Integrating from Base APP to Potential Native Token Issuance: A Quick Overview of Core Projects in the Base Ecosystem

Author: @BlazingKevin_, the Researcher at Movemaker

Base App is no longer a traditional on-chain wallet; it has been reshaped into a comprehensive digital ecosystem platform that integrates asset management, content creation, social interaction, and trading functions. Since its rebranding from Coinbase Wallet in mid-July 2025, Base App is accelerating its strategic transformation into a Web3 "super app" or "integrated application," seamlessly integrating social, payment, trading, and decentralized application functionalities into a unified platform.

This transformation is a key step for Coinbase in driving mass user adoption of the Web3 ecosystem. Base set a historical record of 3.5 million daily active users in July 2025, a growth primarily attributed to incentive activities like Onchain Summer and the rapid proliferation of dApps within the ecosystem. As the core entry point into the Base ecosystem, the user activity of Base App is closely related to the surge in on-chain data.

In terms of application experience and ecosystem development, the updates to Base App are equally remarkable. At the "BaseCamp 2025" conference, the team publicly announced that they are exploring the issuance of a native token for the Base network, which could be an important part of incentivizing ecosystem creators and developers.

At the same time, the Base team announced an open-source cross-chain bridge project connecting Base and Solana to facilitate cross-chain transfers of assets and liquidity, further expanding the asset interoperability for Base App users, transforming Base App from "a wallet" into a multifunctional platform.

Since its rebranding, Base App has made substantial progress in integrating rich on-chain functionalities: mini apps are directly embedded in users' dynamic feeds, allowing them to experience the Remix gaming platform, Noice content tipping, and Decentralized Pictures' new collaborative film creation model without switching tools; users can buy and sell millions of crypto assets, use NFC payment for free USDC transfers with near-instant settlement, and even earn up to 4.1% annualized rewards just by holding USDC, maximizing fund utilization.

Meanwhile, Base App deeply integrates social experiences with financial activities. Based on Farcaster, users can directly view their friends' on-chain transaction dynamics in their feeds and complete token exchanges within the same interface, achieving a new interaction model of "social equals finance." Users can freely set up their social profiles, create and manage communities, and achieve efficient collaboration through built-in group chat and content sharing features, all operations are completed within the app without the need to switch, significantly improving community interaction efficiency. The embedded AI Agent further integrates financial operations like trading, remittances, and portfolio optimization directly into the chat experience, allowing users to make financial decisions instantly within conversations. The USDC transfer function in the chat interface further lowers the payment threshold, enabling free transfers to arrive within seconds, making digital currency payments as natural as sending messages.

Base App's moves in the payment sector are also noteworthy, with its "Base Pay" system already integrated with e-commerce platforms like Shopify, simplifying the crypto payment process. Meanwhile, the introduction of the "Base account" as a universal identity credential reduces the complexity for users switching between different dApps, paving the way for a smoother ecosystem experience. The developer tool "Base Build" provides strong support for building and promoting mini apps, enriching the application ecosystem within the app and further solidifying Base App's position as an ecosystem hub. Since the beta release in July, over $500,000 in creator earnings have been paid through Base App, with more than 50% of posting users earning income, indicating that its built-in social and content monetization features have begun to play a substantial role, showcasing early vitality in the creator economy.

This strategic upgrade from a wallet to a comprehensive platform is clearly an important attempt by Coinbase to learn from the successful models of super apps like WeChat. By simplifying complex blockchain interactions (such as trading, payments, and identity management) and integrating them with familiar social features, Base App aims to significantly lower the entry barrier for ordinary users into the Web3 world. Based on the current activity levels of the Base chain and the performance of the creator economy, this strategic direction has already shown potential. Looking ahead, whether Base App can truly become a super app leading the next wave of Web3 user adoption, thanks to its continuously improving ecosystem, the pace of new feature launches, and the potential issuance of a native token, will be a focal point of high interest for the entire industry.

After understanding the strategic transformation and functional layout of Base App, to truly grasp its future potential, it is clearly not enough to focus solely on the product itself; it is more crucial to gain insight into the capital distribution and growth dynamics of the entire Base ecosystem. After all, the vitality of a public chain depends not only on the usability of its entry applications but also on which projects within its ecosystem are attracting funds, users, and developers.

