Is BASE’s rise entirely dependent on “on-chain marketing”? Explore the possibility of "new public chain without airdrop"

Original author: DefiOasis
Original source: Wu Shuo Real
Since its launch at the end of July, the L2 network Base based on Optimistic Rollup built by Coinbase has captured a total of 7 million US dollars in transaction fees, exceeding most L2 networks in the same period; the on-chain TVL has exceeded 540 million US dollars, almost equal to zkSync Era and Together, StarkNet becomes the third largest L2 network after Arbitrum and Optimism. As a public chain with minimal airdrop expectations, it takes less time to achieve greater achievements than public chains driven by potential airdrop farming. In this large-scale situation where one-click chain is issued and driven by potential airdrops, Base’s experience seems to allow us to see another possibility for the development of public chains.
Looking back on the development of the past three months, Base has experienced at least four major events that can be recorded in history.
(1) No publicity, relying on Memecoin to ignite social media
At the end of July, the Base mainnet was quietly launched. However, the public did not rely on official media announcements to learn the news, but came from different social accounts and different communities’ heated discussions about the huge increase in Base’s first Memecoin BALD. On the evening of July 30, a total of approximately 25,000 ETH was deposited on the Base network, of which more than 10,000 ETH flowed into BALD/WETH liquidity. More than half of the funds on the entire network were flowing on this Memecoin, showing a strong Ability to attract money.
At that time, the market value of BALD once approached US$100 million, with an increase of more than tens of thousands of times. However, amidst the huge increase, the development team lost themselves and withdrew a large amount of liquidity on the second day, triggering a sharp decline in BALD. This was tantamount to A challenge to most of the users of this nascent network. What ensued was a search for the identity behind the group of BALD deployers that was widely heard on social media, believed to be people closely associated with the bankrupt FTX/Alameda, or even SBF himself. Although it ended dismally, BALD undoubtedly brought huge exposure to the newly born Base.
(2) Venture capital supports super applications, surpassing public chains
The failure of BALD and the collapse of other Memecoins driven by BALD briefly labeled Base as having a worrying ecological quality, until the emergence of the super social application Friend Tech a week later. Bind to Twitter, relying on the novel personal social value buying and selling relationship, and the invitation system, it quickly became popular in major communities, and it was once hard to find a code. On August 10, the number of single-day active users of Base network exceeded 100,000 for the first time, reaching 136,000, of which 42,000 new users joined.
However, simple functions and poor user experience make users quickly leave after a whim. However, just when they thought they would quietly withdraw from the stage of history, friend tech made a high-profile return with the crypto venture capital Paradigm’s seed round of financing, coupled with the issuance of the first round of points for potential airdrops, users who had withdrawn quickly returned and once again set off a stir on social media. The trend attracts more new users to enter. The participation of celebrities such as Chen Jiaxing, president and CEO of the famous startup incubator Y Combinator, FaZe Banks, founder of the American e-sports club FaZe Clan, and the exponential growth of friend tech MEV robots have created opportunities for this young social network friend tech and the new company. Chain Base brings more high-quality traffic and reputation.
Base's achievements in the L2 network are good enough, but the Base-based application friend tech goes far beyond the Base network itself. DeFiLlama data shows that as of September 27, Base captured US$1.93 million in September, with revenue reaching US$1.06 million; while friend tech captured US$21.74 million in fees during the same period, with revenue reaching US$10.87 million, ten times that of the Base network It has become a super application protocol comparable to Bitcoin, Uniswap, etc. Currently, friend tech’s active users account for about 25%-30% of the Base network, and transaction gas consumption accounts for about 20%-40% of the Base network, which is enough to show the influence of super applications on the public chain.
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(3) DeFi flywheel helps TVL move to a new level
On August 31, Optimism’s largest DEX protocol, Velodrome, deployed a new forked DEX called Aerodrome on the Base network. Less than 2 days after its launch, Aerodrome TVL once reached US$200 million, accounting for 50% of the entire Base TVL. Aerodrome inherits Velodrome V2 and improves the shortcomings of Solidly Ve (3, 3).
The Aerodrome team provided nearly 7% of AERO emission incentives to the AERO-USDC LP Pool by controlling veAERO. However, the AERO circulation was small when it went online, and the overall size of the LP Pool was small. The high LP returns attracted liquidity providers to purchase a small amount of AERO in the market, further increasing scarcity, thus driving a sharp increase in AERO prices. The increase in price, in turn, allows liquidity providers to obtain higher returns, forming a positive flywheel, thereby attracting a large amount of external liquidity to the Aerodrome protocol and Base network in a short period of time.
