Restructuring On-Chain Narratives: What New Story Is the Base Ecosystem Telling?
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Restructuring On-Chain Narratives: What New Story Is the Base Ecosystem Telling?
Base is gradually evolving from a "transactionally active" L2 network into a structurally complete on-chain financial and content infrastructure.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy BitMart Research
1. Recent Ecosystem Developments on Base
Since late May 2025, Base has entered a clear period of ecosystem "expansion." Key metrics including daily active addresses, total value locked (TVL), and daily transaction counts have risen sharply. The recent surge in Base’s ecosystem activity is primarily driven by multiple trending narratives that have captured significant market attention. Additionally, from a macro perspective, Circle's public listing has boosted investor optimism around stablecoins in global financial markets—especially amid improving regulatory prospects—potentially making Base a preferred choice for traditional institutions.
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Growing Active Users: The number of active addresses has grown exponentially, recently reaching a record high of 3.6 million.
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Rapid TVL Growth: Base’s total value locked surged from $2.8 billion in May to nearly $4 billion at its peak, returning to the highest level seen during the 2024 bull market.
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Active On-Chain Transactions: Since May, average daily transactions have approached 9 million, matching the highs of the 2024 bull run.
2. Recently Popular Projects on Base
1. Virtual: Pumpfun + Bn Alpha Launchpad Model Ignites Market Frenzy
Among various trending projects on Base, Virtual stands out as one of the most watched in recent months. Its innovative launchpad mechanism quickly attracted substantial capital and user participation, becoming a flagship representative of the new project launch narrative on Base. VIRTUAL’s price rose from $0.5 in mid-April to a peak of $2.5 in early June—a 400% increase. The core advantages of Virtual’s launchpad model include:
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Extremely Low Fundraising Valuation: Each new project raises funds at a valuation of 42,425 VIRTUAL tokens (~$224,000), enabling users to participate at very low prices with massive potential returns upon listing.
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Linear Token Unlocking: Unlike MEME coins on PumpFun, projects launched via Virtual do not unlock all tokens immediately upon listing. Instead, they follow a transparent tokenomics model with phased vesting similar to VC allocations. To prevent team dumping, raised funds are not directly transferred to project teams but fully deposited into initial liquidity pools.
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Low Risk for Participants: If a project fails to meet fundraising goals, participants receive full refunds. With only a few projects launched per day, quality tends to be higher than typical MEMEs, significantly reducing user risk.
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Reduced Rug-Pull Incentives: Virtual charges a 1% fee, with 70% returned to the project team—an incentive structure encouraging teams to boost long-term trading activity rather than exit-scamming, creating a healthy ecosystem loop.
However, as platform popularity grew, early adopters frequently employed “launch-and-sell” strategies for quick profits, placing heavy sell pressure on new projects and undermining ecosystem stability. In response, Virtual introduced a “Green Lock” mechanism in mid-June, mandating a lock-up period for launch participants. During this period, users cannot sell their allocated tokens; violations result in suspension of point accumulation. While this measure helps curb early dumping and extends project lifecycles, it also fundamentally shifts the speculative dynamics. Users now face longer profit cycles and reduced capital efficiency, leading to a temporary cooling of market enthusiasm. Virtual’s price entered a downtrend after mid-June, falling from its peak to $1.69—a decline of over 37%.
2. Kaito: Leader in the Attention-Based Narrative
Kaito leads the "InfoFi" (Information Finance) sector. Since May, its price has climbed from $0.79 to a high of $2.41—an increase of nearly 205%. A key innovation lies in its Yaps module, which tokenizes user-generated content on X (formerly Twitter), incentivizing high-quality posts about trending projects like Berachain, Monad, and Initia. This creates a Web3-native, content-driven influence mechanism that greatly boosts community engagement. Combined with weekly airdrops and leaderboard rewards, Kaito enables users to both "speak up" and "earn," attracting numerous content creators and influencers, thereby fueling growth in social and narrative-based content across Base.
Additionally, Kaito launched the Yapper Launchpad system based on积分 rankings and Kaito Connect—an AI-powered information network—creating a closed-loop integrating content contribution, point distribution, and project curation. Users can earn airdrop eligibility and governance rights through Yaps, participate in voting for project leaderboards, and be rewarded for quality content—establishing a unique “create-to-invest” model. Kaito Connect further democratizes access to InfoFi by allowing ordinary users to earn fair compensation for their information contributions. By anchoring value in content, this model introduces a fresh narrative distinct from traditional DeFi, opening new possibilities at the intersection of social interaction and finance within the Base ecosystem.
3. Coinbase and Base: Future Development Trends
In June 2025, the U.S. Senate passed the GENIUS stablecoin bill, establishing a legislative framework for dollar-backed stablecoins. This marks the first time regulators have legally recognized the compliance status of digital assets. Against this backdrop, Coinbase—the compliant U.S. exchange—is advancing three strategic initiatives. First, leveraging Base to connect Coinbase accounts with on-chain assets, positioning it as a regulated gateway to blockchain activities. Second, collaborating with traditional financial institutions to issue compliant stablecoins on Base, facilitating institutional capital inflow onto the blockchain. Third, building diverse use cases on Base—including tokenized stocks, compliant payments, DeFi, and AI Agents—to attract mainstream capital.