The surge in user activity on the Base blockchain over the past few months is certainly eye-catching, but the key factor determining the competitive strength of the Base network lies in which sectors and protocols this traffic ultimately settles into. Whether it is DeFi protocols, social dApps, gaming applications, or infrastructure tools, their market capitalization, liquidity, and innovation directions directly affect whether Base App can continue to retain users as a "super app" and support the value anchoring of its potential native token.

Therefore, we will take a look at 20 noteworthy projects within the Base ecosystem, analyzing their market positioning and capital performance to assess the true depth of the Base ecosystem and further reveal the sources of its future growth. This is not only a supplementary observation of the transformation results of Base App but also an important reference for evaluating the future strategic direction of the entire Base network.

Aerodrome Finance

• Market Cap: $1.07 billion

• Sector: DEX, DeFi, and Lending

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Bitget, Bybit, Coinbase, Gate, and Upbit

• Brief Evaluation:

  Aerodrome plays a pivotal role in the Base ecosystem as a liquidity hub, with core trading pairs including WETH/USDC, WETH/cbBTC, and USDC/cbBTC, providing depth and efficient market matching for major assets on Base.

  Aerodrome can be seen as the culmination of DEXs. It cleverly borrows from the token economic models of Curve and Convex to manage tokens and community governance while adopting concentrated liquidity market-making similar to Uniswap V3 to enhance capital efficiency. In simple terms, it incentivizes users to provide liquidity while allowing traders to experience lower slippage, cleverly aligning the interests of all parties.

  Aerodrome is undoubtedly the absolute leader in the Base ecosystem. Its relationship with Base and Coinbase is very strong; Coinbase Ventures not only invested in it but is also actively participating in its community governance, personally voting to guide liquidity, clearly aiming to make it the "official" exchange and liquidity center of the Base chain. As the activity level of the Base ecosystem continues to rise, coupled with the potential direct integration of Base's main application with DEXs on Base, Aerodrome is almost guaranteed a steady stream of institutional liquidity and users. Data shows that its total value locked (TVL) and protocol revenue have long topped the charts on the Base chain, creating a powerful positive feedback loop. It is foreseeable that as long as Base develops, Aerodrome will be one of the biggest beneficiaries.

• Funding Situation: In February 2024, it received strategic investment from the Base ecosystem fund led by Coinbase Ventures, with specific investment amounts not disclosed.

• Team Introduction: Launched by the Velodrome team, core members include co-founders Alexander Cutler and Tao Watts. The team has extensive experience in decentralized finance.

Virtuals Protocol

• Market Cap: $840 million

• Sector: AI, Launchpad

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Binance, Bybit, MEXC, Upbit

• Brief Evaluation:

  Virtuals Protocol is a phenomenal new project platform on the Base chain, directly addressing user pain points. First, all new projects have their fundraising market caps set extremely low, allowing early participants to acquire tokens at "bargain prices," creating significant upside potential. Second, unlike many low-quality projects that are fully liquid upon launch, it adopts a linear token unlocking mechanism similar to institutional rounds and puts all raised funds into a liquidity pool, preventing project teams from dumping tokens and running away. If a project fails to raise funds, all money will be refunded to users, and with a certain level of project screening by the platform, the participation risk is relatively low.

  Virtuals quickly became the absolute core of the Base ecosystem's new project sector due to its innovative mechanism, but "success or failure can be attributed to the same factors." The early wealth effect attracted a large amount of quick money, leading to significant selling pressure on new projects upon launch. The "green lock mechanism" introduced by the official team to stabilize the ecosystem has suppressed sell-offs but has also extended the profit cycle, directly resulting in community discontent, with many speculators believing that "holding long will inevitably lead to losses," expressing dissatisfaction with the project team's operations.

  However, if we set aside the speculative noise, the fundamentals of Virtuals are quite solid. Its greatest achievement, and core value, is that it has successfully incubated several well-known AI Agent projects, which have already been integrated into Base App. This is a very bright and tangible achievement in the entire AI + Crypto sector. Although some of the team's operations linking token prices to specific behaviors are debatable, overall, the team's direction is correct. The future value of Virtuals does not depend on the emotions of short-term speculators but on whether the "AI fruits" it has incubated can ultimately mature and generate real cash flow. Therefore, for long-term investors, the current price fluctuations and negative community sentiment may be a test of patience.

