Original author: Zhou Zhou, Foresight News
Throughout the year of 2024, there are two blockchain ecosystems that are the most eye-catching, one is Solana and the other is Base.
Although it was born less than a year and a half ago, Base has experienced seven breakthroughs and has become the strongest L2 of Ethereum. At two major time points in 2024 (the approval of the Bitcoin spot ETF and the election of Trump as the new president), it did not miss any opportunity to break through and expand the length and width of the encryption industry.
Since February last year, I have continued to be optimistic about Base, from Degen (up to 50 times), Clanker (up to 70 times) to Virtuals (multiple interviews with founder Wee Kee)... Except for friend.tech, I have hardly missed any important breakthrough events of Base, and witnessed Base from its inception to becoming the second most active blockchain innovation ecosystem in the crypto world.
History illuminates the future, so I have compiled seven moments when Base broke the circle.
First breakthrough: friend.tech raised $54 million
Although friend.tech ultimately failed, it became Bases first step into the encryption arena.
The emergence of friend.tech in August 2023 was the first breakthrough of Base. This breakthrough attracted a large number of practitioners and well-known KOLs to join, allowing many people to see Base for the first time. In the first month, friend.techs revenue exceeded 2 million US dollars, and its net deposit exceeded 33 million US dollars.
From August 2023 to May 2024, friend.techs protocol revenue reached 17056.5 ETH (equivalent to approximately US$54.647 million at the time). This figure even exceeded the protocol revenue of most L2s, and the total number of users reached 909,861 independent addresses.
However, after May, friend.tech took a sharp turn for the worse. Racer, the co-founder of friend.tech, posted on social media, hinting at the intention to migrate the friend.tech protocol from the Base platform. The news immediately caused the price of the protocols native token FRIEND to fall sharply. On the day of the announcement, the price of FRIEND fell to $1.01, a 24-hour drop of 32.2%. Racer said that friend.tech was excluded and isolated in the Base community and was labeled negative speculation.
This strained relationship made friend.tech want to find another way out. However, friend.techs development has been sluggish since then. When it was once glorious, the platform had more than 100,000 users just two weeks after its launch on August 10, 2023; however, by July 2024, the number of daily users was less than 100.
The second breakthrough: Farcaster users surged by 200,000 in a single month, and Degen tokens surged 1,000 times
Although friend.tech failed, another social product on Base, Farcaster, began to rise.
In February 2024, Farcaster became popular, with 200,000 users that month, which was the second time Base broke the circle. According to Farcaster founder Dan Romero: Farcaster had 85,000 daily active users in April.
Farcaster then grew steadily, reaching 350,000 users in May, 500,000 users in June, and 600,000 users in August (the actual number of daily active users should be between 4,000 and 50,000)... By January 24, 2025, Farcasters total number of users reached nearly 800,000, and the contract revenue reached US$2.53 million. Although Farcasters daily active users have changed greatly over time, it has been accumulating more users and waiting for the next opportunity to appear.
Farcaster itself has had two remarkable breakthroughs. The first was between February and April 2024, when the Degen token skyrocketed a thousand times, and the FDV once reached nearly $1 billion. This made the Farcaster ecosystem leave a deep impression on many traders.
However, at the end of April, the cryptocurrency market began to peak and plummet, and Degen tokens were cut in half again and again. Farcaster also stopped its rapid growth and entered a period of adjustment.
The third breakthrough: three $1 billion tokens appeared, becoming the biggest dark horse of the new public chain
In March and April 2024, Solana led the meme wave in the entire crypto market. Under this wave, Base became the public chain with the largest amount of funds outside of Solana.
During this period, billion-dollar market value tokens such as Aero, Brett, and Degen appeared on Base, successfully catching the funds overflowed by the Solana meme craze. At the same time, it surpassed Blast in TVL and became the third largest L2 on Ethereum after Arbitrum and OP.
During this period, Base not only became the second largest meme center after Solana, but also became the third largest L2 after Arbitrum and OP. In just half a year, it became the biggest dark horse in the crypto world.
The fourth breakthrough: surpassing Arbitrum and becoming the largest L2 in Ethereum
In August 2024, Base surpassed Arbitrum and became the largest L2 of Ethereum in the true sense.
According to the authors statistics, from August 2023 to August 2024, the total revenue of the Base protocol reached 70 million US dollars; the Arbitrum protocol revenue was 60 million US dollars, the OP protocol revenue was 30 million US dollars; Scroll 40 million US dollars; ZKSync 45 million US dollars.
In addition, whether it is on-chain revenue, number of transactions, or number of active addresses and other important indicators, Base far surpasses other L2s and has become the de facto largest L2 in Ethereum. This is the fourth time that Base has broken the circle.
The fifth breakthrough: Base launched cbBTC, attracting $2.4 billion in capital inflow
In September 2024, Base launched cbBTC, backed by Coinbases more than 60 billion US dollars in Bitcoin reserves. Its TVL reached 170 million US dollars within a week of its launch, competing with WBTC for the cake. This is its fifth breakthrough.
As of January 22, 2025, the cbBTC market size reached 2.4 billion US dollars, and the number of holders reached 200,000. This number is still growing rapidly. Currently, WBTCs market share is about 13 billion US dollars, and cbBTC is rapidly approaching this figure.
The sixth breakthrough: Clanker ecosystem rises, three $50 million tokens appear
In November 2024, the Clanker ecosystem rose, and the three meme coins in the ecosystem, LUM, ANON, and Clanker, reached 50 million US dollars one after another. Once again, Base received the largest overflow funds outside of Solana, and the application-based meme culture of Base gradually took shape. This was the sixth time Base broke the circle.
However, as the AI Agent narrative developed further, funds on Base gradually flowed from the Clanker ecosystem to the Virtuals ecosystem. The liquidity on Base was not enough to support two large ecosystems, and the Clanker ecosystem token gradually declined.
The seventh breakthrough: AI Agent wave, Base competes with Solana for the first time
The Virtuals ecosystem has risen, supporting five AI Agent tokens with a value of $100 million. During the same period, Solana also had five AI Agent tokens with a value of more than $100 million.
In all previous competitions, Base has always been in the second place. It has surpassed many public chains, but has never been able to match Solanas massive funding. However, in this round of AI Agent, Base has finally stood at the same level as Solana.
In January 2025, as the market value of Virtuals tokens reached $5 billion in a short period of time, 5 AI Agent tokens with a market value of more than $100 million appeared in the Base ecosystem, including aixbt and other tokens whose current market value still exceeds $500 million. Base has managed to compete with Solana, which is the seventh breakthrough of Base.
Last words
Base was established less than a year and a half ago, but it has surpassed other established public chains time and time again, first Blast, OP, then Arbitrum, and now Solana. In this wave of AI Agents, Base has even shown a momentum to rival Solana.
Although Base is still some distance away from Solana in terms of liquidity, Virtuals, with a market value of up to US$5 billion, once again shows that Base has successfully raised the liquidity ceiling of its leading project.
In these seven breakthroughs, Base has well received the massive influx of funds after the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024 and the flood of funds after Trump was elected as the new US president in November 2024. A number of tokens with a market value of more than 100 million US dollars have emerged, such as Degen, Aero, Brett, Moonwell, Clanker, Virtual, AIXBT, and Luna, becoming the public chain with the most opportunities after Solana.
What we can expect is that this will not be the last time Base breaks the circle, and in 2025, Base will have more breakthrough products.
