, etc., trying to bring professional trading tools into the field of income aggregation.The biggest highlight of this project, and perhaps the only highlight, is its founding team background as a “former Coinbase Engineer”.This undoubtedly puts a layer of gold on the project and provides a certain endorsement in terms of technical reliability.However, aside from this halo, the reality that Definitive faces is very skinny.The income aggregation track has long been a sea of ​​blood, with similar products as many as tycoons. From the old Yearn Finance to local agreements on major public chains, the competition is extremely fierce.

For most DeFi farmers who “poach and sell”, they only care about the rate of return. Whether these complex functions are urgent needs is a huge question mark.Ultimately, the life and death of such a protocol depends only on one thing: whether its strategy can continue to outperform the market and all its competitors.In the unpredictable DeFi world, this is almost an impossible task to complete for a long time.Therefore, despite the good team background, the project’s prospects are still challenging and it is necessary to prove to the market that it is more than just a “more complex” ordinary machine gun pool.

• Financing situation: Seed (November 8, 2023): $4.10M, investors include BlockTower Capital*, Coinbase Ventures, Nascent, Robot Ventures, CMT Digital, Geometry, Matrixport Ventures (*represents the lead investment).

• Team introduction: Consisting of former Coinbase Prime engineers.

Sapien

• Market value: $72.54 million

• Raceway: AI

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Bitget, Coinbase, Kraken, MEXC

Brief review

Sapien is a decentralized “data foundry” that specializes in producing and annotating training data for AI models.Its model is to mobilize a community “AI workers” composed of users in more than 110 countries around the world to complete massive data processing tasks such as text cleaning and image annotation through a gamified task square in the form of crowdsourcing.The platform has designed a quality control system to ensure data accuracy and provides enterprise customers with API interfaces so that they can easily purchase these high-quality training data.

The track Sapien cut into is undoubtedly correct – AI’s demand for high-quality data is an eternal gold rush.However, to put it aside, the essence of the business model is called “human-in-the-loop” (human-in-the-loop).

The core question faced by the project is: using Web3 to organize a man-intensive industry. The story is sexy, but the reality is skinny.Sapien needs to prove to the market that its decentralized model needs to be better than traditional giants in terms of cost and efficiency, and more attractive in terms of quality and scale, otherwise it is likely to be just a flash in the pan.

• Financing situation: Sapien disclosed two seed rounds of $5 million and $10.5 million in April and October 2024, respectively. The seed round investors in October include well-known institutions such as Primitive Ventures, Animoca Brands, Yield Guild Games, etc.

• Team introduction: CEO Rowan stone, formerly co-founder of Base.Chief Strategy Officer Trevor Koverko is the founder of the early securities digitalization project Polymath.

Towns Protocol

• Market value: $65.48 million

• Raceway: Social

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Binance, Bitget, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC

Brief review

Towns Protocol is an open source decentralized real-time messaging protocol that you can understand as a Web3 version of Discord.It is built on the Base in the form of an application chain, allowing users to create programmable group chat spaces that they truly own.These spaces support on-chain membership, end-to-end encryption, and since it is a chain specially built for social networking, it can theoretically support large-scale users for real-time communication.Its login method is also very friendly, supports Google and Twitter accounts, lowering the entry threshold for non-encrypted users.

Towns Protocol’s background is “the beginning of Tianhu”.The founder is the co-founder of the well-known social application Houseparty, with rich experience; the investors are even more star-studded. The top venture capital a16z has led the investment for two consecutive rounds, and Coinbase Ventures is also involved. The ability to obtain this level of financing in the bear market is enough to prove its recognition in the capital market.

However, the Web3 social track is a famous “protocol cemetery”, where countless projects born with golden spoons fail.Towns Protocol faces challenges that are no different from its predecessors: how to solve the ultimate problem of user migration?Its product form resembles Discord, which means it wants to grab users directly from the industry giants.Although technically decentralized and user ownership is achieved, for ordinary users, what is the motivation to give up a mature product that already has a huge relationship network and smooth experience and migrate to a new platform?No Web3 social project can provide a perfect answer to this question so far.Towns has top teams and capital, but it challenges deep-rooted user habits, which is destined to be an extremely difficult battle.