• Funding Situation:

• (Pre-Seed): $1,200,000, supported by a16z Crypto Startup School (CSS).

• (Seed): $2,000,000, led by a16z CSS, Delphi Ventures, and PKO Investments, with participation from Animoca Brands, GCR, and others.

• Team Introduction: The team consists of senior professionals from the AI and gaming industries, coming from companies like Google, Unity, and Microsoft.

MORPHO

• Market Cap: $700 million

• Sector: DeFi, Lending

• Native: Multi-chain

• CEX Listings: Bitget, Bybit, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC, OKX

• Brief Evaluation:

  Morpho's initial entry point was very clever; it did not directly compete with lending giants like Aave and Compound but acted as an "optimizer" built on top of them. Through a peer-to-peer matching mechanism, it can offer users better deposit and loan rates than the giants while using these mature protocols as backup liquidity pools, allowing users to use them with confidence. Once it established a foothold, Morpho underwent a stunning transformation from an application product to a minimal, trustless lending "infrastructure." Now, anyone can freely create risk-isolated, customized independent lending markets on Morpho, like building with Legos.

  Morpho's development path is textbook-level, first "standing on the shoulders of giants" to quickly accumulate users and reputation, rapidly growing into a leading lending platform after receiving investment from a16z, and then decisively transforming into underlying infrastructure, opening up a higher ceiling. It launched on the Base chain in June 2024, marking a strong partnership and quickly becoming a crucial DeFi protocol in the Base ecosystem. Notably, it launched the first officially certified RWA vault by Coinbase on Base, a unique positioning that leaves it with almost no direct competitors in the Base ecosystem and strengthens its relationship with Coinbase, indicating significant future growth potential.

• Funding Situation: Morpho has completed multiple rounds of funding since 2021:

• October 2021: Seed round funding of $18 million, with investors including a16z, Variant Fund, Coinbase Ventures, and others.

• Mid-2022: Funding of $18 million, led by a16z and Variant Fund, with participation from Nascent, Semantic Ventures, Cherry Ventures, and others.

• August 2024: Funding of $50 million, led by Ribbit Capital, with other investors including a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Variant, Brevan Howard, Pantera, Blocktower, and others.

• Team Introduction: Headquartered in Paris, France, founded in 2021 by Paul Frambot (CEO), Merlin Egalite, and Mathis Gontier Delaunay. According to public information (Seedtable, Dealroom), the team size is between 11 and 50 people.

Keeta

• Market Cap: $450 million

• Sector: L1, RWA

• Native: Multi-chain

• CEX Listings: Kraken

• Brief Evaluation:

  Keeta is a high-performance public chain specifically designed for the RWA sector. Its core selling points are twofold: first, extreme compliance, deeply catering to the needs of traditional financial institutions through built-in KYC/AML and digital identity verification functions; second, superior performance, claiming to achieve millions of TPS and sub-second transaction confirmations, aiming to solve the efficiency bottleneck of large-scale circulation after RWA tokenization. Its team is also noteworthy, with the CEO having previously worked at a venture capital firm, and the CTO being a former core developer of the established public chain Nano, bringing rich experience.

  The Keeta project can be said to have been born with a "golden spoon," with its most dazzling halo coming from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Schmidt not only led its seed round but also personally serves as an advisor, and even a simple follow on Twitter can cause its token price to soar, demonstrating its market influence. This endorsement from a top-tier figure has allowed Keeta to capture attention from the start.

  However, the challenges are equally significant. First, its claimed millions of TPS currently remain on paper, and the market is waiting to see if it can deliver on its promises on a real mainnet. Second, no matter how bright the halo, it can only attract speculators; Keeta ultimately needs to earn the trust and adoption of financial institutions, convincing them to put real RWA on-chain, which requires a long time to validate its safety and reliability. The project currently also faces some concerns regarding information transparency and community building, which need improvement. It can be said that Keeta's start is very glamorous, but whether it can convert this expectation into real commercial landing is its biggest test ahead.

