The Base phenomenon: how an L2 without a token beat networks with billion-dollar giveaways

Base - Coinbase's L2 on the Optimism stack - has become one of the liveliest networks in the Ethereum ecosystem by users and transactions. And Base has no token, which makes it the sector's unique experiment.

Why no token turned out better

First, the audience. Bridges from the Coinbase app feed the network tens of millions of retail users with no drop farming: people come to use it, not to grind activities for a giveaway. Second, no unlocks: no one pressures the price, no disappointed farmers, no "dead" capital waiting for a TGE. Third, regulation: for a public company a token is a risk, while a sequencer earning revenue in ETH is not.

What this says about the sector

Base proved the inconvenient: a token is not needed for L2 growth. Activity comes from products (memecoins, social fintech, payments), not the promise of a giveaway. For holders of other L2 tokens this is a bearish signal: if a network can thrive without a token, then the token is not a share of the network but a marketing instrument with unlock pressure.

We track Base degen activity - from memes to social tokens - in the degen chronicle.