Base – the new layer-2 blockchain trading platform from Coinbase – has gotten quite big over the past few months thanks to several new meme tokens. In fact, it appears Base garnered as much as $68 million in ether over the past few weeks alone, and the network isn’t even live yet.
Coinbase Layer-2 Network Sees Heavy Revenue Jumps
The new meme currency that everyone seems so attracted to is called BALD, which was built atop the Base network. The asset really stirred a lot of attention in late July and early August, jumping in price by about four million percent. This caused more than $100 million worth of the token to be traded over a 24-hour period.
Several analysts stepped in to offer their ideas regarding why such a jump occurred. Jeff Mei – chief operating officer at crypto exchange BTSE – stated that the market has been somewhat flat as of late, and the meme token offered hope that things could potentially get back to normal and reflect what the market experienced in 2021. He said:
Each investor has their own risk appetite, and these swings in volatility do offer excellent opportunities to lock in profits as well. Clearly, meme coin culture is here to stay, as retail traders retain their influence on the crypto landscape despite recent growing interest in crypto among TradFi. That said, it’s important not to get blindsided by these FOMO rallies. Meme coins are a hyper-speculative and volatile class of crypto tokens. Generally, these coins lack practical uses compared to more established tokens like ETH.
Some – like Mikolaj Zakrzowski, a web3 analyst with analytics company Crypto Quant – offered a less-than-enthusiastic take on the matter, saying in an interview:
Most importantly, one address single-handedly bridged over $17 million worth of ether. An address ranked second bridged merely $2 million worth of ether. It appears that the rise of [the] Base blockchain is not supported by fundamentals. A single entity greatly influenced the total value locked in the Base protocol during recent days.
Base has been in development for a while, and the project is slated to bring a lot more attention, revenue, and good spirit to a company (Coinbase) that’s been down in the dumps for the past few months. While the firm isn’t suffering monetarily, it is in a legal sense given that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a suit against the exchange, claiming it had been operating as an unlicensed broker since its inception.
We Did All We Could!
The accusations caused Coinbase executives to gawk in shock, as per their individual statements, they worked with members of the SEC over a nine-year period to ensure the company was always compliant.
In a new development, it appears the SEC requested the company delist all tokens other than BTC.