• Funding Situation: Seed round (June 2023): $17 million, led by the venture capital firm Steel Perlot under former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

• Team Introduction: The founder and CEO is Ty Schenk. Team members include Roy Keene, Tanveer Wahid, and Ezra Ripps. The team size is between 11 and 50 employees.

Avantis

• Market Cap: $340 million

• Sector: DEX, DeFi, RWA

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Bitget, Bybit, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC, Upbit, Binance

• Brief Evaluation:

  Avantis is a decentralized derivatives (perpetual contracts) exchange on the Base chain, allowing users to trade various assets such as cryptocurrencies, foreign exchange, gold, and crude oil, with leverage up to 500 times. Its core gameplay is the "universal leverage layer," using mechanisms like "zero-fee contracts" and "loss refunds" to reduce trading costs. For liquidity providers (LPs), it has designed a unique risk-layering model: users can choose to put money into a junior tranche with higher risk and returns or a senior tranche with relatively stable risk and returns, providing flexible options for users with different risk preferences.

  Since its mainnet launch, Avantis has seen rapid data growth, with cumulative trading volume, user numbers, and protocol fees being quite impressive, quickly becoming the largest derivatives protocol in the Base ecosystem. Its success is attributed to its "all-star" level team and investors. The CEO was previously an investor at Pantera Capital, and many team members have backgrounds in top institutions like McKinsey and Barclays. In terms of funding, it has received continuous backing from Pantera and legendary Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, which is a rare top-tier endorsement in the DeFi space.

  Of course, the project also faces some bottlenecks, such as occasional order delays or failures due to the inherent speed limitations of the Base chain, and the mobile experience needs optimization. However, the team has a clear plan for this, developing Avantis v2 and a dedicated EVM-compatible chain, aiming to achieve a more efficient, gas-free trading experience in the future and planning to expand trading categories to stocks, sports, and more, showing significant ambition.

• Funding Situation: Avantis has completed two rounds of funding, totaling $12 million:

• 2024: Seed round funding of $4 million

• June 2025: Series A funding of $8 million, led by Pantera Capital and Founders Fund

• Team Introduction: The core team of Avantis includes:

• Harsehaj Singh: Co-founder and CEO

• Brank: Co-founder

Kaito

• Market Cap: $289,417,444.76

• Sector: AI, InfoFi

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Binance, Bitget, MEXC, OKX

• Brief Evaluation:

  Kaito is conducting a grand experiment, attempting to reshape the value distribution of content and attention through Web3. Its core logic is to address the inefficiencies (information cocoons) and unfairness (creators and users unable to share platform value) of current Web2 platforms. To this end, it has created an AI-driven "Proof-of-Attention" mechanism that quantifies the intangible "attention" into earnable points (Yaps). The entire ecosystem revolves around this mechanism: content creators (Yappers) earn Yaps by publishing high-quality, highly interactive content, while project teams gain real market attention through this platform. Ultimately, through leaderboards and Launchpad products, creators, users, and project teams are deeply bound into a community of shared interests.

  Kaito is undoubtedly the absolute leader in the current InfoFi sector, and the product matrix it has built has formed an initial moat. However, its model has a paradox: in trying to quantify and reward attention, it may be accelerating the consumption and stifling of genuine attention.

  Kaito's incentive mechanism is designed like a high-reward casino game, highly addictive, leading many creators to fall into a cycle of high-frequency, repetitive, and homogenized posting for rankings and rewards, which no longer represents real value sharing but resembles a "performance attention game." This phenomenon has already caused fatigue among creators and boredom among ordinary readers.

  From a business perspective, Kaito's profit model is still in its infancy, with extremely high customer acquisition costs (having distributed over $100 million, far exceeding its funding amount) and heavily reliant on data supply from platforms like X and other Web2 platforms, posing a risk of supply disruption. It can be said that Kaito is a project with a grand vision but an unproven business model, with core mechanisms that tend toward "self-destruction." It is at the peak of the "monetizable attention" narrative but also shows clear signs of fatigue. Its real challenge lies in whether it can iterate out healthier mechanisms that reward deep value rather than superficial efforts before exhausting the market's patience.

