Best Projects Built on Base Chain in 2024

Key Takeaways:

• Base, an Ethereum scaling solution developed by Coinbase, will be one of the fastest-growing Layer-2 networks in 2024.
• Popular projects on Base include Friend.tech, Farcaster, and Moonwell.
• Base does not have a native token, but investors can gain exposure through Coinbase’s $COIN stock.

Layer 2 blockchain is revolutionizing cryptocurrency, improves the scalability and performance of L1s such as Ethereum. Among L2 blockchains, Base is leading the pack with its low cost and rapid growth.

(Plus, being launched on Coinbase doesn’t hurt either.)

Base aims to increase the scalability of Ethereum, reduce transaction costs, and improve user and developer experience across decentralized applications (dApps).

Coinbase’s stated goals for Base are: Bringing the next billion users on-chain.

In our new guide, we examine the major projects currently being built on Base to find interesting investment opportunities. (And since there is no BASE token, the underlying investment opportunity is the $COIN stock itself.)

What is a base?

Base is a decentralized scaling solution for Ethereum.

It was developed by Coinbase, which operates the largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange in North America. Coinbase is a publicly traded company listed on Nasdaq under the symbol $COIN.

Although developed by a corporate entity, Base remains is a decentralized network with no involvement from Coinbase. Base consolidates Ethereum transactions into batches and settles them separately before recording the batches to the chain. This is much faster and cheaper than recording each transaction separately.

Growth and User Adoption

Launched in August 2023, Base is one of the fastest-growing L2s, driven by surging demand for Ethereum scaling solutions.

While L2 competition intensifies, Base has attracted users by offering developer-friendly tools and integrating with Coinbase’s large user base.

In March and April 2024, Base was often the L2 with the highest number of daily active users. However, as of this writing, Arbitrum has lost that position.

According to data from Token Terminal, the number of daily active users on Base has surpassed 350,000 since the end of March 2024. Some of Base’s most popular use cases are memecoins, decentralized finance (DeFi), and social dApps.

Base is gaining popularity in DeFi, with total value locked (TVL) increasing from $437 million in early 2024 to over $1.6 billion at the end of April. The top two DeFi apps on TVL are decentralized exchanges Aerodrome and Uniswap. This can be explained by the surge in popularity of memecoins on Base, which has been driving trading activity on DEXs.

Daily transactions on L2 surged from less than 500,000 in March 2024 to more than 3 million the following month.

One of the main drivers of the surge in activity in Base and other L2s was Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade. This upgrade allows L2 to store data more efficiently, reducing transaction fees by up to 95%.

Base does not use a default token. Instead, gas costs depend on Ethereum. The network’s revenue from fees peaked at more than $2.3 million in late March.

Top projects in the basic ecosystem

Base prioritizes community engagement and positions itself as a blockchain network for people. Due to Base’s performance, scaling capabilities, and Coinbase’s large user base, many social dApps and DeFi protocols are being built on top of Base. Let’s take a look at some of the major projects currently being built on Base.

Farcaster is an Ethereum-based social dApp ecosystem. It provides an infrastructure for censorship-resistant social apps where users can discuss a variety of topics.

Farcaster was founded in 2020 by former Coinbase employees Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan. Its flagship product is Warpcast, a Twitter-like app that allows users to post “casts,” follow other users, and like or “recast” posts.

Farcaster is recently linked to Degen, Memecoin, which has served as the platform’s native token since its launch in 2023. Degen is an ERC-20 token from Base, but is migrating to a proprietary Layer-3 chain that still relies on the ERC-20 chain. It is based on Layer-2 infrastructure. Base is by far the most popular chain among Farcaster users.

Friend.tech is a decentralized social dApp that allows creators to monetize their influence and connect with their followers in a personalized way.

The Web3 app has attracted the attention of several cryptocurrency influencers and NBA players since its launch in 2023. Social dApps were more successful towards the end of 2023, but began to recover in the second quarter of 2024.

Moonwell is Base’s most popular DeFi lending app. As of this writing, TVL is approximately $97 million, of which $69 million is in Base and the remainder is in Moonbeam.

The most popular markets on Moonwell are stablecoins, Ethereum, and liquid staking tokens. Moonwell activity continues to gain traction in the second quarter of 2024.

Seamless Protocol is the first DeFi lending protocol built into Base. SEAM, a governance token, operates a protocol that functions similarly to Aave and Compound.

SeamlessFi’s TVL has declined by more than 70% since its peak in December 2023, but the number of active users continues to grow.

Echelon Prime is a Web3 gaming ecosystem that allows games to leverage blockchain capabilities. The platform creates tools to encourage the adoption of decentralized gaming and blockchain-based economies. Echelon’s token, PRIME, utilizes the Base network. PRIME has a market capitalization of over $640 million.

Grand Base is the first decentralized marketplace for synthetic real assets (RWA). This will give investors exposure to tokenized RWA. For example, users can trade tokenized versions of Amazon stock for ERC-20 tokens.

Base’s future prospects

At the time of this writing, Base has been released for less than a year, but has already emerged as the leading blockchain scaling solution, beating out more popular L2s such as Polygon and OP.

Thanks to Coinbase’s support, the L2 network attracted more users. Base plans to help strengthen its leading role among L2s by further expanding decentralization and improving interoperability with other chains.

Although Base does not have a native token, investors can gain exposure to the growing ecosystem through Coinbase’s $COIN shares.

Investor Implications

Base represents a significant technological advancement in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. This improves Ethereum’s scalability, reduces transaction costs, and improves user and developer experience.

Rollup technology allows Base to process transactions efficiently, attracting more users to the network, reflecting its rapid growth and TVL surging to over $1.6 billion.

Base has significant potential for investors as it continues to expand its dApp ecosystem, especially in DeFi and social platforms. Although Base itself does not have a native token, investment opportunities may arise through related projects and Coinbase’s stock, $COIN, indirectly exposes it to its success.

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