• Financing situation: Towns Protocol’s core team has developed the social video app Houseparty, which was acquired by Epic Games.The project has received support from well-known investment institutions such as a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures and Benchmark.

• Team introduction: The Towns project is developed by Here Not There Labs, led by Brian Meek (CEO) and Ben Rubin (Co-Founder).Ben Rubin was previously the co-founder of two well-known social apps, Houseparty and Meerkat.The team is located in the United States and has a rich background in social applications and blockchain technology.

B3 (Base)

• Market value: $60.98 million

• Raceway: game

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Bybit, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC

Brief review

B3 is a Base ecosystem Layer 3 network specially designed for games.Its core concept is “Open Gaming”, which aims to solve the current “island” problem where Web3 games are fighting each other and are not connected.Its technical architecture allows each game to run independently through GameChains, and at the same time, it realizes interoperability between underlying assets and users through “chain abstraction” technology, allowing players to experience seamlessly between different games without manually switching networks or cross-chains.

The biggest highlight of B3 is its strong background and resource integration capabilities.As the entrepreneurial team of the “Coinbase” system, it is backed by the traffic and compliance advantages of the Base ecosystem, coupled with the financing of US$21 million, and has very strong initial resources.Judging from the early data (more than 80 games are connected and millions of active wallets), its operational and ecological construction capabilities are indeed good.

However, B3 chose a “middle route”. It neither wants to do pure technical infrastructure nor deeply bind a popular game IP, which is both an opportunity and a challenge.Opportunities lie in the theory that there is more room for imagination, but the risk lies in the possibility of falling into an embarrassing situation of “not relying on both ends”.The real problem it faces is not technology, but the distribution of benefits: how to convince game projects that already have their own tokens and economic models to truly integrate into the B3 ecosystem, and even accept $B3 as a general token?This requires strong business negotiation and ecological operation capabilities.It can be said that the infrastructure of B3 has been built, but whether it will be successful in the end depends on how many truly fun and can retain users’ flowers (games) it can produce.

• Financing situation: Seed Round (July 22, 2024): $21.00M, investors include Pantera Capital*, Hashed, Collab+Currency, Sfermion, Mirana Ventures, Bitscale Capital, Makers Fund, Mantle Network, Geoff Renaud (*representative lead investment).

Impossible Cloud Network

• Market value: $39.75 million

• Raceway: Depin

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Bitget, Bybit

Brief review

Impossible Cloud Network is a decentralized cloud infrastructure (DePIN) platform that you can understand as a Web3 version of AWS or Alibaba Cloud.Its model is to allow global hardware providers (ScalerNodes) to contribute idle storage, computing and network resources to form a resource pool; and at the same time set up monitoring nodes (HyperNodes) to ensure service quality.Enterprises and individual users can rent these cloud services, while the operation, governance and incentives of the entire network are achieved through its native token, ICNT.

“Decentralized AWS” is an extremely grand and beautiful story, and it is also the hardest bone in the DePIN track. Countless projects have failed on this road.The blueprint drawn by Impossible Cloud Network is a standard template that almost every similar project will talk about, without any new ideas.

The most classic “death spiral” of the DePIN project – the problem of chicken first or egg first, is particularly prominent here: How do you attract enough, stable and professional hardware suppliers before there are a large number of paid corporate customers?On the contrary, before forming a stable and reliable resource network, how can you convince corporate customers to give up mature AWS and deploy business with a life-related concern on your network with uncertain future?

• Financing situation: The latest round of financing was US$33.9 million led by NGP Capital.After the financing is completed, its post-money valuation is approximately US$470 million.

• Team introduction: Headquartered in Zug, Switzerland; Founder/CEO is Dr. Kai Wawrzinek.

CLANKER

• Market value: $37.33 million

• Raceway: AI, Launchpad

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Bitget, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC

Brief review

CLANKER is an independent agent deployed on the Base chain. Its core function is to help ordinary users “issuing coins with one click”.Users do not need to understand any code. They just need to provide basic information such as token names on the social platform Farcaster, and it can automatically complete a series of complex operations such as token creation and liquidity pool establishment.The recently upgraded V4 version integrates new features of Uniswap V4, and adds advanced customization functions such as dynamic handling fees and anti-sniper auctions, giving token creators greater flexibility and more profit possibilities.