• Funding Situation: Kaito raised a total of $10.8 million through two rounds of funding in 2023, with major investors including Sequoia Capital, Dragonfly, Spartan Group, and others.

• Team Introduction: Founders/core members include Yu Hu (Founder/CEO), Sandra Leow (Research Partner), WenMoon (Head of Ecosystem and Special Projects), Tianqi Wang (BD), Jiwoo Jun (BD), etc. The team size is between 11 and 50.

ZORA

• Market Cap: $218,064,790.00

• Sector: Launchpad, Social

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Bitget, Bybit, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC

• Brief Evaluation:

  Zora has evolved into the leading Launchpad in the Base ecosystem, with its core gameplay being "post and issue tokens." Through deep integration with the newly upgraded Base APP, any creator can easily issue tokens for themselves or any post. Its token mechanism is designed as a three-tier pyramid structure: the bottom layer consists of a vast number of "post tokens," the next layer is "creator tokens," and the top layer is the parent token ZORA. The trading pairs of post tokens are creator tokens, and the trading pairs of creator tokens are ZORA, allowing the trading activity of lower-layer tokens to transmit upward, ultimately stimulating the demand for the top-layer parent token ZORA.

  Zora's success is largely attributed to its "big leg to hug"—the fully upgraded Base APP. As a super app built by Coinbase, Base APP serves as the most direct distribution channel for the Base ecosystem, and Zora, deeply embedded within it, is undoubtedly one of the biggest beneficiaries. This powerful channel advantage has led to a surge in the number of tokens created on Zora, and even at the narrative level, some KOLs have begun to view it as the "quasi-official token of the Base network."

  However, Zora's model also has obvious shortcomings. First, transaction fees are extremely high, with each transaction incurring a "tax" of up to 3%, resulting in a total of 6% for a buy-sell transaction, which deters many meme coin traders, leading to the majority of real meme trading volume on the Base chain still being concentrated on platforms like Virtuals and Clanker. Second, despite the astonishing number of tokens created, the vast majority lack long-term value and can be easily replaced, with truly valuable content being rare. Therefore, although Zora has a considerable user base, the transaction amounts are generally small. For its flywheel effect to continue, it must see the emergence of some truly valuable and influential top creators and sub-tokens to support its market capitalization.

• Funding Situation:

• Seed round (2020): $2,000,000

• Series A (2021): $8,000,000

• Series B (2022): $50,000,000, led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Kindred Ventures, and others.

• Team Introduction: ZORA was co-founded by three early employees of Coinbase: Jacob Horne, Slava Kim, and Tyson Battistella. According to public LinkedIn data, ZORA's team size is approximately between 50 and 100 employees.

SoSoValue

• Market Cap: $181,601,545.00

• Sector: DeFi, Data Analysis

• Native: Multi-chain

• CEX Listings: Bybit, Gate, MEXC

• Brief Evaluation:

  SoSoValue is an AI-driven cryptocurrency research platform, with its core mission being to bridge the "information gap" between institutions and retail investors. The platform utilizes AI technology to process vast amounts of on-chain and off-chain data, filtering out market noise, and then transforms complex information into investment insights that ordinary people can understand through multi-indicator charts, on-chain tracking, and even customized Telegram bots. Its most notable feature is the first-ever Bitcoin spot ETF fund flow dashboard, which visually displays the movements of traditional funds entering and exiting the crypto market, addressing a common confusion among both crypto-native and traditional financial investors.

  SoSoValue's explosive growth is remarkable; with its precisely targeted ETF dashboard addressing market pain points, it attracted over 1.2 million registered users within just five months of launch, demonstrating strong product-market fit (PMF). Its success has drawn the attention of top-tier capital, securing $4.15 million in seed round funding led by Sequoia China. Notably, the founding team also invested nearly $10 million of their own funds, showcasing their immense confidence and commitment to the project's long-term development.

  Beyond the product itself, SoSoValue is actively building an ecosystem, expanding its influence through partnerships with platforms like SafePal, which have tens of millions of users, and fostering a decentralized research community through activities like researcher competitions. It can be said that SoSoValue aims to be more than just a data tool; its ambition is to become the central hub for crypto investment research, ensuring that valuable research and projects are fairly "seen and heard."