Step One: Opening Compliant Asset On-Ramps — Integrating Coinbase Balances with Base
Coinbase is deepening integration between its centralized platform and Base. It has launched the "Verified Pools" feature, allowing KYC-verified users to interact directly with Base-based DApps using their Coinbase account balances—eliminating the need for wallet switching or on-chain transfers. Uniswap and Aerodrome have been announced as the initial DEX partners. Though still in early stages, this aligns closely with broader industry trends toward merging on-chain and off-chain experiences.
Step Two: Building a Compliant Stablecoin System with Traditional Financial Institutions — Bringing Fiat Capital On-Chain
With on-ramps established, Coinbase is partnering with Wall Street giants like JPMorgan Chase to pilot “compliant stablecoins” and “deposit tokens” (e.g., JPMD) on Base. These assets are custodied by regulated banks and carry traditional financial attributes such as interest income, legal protection, and bank insurance—offering far stronger trust assumptions than typical crypto-backed stablecoins. This move signals not just the digitization of dollars, but the migration of core structures from traditional finance onto the blockchain. As a result, Base evolves into a foundational layer for institutional-grade on-chain finance.
Step Three: Building Diverse Ecosystem Use Cases — Driving Demand for On-Chain Dollars
To strengthen real-world utility for on-chain USD, Coinbase is simultaneously driving diversification across Base’s ecosystem:
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Tokenized Stock Trading: Actively seeking SEC approval to bring equities on-chain, planning to launch tokenized stock products enabling users to trade shares of Apple, Tesla, and others directly on Base—breaking geographical barriers in traditional securities markets;
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Ecosystem Collaboration with Circle: The launch of Circle Payments Network (CPN) enhances USDC’s clearing infrastructure. As one of the largest stablecoins on Base, this enables DeFi, RWA, and cross-border payment projects on Base to plug directly into global stablecoin payment rails, reinforcing Base’s role as a critical component of compliant on-chain financial infrastructure.
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Global Crypto Payments: Partnering with Shopify and Stripe to embed USDC and other stablecoins into e-commerce checkout flows, expanding practical applications of on-chain dollars in international settlements;
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Compliant DeFi and On-Chain Lending: Encouraging DeFi platforms like Aerodrome, Uniswap, and Spark to operate compliantly via KYC modules, offering auditable, secure on-chain trading and lending services for both institutions and retail investors;
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New On-Chain Experiences: AI Agents & InfoFi: Developing innovative on-chain applications to attract traditional users.
Through these three strategic moves, Coinbase is not only building a “high-speed lane” for compliant assets to enter the blockchain but also constructing a complete value cycle for on-chain dollars—from fiat onboarding, to storage and circulation, and finally to real-world application deployment.
High-Potential Projects in the Ecosystem
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Aerodrome: Benefiting from Coinbase’s plan to integrate Base-based DEXs into its main app, Aerodrome—as the ecosystem leader—stands to gain sustained institutional liquidity. This could drive further growth in trading volume, TVL, and platform revenue. Consequently, AERO token holders may enjoy increased yield distributions and staking rewards, fostering greater participation in staking and governance, forming a positive feedback loop.
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Uniswap: Similar to Aerodrome, as another DEX integrated by Coinbase, Uniswap is poised to capture additional on-chain liquidity, boosting potential revenues and enhancing the value of the UNI token.
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Keeta: A high-performance RWA blockchain boasting millions of TPS and sub-second finality. It has already passed independent stress tests verifying its performance claims and secured backing from prominent institutions, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Despite significant price corrections, its upcoming token launch on Base opens opportunities for deeper collaboration on compliant RWA integration.
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Creator Bid: Launched Version 2.0 in partnership with Kaito, introducing staking-based launchpads and other new mechanisms to boost user engagement and expand creator economy functionalities. The new model has already driven BID’s market cap above $150 million—its all-time high—demonstrating early success in driving user involvement and community momentum. Drawing parallels with early-stage performers like Virtual, Creator Bid retains strong potential for continued growth as it iterates.
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Upside: The first social-oriented prediction market on Base, allowing users to transform X/Twitter posts, articles, or videos into “content tokens” and bet on them using USDC. Currently in Season 2 testing, it has gathered around 20,000 followers on X. Though no token has been issued yet, its novel blend of social prediction and investment mechanics has drawn early adopters, positioning Upside as a promising hybrid application combining liquidity and content on Base.
Today, Base is evolving from a highly active Layer 2 network into a structurally robust on-chain financial and content infrastructure. From the innovative models of Virtual and Kaito to Coinbase-led efforts in building an on-chain dollar economy, Base faces short-term challenges including fading hype and speculative behavior. Yet from a long-term view, its sustained narrative development and growing institutional alignment suggest it could become a bridge for traditional capital entering Web3. For investors, Base is no longer merely a playground for trend-chasing—it represents a vital case study in the crypto industry’s transformation toward compliance, financialization, and real-world utility.
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