With its ultimate ease of use, CLANKER has accurately entered the track of meme coin issuance, which has extremely strong demands. It can be said to be a successful example of “small and beautiful”.Judging from its impressive revenue and profit data far exceeding most similar platforms, the market’s recognition of its products is very high, proving its infrastructure position in the field of Base chain meme issuance.

However, CLANKER’s success is also deeply bound to the fanaticism and high-risk attributes of the meme coins market.As a tool, it greatly lowers the threshold for creating “air coins”. Although it is convenient for creators, it also means that its ecosystem is filled with a large number of projects with extremely short life cycles and highly speculative.Therefore, the long-term reputation and development of the agreement will test whether the team can guide and incubate higher-quality and more vital meme projects while maintaining the openness of “everyone can issue coins”, thereby building a deeper moat in the wild meme world.

• Team introduction: The core characters include Jack Dishman (co-founder) and proxystudio.eth.The team has a relatively strong engineering background in the technology/social/AI agent direction.

MAMO

• Market value: $32.08 million

• Raceway: AI, DeFi

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Coinbase, MEXC

Brief introduction

MAMO is an AI personal financial management platform based on the Base chain. You can simply understand it as the “Yu’ebao” or “change Tong” of the Base App.Its core function is “automatic compound interest mining”. Users only need to deposit assets (especially stablecoins) and Mamo Bot will automatically help you invest funds into high-quality DeFi strategy pools to earn profits, achieving true on-chain “after-sleep income”, with an annualized rate of return said to reach 7%.

MAMO’s development history can be regarded as a “dark horse”.It was launched during the hottest period of Virtual New Launch, and did not attract much attention at that time. In the eyes of many people, it is just another vague DeFi financial management robot.However, MAMO was successfully integrated into the Base App when other popular projects were chasing short-term hot spots.

This integration was a turning point in its destiny, making it leapt from an ordinary DApp to one of the core infrastructures of the Base ecosystem, and directly contacted a large number of Coinbase users.

• Team introduction:Core member: chrizy.eth

CreatorBid

• Market value: $28.44 million

• Raceway: AI, Launchpad, Creator Economy

• Is it native or not: Native

• CEX Coin Listing Situation: Gate, MEXC

Brief introduction

Creator Bid is a platform focused on the AI ​​creator economy and Launchpad.Recently, it has ushered in an important 2.0 version upgrade. Through working with InfoFi leading project Kaito, it has introduced a series of new mechanisms including “staking new shares”, aiming to increase user participation and expand its gameplay in the creator economy field.

Creator Bid’s recent moves show strong recovery momentum.Through strategic cooperation with Kaito and the experience of successful projects such as Virtual, we have launched effective market-verified gameplay such as “staking new stocks” which can be said to be a very smart “version iteration”.If the team can continue to iterate functions and make good use of the synergy brought by cooperation with Kaito, Creator Bid still has good potential for sustained growth in the creator economy track.

• Financing situation: On January 23, 2025, US$2.5 million was raised through public token sale on Base.The investment scale on April 26, 2024 has not been announced, and the investor lineup includes Mechanism Capital, Moonrock, Zee Prime Capital, etc.

Upside

• Raceway: Social, Creator Economy, Forecast Market

• Is it native or not: Native

Brief introduction

Upside is a social prediction market platform based on the Base chain.Users can upload links to social content they believe may be “popular/popular” (such as Twitter/X, articles, videos, etc.) and then create a market; other users can purchase “Upside tickets” to predict whether the content will be widely spread.Participants can make a profit by holding tickets and waiting for the value to rise, or selling tickets in the middle.The platform mechanism includes a unique content market, revenue distribution (content uploader, voter, creator, etc.) and transparent chain records.

• Financing situation: Upside completed a pre-seed financing round in December 2024 with a funding amount of US$1.2 million and a valuation of approximately US$10 million.Among investors’ backers are Jason Choi, Arthur Hayes, and about 25 other angel investors.