• Funding Situation:

• Seed round: $4.15M (June 23, 2024), with investors including Sequoia China, GSR, Alumni Ventures, CoinSummer Labs, OnePiece Labs.

• $15.00M, with investors including Sequoia China, Mirana Ventures, SafePal, SmallSpark.

• Team Introduction: The founders are Soso and Luffy. Team members have backgrounds in top financial institutions like JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and tech giants like ByteDance and Tencent.

AWE Network

• Market Cap: $131,036,360.64

• Sector: AI, Launchpad

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Binance, Bitget, MEXC

• Brief Evaluation:

  AWE Network was originally established as STP Network in 2019, initially focusing on decentralized governance and the RWA sector. However, with the development of AI technology, the team upgraded the project mission to build a "self-sustaining world"—a digitally evolving ecosystem driven by AI agents and humans. Its technical core is the "Autonomous World Engine (AWE)," a modular AI-native framework. The user-facing products mainly include a community portal World.Fun, where users can create, experience, and incubate various AI mini-worlds; and a digital identity system AWNS, providing users with a universal identity across different AI worlds through .aw domain names.

• Funding Situation: Private round (May 29, 2019) raised $7.00M, with investors including NGC Ventures, Alphabit Fund, BlockVC.

Venice.ai

• Market Cap: $92.58 million

• Sector: AI

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Bybit, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC

• Brief Evaluation:

  Venice AI is a decentralized artificial intelligence platform deployed on the Base chain, with its core philosophy being privacy protection, censorship resistance, and community-driven. Technically, it does not rely on centralized servers but processes user requests through a distributed GPU network, ensuring that all user data is stored locally, guaranteeing complete data sovereignty for users. The platform integrates various open-source large models, including Meta Llama 3 and Stable Diffusion, covering text, image, and code generation, as well as PDF parsing and data visualization.

  The founder of Venice AI is Erik Voorhees, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift. Its greatest differentiating advantage lies in its extreme pursuit of privacy and anti-censorship, precisely addressing the needs of AI users and developers who value data sovereignty. Since its launch, the platform's user growth data has been impressive (attracting 400,000 registered users, with daily active users reaching 50,000). Of course, "censorship resistance" is also a double-edged sword, meaning the platform must deal with the accompanying content risks, while the development of its advanced features also faces certain technical challenges.

• Team Introduction: The founder is Erik Voorhees, the founder and former CEO of the exchange ShapeShift.

OpenxAI Network

• Market Cap: $88 million

• Sector: AI

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: No Main CEX Listing

• Brief Evaluation:

  OpenxAI Network is a P2P artificial intelligence network aimed at enabling anyone to easily create, own, and commercialize their AI applications on-chain, completely freeing them from reliance on centralized companies and intermediaries. Its core innovation lies in tokenizing global GPU computing resources (tGPU), turning them into a liquid asset that can be freely traded and utilized. This model significantly lowers the barriers and costs of AI development, reportedly saving up to 80% compared to using Amazon AWS or Google Cloud.

  OpenxAI Network has a grand vision, attempting to fundamentally address the issues of centralized AI, such as corporate monopolies, closed infrastructure, and high costs. It aims to become a combination of "decentralized AWS + Hugging Face + Stripe," providing decentralized computing power, an open-source AI model library, and payment capabilities.

  However, how to perfectly integrate the narrative with user experience and derive a viable business model is the challenge OpenxAI faces next.

BIM

• Market Cap: $85 million

• Sector: DeFi

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: No Main CEX Listing

• Brief Evaluation:

  BIM is a multi-chain DeFi protocol positioned as a "one-stop" yield optimizer. It integrates various functions such as exchanges, cross-chain bridges, and staking into a single interface, allowing users to deposit money into its vaults, with the protocol automatically mining and compounding in various liquidity pools to achieve "easy earnings."

  The first impression of this project is "mediocre and vague." Yield aggregators are a very old and highly competitive sector in DeFi, colloquially known as "gun pools." BIM fails to demonstrate any differentiated competitive advantages or innovations, sounding like a copy of numerous predecessors that have already failed. In a DeFi world where anonymous teams can easily raise funds and disappear, this lack of information is a significant red flag.

