GM DOers! 😎
Let’s begin by congratulating Ethereum on its 8-year anniversary. 🥳
What an achievement – in only 8 years, Ethereum has managed to…
… and has become somewhat deflationary – aka there’s less and less Ethereum on the market every day – a trend which will only intensify in the bull market. 🚀
Ethereum is ultra sound money and en-route to become the settlement layer of the internet. 🌐
That’s been made clear in only its first 8 years… Can’t wait to see what’ll happen in the next 8. 👀
Share your congrats with Ethereum by replying to this email with a GM and we’ll pass your GMs over to Vitalik ASAP. 😏
But let’s get to today’s topic 👉 Coinbase’s Layer 2: BASE! 🔵
Because what else could we write about rather than an Ethereum L2, a day after Ethereum’s anniversary? 🤷
Read more about Ethereum scaling & L2s in our PRO report here.
Now… Base has recently opened its mainnet to developers and it managed to draw attention due to 2 reasons:
Altcoins are pumping by tens of thousands of % 🤯
There’s rumors that you can only bridge TO and NOT from Base 😨
We’ll tackle all of this and more today. But first, a recap on BASE. 👇
👉 Lens Protocol: The Future of Social Media
Decentralized social media finally allows creators to own their content, data and followers. That’s why we choose to build part of our media platform on Lens Protocol.
What Is Coinbase’s BASE? 🔵
Introduced on February 23rd, Base is meant to be “an Ethereum L2 that offers a secure, low-cost, developer-friendly way for anyone, anywhere, to build decentralized apps.”
Their goal: To scale Ethereum to a point where it can support the future 1 Billion+ web3 users. 🚀
Upon launch, Base chose to build using the Optimism (another Layer 2) stack. Essentially, Coinbase copy/pasted the Optimism code and made its own Layer 2. 🤔
And guess what!?
It wasn’t only allowed (because the OP code is open source), the Optimism team insisted and helped Coinbase launch its L2. 🤯
Can only happen in web3. 😅
Regardless, fast forward to July 13th, and Base announced that they’re launching their mainnet to developers to come and build. ⚒️
Their goal was to attract devs who can not only build on Base but also share their feedback, so Base can optimize its chain to be ready for when they officially launch for the public in early August. 🔜
We’ll tell you what the opportunity is in regards to Base, but first let’s talk about what happened in the 2 weeks that Base has been open to devs. ⏬
Why We Need 1 Million Layer 2s
Base is just one of many Ethereum Layer 2s. ⛓️
We believe that in order for Ethereum to accommodate the billions of web3 users, there needs to be millions of layer 2s.
See our reasoning behind this claim in our podcast. 👇
Meteoric Altcoin Rises ☄️ & Bridging FUD 😨
Check this out…
XPEPE, BASED, LADYS, SHIT, BEAN, BRIAN, BOT – only a few examples of memecoins that have seen INSANE growth on Base. 🤦
This industry is twisted – in the last 24h (at the time of this writing), LeetSwap, the main DEX on Base saw a volume of $236M. 🤯
That’s a third of Uniswap’s $688M in the last 24h – but keep in mind that Uniswap supports a variety of chains. 🫠
And also remember that Base is only open for developers, which means that it’s not super easy for everyone to bridge to Base and start trading shitcoins…
Despite the hurdles, Base has become the new crypto casino – and this was expected.
Whenever there’s a new shiny thing, people tend to FOMO into it. We saw it most recently with Threads (Meta’s Twitter), which hit 100M users in its first few days.
The hype dried out just as quickly (there are only a few million active users on Threads today) and the same will happen for Base.
At some point (most likely very soon), the memecoin hype will die on Base and people will get caught up in the hype, losing very valuable $ETH.
Don’t let that be you!
At the time of this writing, 35,339 ETH (a cool $66M) has hopped over to Base, with most of it sinking into memecoins. 😬
Not ideal. Especially considering the fact that there’s FUD regarding the Base bridging.
Rumor has it that once you go Base, you can't go back – meaning that once assets flow into Base, they can't be bridged back.
But this is untrue!
Jesse Pollak (Head at Base) clarified this by saying that there’s no UI for bridging your assets back right now, because Base is focused on developers, not on bridging users back and forth.
The ability to seamlessly bridge back and forth will be available within the first couple of weeks of August.
I don’t think they expected such a level of degeneracy to happen on their chain this early on. 😅
Anyway, here’s a thread that’ll help you bridge your assets back to Ethereum.
Now that FUD is out of the way, and you’re caught up on the trending shitcoins on Base, let’s talk about how YOU can capitalize on the Base opportunity. 👇
🤝 Thanks to our trusted partner, Whag.
Web3 users lose billions of dollars every year due to phishing attacks. Luckily, Whag uses verifiable links so you can rest easy, knowing that every link you click on is safe.
Just click below to see for yourself. The first 1000 users that sign up and use the code “free1000” get free access FOR LIFE.
PRO Advice For Builders 🧰 and Investors 💰
The takeaway should be clear: Don’t get caught up in the hype cycle. With every new, shiny thing, it tends to only last so long until people get rekt. 💥
Don’t let that be you. Let’s get into the specifics of how you can both stay safe and capitalize on the opportunity. ⏬
As always, the following section is exclusive to our PRO members.
Builders
If you’re a developer, builder or entrepreneur in web3, you NEED to be on Base.
Not to launch shitcoins, but to build valuable products. Having the first mover advantage is always huge and this time, it’s no different.
So start by bridging over some assets to Base, and start exploring the ecosystem.
Which DEXs are around? Which NFT marketplaces are being built? Which communities are active on Base?
You’ll notice very fast the things that are missing in the ecosystem, and you’ll be ready to start building the apps and infrastructure that’s needed.
Alpha: If you don’t know what’s missing, go over on Arbitrum, Polygon and Optimism. See what’s available there and yet to be live on Base, and start building!!!
Plus, by being early, you get to share your feedback with the Base team. You have direct access to this industry’s brightest minds.
In a few years, that will be fantasy so capitalize on the ability to network right away.
Investors
Crypto (especially memecoins) is still a person-vs-person market. Unless you’re investing in $ETH and $BTC, you’re essentially competing against other degen players out there.
It’s a game of who’s the first in and the first out. And the lower the market cap of the token you’re investing in, the more true this is.
On top of that, there’s not much retail money coming in right now. So when it comes to memecoin investing, it’s just you vs another few hundred degens. It’s pure gambling.
Now… If you participate in this kind of trading, you might get lucky and catch a big payday. But 90%+ of the time, you’ll lose money, especially if you don’t have a large capital base.
With that said, we think you should be careful when it comes to investing in tokens on Base – most of them are pure scams for now.
Instead, allocate your capital towards the Coinbase stock ($COIN) and $ETH – these 2 are the ONLY winners from the current degen activity happening on Base.
As Base matures, there’ll be very valuable and legit businesses building on top of it. But this just isn’t the case today.
Thanks for reading. And remember, you're strong, you’re powerful, you’re alpha! ❤️
See you soon. ✌️
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and not financial advice. Conduct your own research and consult a financial advisor before making investment decisions or taking any action based on the content.
