The seven breakthroughs of Base

Author: Zhou Zhou, Foresight News

Throughout 2024, two blockchain ecosystems have stood out: one is Solana, and the other is Base.

Although it has been less than a year and a half since its inception, Base has already experienced seven breakout moments, becoming the strongest L2 on Ethereum. At two significant points in 2024 (the approval of the Bitcoin spot ETF and Trump's election as the new president), it did not miss any opportunity to break out and expand the length and breadth of the crypto industry.

Since February of last year, I have continuously been optimistic about Base, from Degen (up to 50x), Clanker (up to 70x) to Virtuals (multiple interviews with founder Wee Kee)… except for not participating in friend.tech, I have almost not missed any important breakout events of Base, witnessing its rise to become the second most active blockchain innovation ecosystem in the crypto world.

History reflects the future, and for this reason, I have compiled the seven breakout moments of Base.

First Breakout: friend.tech Rakes in $54 Million

Although friend.tech ultimately failed, it became the first step for Base to step onto the crypto stage.

The emergence of friend.tech in August 2023 marked Base's first breakout. This breakout attracted a large number of practitioners and well-known KOLs, allowing many people to see Base for the first time. In its first month, friend.tech's revenue exceeded $2 million, with net deposits surpassing $33 million.

From August 2023 to May 2024, friend.tech's protocol revenue reached 17,056.5 ETH (approximately $54.647 million at the time), a figure that even surpassed most L2 protocol revenues, with a total user count reaching 909,861 unique addresses.

However, after May, friend.tech took a sharp downturn. Co-founder Racer posted on social media, hinting at the intention to migrate the friend.tech protocol away from the Base platform, which immediately led to a significant drop in the price of the protocol's native token, FRIEND. On the day of the announcement, the price of FRIEND fell to $1.01, with a 24-hour drop of 32.2%. Racer stated that friend.tech was marginalized and isolated within the Base community, labeled as "negative speculation."

This tense relationship led friend.tech to seek alternative paths. However, its development thereafter faltered. At its peak, just two weeks after its launch on August 10, 2023, the platform had over 100,000 users; by July 2024, daily users had dropped to less than 100.

Second Breakout: Farcaster Users Surge by 200,000 in a Month, Degen Token Soars by Thousands of Times

Although friend.tech failed, another social product on Base—Farcaster—began its rise.

In February 2024, Farcaster exploded in popularity, reaching 200,000 users that month, marking Base's second breakout. According to Farcaster founder Dan Romero, the daily active users reached 85,000 in April.

Subsequently, Farcaster steadily grew, reaching 350,000 users in May; 500,000 users in June; and 600,000 users in August (the actual daily active user count should be between 4,000 and 50,000)… By January 24, 2025, Farcaster's total user count reached nearly 800,000, with protocol revenue hitting $2.53 million. Although Farcaster's daily active users fluctuated significantly over time, it continued to accumulate more users, waiting for the next opportunity to arise.

Farcaster itself experienced two notable breakout moments, the first being between February and April 2024, when the Degen token soared by thousands of times, with FDV reaching nearly $1 billion. This left a deep impression on many traders regarding the Farcaster ecosystem.

However, at the end of April, the cryptocurrency market began to peak and plummet, and the Degen token also suffered significant losses. Farcaster's rapid growth halted, entering a period of adjustment.

Third Breakout: Three $1 Billion Tokens Emerge, Becoming the New Public Chain's Biggest "Dark Horse"

From March to April 2024, Solana led the meme wave in the entire crypto market. During this wave, Base became the largest public chain to attract massive amounts of capital from Solana.

During this period, Base saw the emergence of billion-dollar market cap tokens like Aero, Brett, and Degen, successfully capturing the overflow of funds from the Solana meme frenzy. At the same time, it surpassed Blast in TVL, becoming the third-largest L2 on Ethereum, following Arbitrum and OP.

During this time, Base not only became the "second-largest meme hub" after Solana but also the third-largest L2, becoming the biggest dark horse in the crypto world in just six months.

Fourth Breakout: Surpassing Arbitrum, Becoming Ethereum's Largest L2

In August 2024, Base surpassed Arbitrum, becoming the true largest L2 on Ethereum.

According to my statistics, from August 2023 to August 2024, Base's total protocol revenue reached $70 million; Arbitrum's protocol revenue was $60 million, and OP's protocol revenue was $30 million; Scroll had $40 million; and ZKSync had $45 million.

Moreover, whether in terms of on-chain revenue, transaction volume, or the number of active addresses, Base far exceeded other L2s, becoming the de facto largest L2 on Ethereum, marking Base's fourth breakout.

Fifth Breakout: Base Launches cbBTC, Attracting $2.4 Billion in Capital Inflow

In September 2024, Base launched cbBTC, backed by Coinbase's over $60 billion Bitcoin reserves, achieving a TVL of $170 million within a week, competing with WBTC for market share, marking its fifth breakout.

As of January 22, 2025, cbBTC's market size reached $2.4 billion, with 200,000 holders. This number continues to grow rapidly. Currently, WBTC's market share is around $13 billion, while cbBTC is quickly approaching this figure.

Sixth Breakout: Clanker Ecosystem Rises, Three $50 Million Tokens Emerge

In November 2024, the Clanker ecosystem rose, with three meme coins—LUM, ANON, and Clanker—each reaching $50 million. Once again, it captured the largest overflow of funds outside Solana, gradually forming Base's application-oriented meme culture, marking Base's sixth breakout.

However, as the narrative of AI Agents further developed, funds on Base gradually flowed from the Clanker ecosystem to the Virtuals ecosystem. The liquidity on Base was insufficient to support two large ecosystems, leading to a gradual decline of the Clanker ecosystem tokens.

Seventh Breakout: AI Agent Wave, Base Competes with Solana for the First Time

The Virtuals ecosystem rose, supporting five $100 million AI Agent tokens. At the same time, Solana also had five AI Agent tokens exceeding $100 million.

In previous competitions, Base was always in the "eternal second" position, surpassing many public chains but never able to match Solana's massive capital. However, in this round of AI Agent narratives, Base finally stood at the same height as Solana.

In January 2025, as the market cap of Virtuals tokens briefly reached $5 billion, the Base ecosystem saw five AI Agent tokens exceeding $100 million, including aixbt and others, which still have market caps exceeding $500 million. Base achieved parity with Solana, marking Base's seventh breakout.

Conclusion

Base has been established for less than a year and a half, yet it has repeatedly surpassed other established public chains, first Blast, then OP, and now Arbitrum, and even Solana. In this wave of AI Agents, Base has even shown momentum comparable to Solana.

Although Base still has a way to go in terms of liquidity compared to Solana, the peak market cap of $5 billion for Virtuals has once again demonstrated that Base has successfully increased the liquidity ceiling of its leading projects.

In these seven breakout moments, Base effectively captured the massive influx of capital following the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024 and the flood of funds after Trump's election as the new president in November 2024. This led to the emergence of numerous tokens with market caps exceeding $100 million, such as Degen, Aero, Brett, Moonwell, Clanker, Virtual, AIXBT, and Luna, making Base the public chain with the most opportunities after Solana. It can be expected that this will not be Base's last breakout, and more breakout products will emerge in 2025.