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Although as time goes by, AERO has fallen into and has not escaped the negative feedback spiral of ve (3, 3), and Aerodrome TVL has fallen by more than 50% from its peak, it still has a lock-up value of US$97 million, which is Base The largest DeFi protocol on the Internet, accounting for about 18%. Velodrome on Optimism already has a way to deal with the negative feedback spiral of Ve (3, 3), which is to increase the lock-up rate through the OP incentive of the Optimism Foundation. Can this method be used on the Base network without token incentives? It's worth keeping an eye on.
(4) Set a precedent for OP Stack and share revenue with Optimism Collective
In order to ensure that the open source OP Stack and announced products that support Base receive sustainable funding, thereby creating a virtuous cycle within the ecosystem, Base announced on August 25 that it has reached an in-depth cooperation with Optimism Collective and will contribute a portion of the total revenue of Base sorters to Optimism Collective. 2.5%, or 15% of Base's profits from L2 transactions, after deducting the cost of submitting materials to L1, to Optimism Collective, whichever is higher. Base will also actively participate in Optimism Collective governance. As part of its contribution, Base will have the opportunity to earn up to 2.75% of the OP supply in the next 6 years, and promises that its voting rights in Optimism Collective will not exceed the total voting supply at any time. 9%. This undoubtedly sets a precedent for the L2 network based on OP Stack to achieve deep ecological binding with the builder Optimism. This may allow more OP Stack-based networks to share revenue with Optimism in the future, thus forming a huge pan-OP Stack ecosystem. lock up.
Thoughts on the development history of Base
(1) On-chain marketing will become the best marketing method in the future
Marketing methods need to guide users to the next section and finally achieve target conversion. The discovery of the Base mainnet did not come from official marketing, but from countless on-chain detectives in the community tracking on-chain data, pursuing on-chain wealth effects, and using social influence to radiate to more ordinary users. . BALD is an example of on-chain marketing.
On-chain detectives first noticed the informal opening of the Base mainnet, to the birth of the first on-chain token, to the FOMO of funds pouring into Memecoin. Through the community and social influence, they gradually attracted user attention and injection. The funds were transferred to the Base network, ultimately resulting in a massive increase for players in less than 1 day. If it were just ordinary official marketing words that flooded L2, for a network with almost no airdrop expectations, it would be difficult to birth such a loved and hated Memecoin, and it would also be difficult to bring such huge traffic to the network launch.
(2) Build super applications for the Internet
Although Friend Tech’s model of high fees and value growth curves is criticized, it is still undeniable that Friend Tech has created a unique social track, turning the social data owned by users into tradable social assets. With the support of the new model, friend tech has attracted investment from paradigmm, which is good at betting on the innovative branch track, thus further attracting social influencers, celebrities, etc., and coupled with the role it learned from Blur, another investment from paradigmm, it has The points incentive system for potential airdrops and the continuous improvement of functions form a sustainable positive growth of the application, which ultimately benefits the Base network itself. With the super app, Base has shifted users' pursuit of airdrops from the Internet to online applications, achieving a win-win situation for all three parties.
And the relationship between friend tech and Base seems to be no accident. As early as the social application Stealcam built by the founder of friend tech, Racer, was launched in March this year, it received high praise from Jesse Pollak, the chief core developer of Base, on social media. This may be the success of friend tech on the Base network. The birth was foreshadowed.
(3) From the battle of public chains to the cooperation of public chains
There seems to be a significant competitive relationship between most public chains, such as the orthodoxy dispute between EVM chains and non-EVM chains, the expansion road dispute between rollups and Validiums and Optimiums, and the L2 dispute between Arbitrum and Optimism. The battle for the leading position, etc.
Different from various public chains with the halo of luxury VC and huge financing, Base has a much lower profile. The cooperation with the Optimism ecosystem breaks the "hostile" prejudice between L2 and absorbs the Fork from Optimism's largest DEX to become Base is the largest TVL protocol, pioneering revenue sharing to Optimism and extensive participation in governance. The cooperation between Base and Optimism may bring more 1+1>2 effects in the future.
(The above content is excerpted and reprinted with the authorization of partner MarsBit, original text link | Source: Wu Shuo Real)
Statement: The article only represents the author's personal views and opinions, and does not represent the objective views and positions of the blockchain. All contents and opinions are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Investors should make their own decisions and transactions, and the author and Blockchain Client will not be held responsible for any direct or indirect losses caused by investors' transactions.
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