Base rode three trend waves to the top of Ethereum’s layer-2 rankings. Now it’s consolidating power.
The base layer 2 is transitioning to a unified, internally maintained stack—the biggest architectural shift since launch. After debuting in 2023 as a rollup built on Optimism’s OP Stack, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer 2 is pulling software in-house. That unlocks faster upgrades. Greater autonomy over the technical roadmap. Full control.
Three years since testnet launch. Three defining trend cycles. One clear outcome: Base leads Ethereum layer 2s in users, transactions, fees and total value locked, per Nansen and DefiLlama data.
Here’s how the base layer 2 got there.
**Friend.tech Kicked Off ‘Onchain Summer’**
Base’s mainnet opened to builders in July 2023. Users followed in August during “Onchain Summer.” First week brought 700,000 new users and $242 million in inflows.
Friend.tech headlined the festival. The social app let users buy and sell access to their connections. Crypto Twitter’s loudest voices tested the toy. Rich and famous outsiders joined.
Less than two weeks after launch, Friend.tech generated over $1 million in daily fees. That surpassed Bitcoin at the time.
It crashed hard. By end of August, fees and transaction volume tanked. The platform got declared “dead.” A little over a year later, the team ditched admin rights to the smart contracts. Total abandonment.
But Friend.tech proved something: Base could onboard users fast when the right app hit.
**Memecoin Wave Brought Fresh Liquidity**
The memecoin frenzy became a defining crypto story. Political figures launched tokens. Public personalities followed. Eventually, the SEC stated such tokens fall outside securities laws scope.
Solana owned memecoins. Data shows the boom gaining momentum in late 2023 when daily active addresses began climbing toward Ethereum’s levels. March 2024: Solana decisively surpassed Ethereum on that metric.
Base users showed post-Friend.tech signs of life around the same time.
March 19-25, 2024: Cointelegraph Magazine found more than 380,000 ERC-20 tokens deployed on Base. That activity brought fresh liquidity into Base’s DeFi ecosystem.
June 2024: Base flipped Ethereum in active addresses. Held that lead until December 2025.
Memecoins brought degens. Degens brought volume. Volume brought legitimacy.
**AI Agents Claimed the Driver’s Seat**
Second half of 2024, AI agents took over. Early experiments launched on Solana—Goatseus Maximus, ai16z, Truth Terminal. Developers built agent-linked tokens, autonomous trading bots, social accounts that presented as autonomous onchain actors.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong argued that “crypto provides a natural financial rail for AI systems, as agents lack the legal identity required to open traditional bank accounts.”
On Base, focus shifted to AI agents holding balances, tipping users, interacting directly with smart contracts.
October 2024: Coinbase introduced “Based Agents,” a toolkit that allowed users to build AI agents equipped with crypto wallets.
Most visible experiment: Virtuals Protocol. Users could create agents tied to tokens and onchain addresses. One Virtuals agent, Luna, became the first on Base to autonomously execute onchain tips.
Virtuals expanded to Solana in January 2025 to tap larger retail base. Activity across AI-agent tokens soon slowed. Virtuals cooled with it.
Another trend peaked and faded. Base kept the users.
**SocialFi Returned in Different Form**
2023 had Friend.tech. 2025 brought SocialFi back through deeper integration with Coinbase’s consumer ecosystem.
The push tied to Coinbase’s “super app” ambitions. Super apps support messaging, digital banking, ride sharing, food delivery. WeChat in China serves more than 1 billion users. South Korea’s KakaoTalk and Japan’s Line do similar work. X and Meta explored similar models.
July 2025: Coinbase rebranded its wallet as the Base App. The base layer 2 became the default execution layer within Coinbase’s wallet ecosystem.
Center of this phase: Farcaster, a decentralized social network where accounts link to crypto addresses. Posts, tips, token launches connected directly to onchain activity.
Zora, which enables creators to mint and distribute tokenized content, saw bursts of activity in mid-2025. That contributed to measurable spikes in Base transactions and token launches. Tokens got promoted on Farcaster.
This SocialFi wave lasted longer than Friend.tech. Interest still faded after initial hype.
Feb. 9, 2026: Coinbase announced it would sunset its Creator Rewards program and Farcaster-powered social feeds. The change doesn’t directly affect Zora users, though activity there also cooled from peak.
**Distribution Power Drives Layer-2 Dominance**
Base showcased the distribution power of the largest US exchange. Similar to how Binance influences BNB Chain’s user activity.
Key difference: Binance attempted to distance itself from the blockchain it founded by giving it its own brand. Coinbase kept Base close to its orbit.
The base layer 2 rode tides of emerging trends—memecoins, AI agents, creator economies, SocialFi applications. Those trends came and went. They pushed Base to the top anyway.
Base now leads Ethereum layer 2s across key metrics: users, transactions, fees, total value locked. Data from Nansen and DefiLlama confirms the dominance.
Trends onboarded users. Distribution brought scale. Coinbase’s infrastructure provided the foundation.
**What the Unified Stack Means**
Base is consolidating its foundation through the unified stack transition. The shift moves away from Optimism’s OP Stack toward fully in-house software maintenance.
That means faster upgrades without waiting on external dependencies. Greater autonomy over technical roadmap decisions. Full control over the base layer 2’s evolution.
Question is whether the unified stack cements Base’s lead or merely bookends its first growth era. Next three years will answer that as Ethereum’s focus shifts from layer 2s back to scaling the main chain.
Base caught three trend waves at the right time. Now it’s building the infrastructure to create its own.
For now, the base layer 2 sits on top of the Ethereum layer-2 ladder. The unified stack determines whether it stays there.