Definitive

• Market Cap: $73.04 million

• Sector: DeFi

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Coinbase, Gate, Kraken, MEXC

• Brief Evaluation:

  Definitive is a yield aggregation protocol built on the Base chain. Its main function is to help users mine, reinvest, and adjust positions across various DeFi applications through a set of complex automated strategies to pursue optimal yields. It also offers a series of advanced features, such as limit orders, stop-loss orders, cross-chain trading, and gas-free trading, attempting to bring professional trading tools into the yield aggregation space.

  The biggest highlight of this project, and perhaps its only highlight, is its founding team background of "former Coinbase engineers." This undoubtedly adds a layer of credibility to the project, providing some endorsement in terms of technical reliability. However, aside from this halo, the reality facing Definitive is quite stark. The yield aggregation sector is already a bloodbath, with countless similar products, from established Yearn Finance to local protocols on various public chains, making competition extremely fierce.

  For most "mine, withdraw, sell" DeFi farmers, what they truly care about is the yield; whether these complex features are a necessity is a huge question mark. Ultimately, the survival of such protocols depends on one thing: whether their strategies can consistently outperform the market and all competitors. In the ever-changing DeFi world, this is almost an impossible task to achieve long-term. Therefore, despite the strong team background, the project's prospects remain challenging, needing to prove to the market that it is not just a "more complex" ordinary gun pool.

• Funding Situation: Seed (November 8, 2023): $4.10M, with investors including BlockTower Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Nascent, Robot Ventures, CMT Digital, Geometry, Matrixport Ventures (indicates lead investor).

• Team Introduction: Composed of engineers from former Coinbase Prime.

Sapien

• Market Cap: $72.54 million

• Sector: AI

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Bitget, Coinbase, Kraken, MEXC

• Brief Evaluation:

  Sapien is positioned as a decentralized "data mint," specializing in producing and labeling training data for AI models. Its model mobilizes a community of "AI workers" from over 110 countries, completing massive amounts of text cleaning, image labeling, and other data processing tasks through gamified task squares in a crowdsourced manner. The platform has designed a quality control system to ensure data accuracy and provides API interfaces for enterprise clients to conveniently procure these high-quality training data.

  The sector that Sapien is entering is undoubtedly correct—the demand for high-quality data in AI is akin to an eternal gold rush. However, peeling back the "decentralized" and "blockchain" fancy exterior, the essence of its business model can be described as "human-in-the-loop."

  The core question facing the project is: organizing a labor-intensive industry in a Web3 way sounds appealing, but the reality is stark. Sapien needs to prove to the market that its decentralized model must outperform traditional giants in terms of cost and efficiency, and be more attractive in quality and scale; otherwise, it risks being a fleeting phenomenon.

• Funding Situation: Sapien disclosed two seed rounds of funding in April and October 2024, raising $5 million and $10.5 million respectively, with notable investors in the October round including Primitive Ventures, Animoca Brands, Yield Guild Games, and others.

• Team Introduction: CEO Rowan Stone, a former co-founder of Base. Chief Strategy Officer Trevor Koverko is the founder of the early securities digitization project Polymath.

Towns Protocol

• Market Cap: $65.48 million

• Sector: Social

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Binance, Bitget, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC

• Brief Evaluation:

  Towns Protocol is an open-source decentralized real-time messaging protocol, which can be understood as a Web3 version of Discord. It is built on Base in the form of an application chain, allowing users to create their own truly owned, programmable group chat spaces (Spaces). These spaces support on-chain membership, end-to-end encryption, and, since it is a chain specifically designed for social interaction, theoretically can support large-scale users for real-time communication. Its login method is also user-friendly, supporting Google and Twitter accounts, lowering the entry barrier for non-crypto users.

  The background of Towns Protocol is quite impressive. The founder is a co-founder of the well-known social application Houseparty, bringing rich experience; the investors are also top-tier, with leading venture capital firm a16z participating in two consecutive rounds, and Coinbase Ventures also involved, proving its recognition in the capital market by securing such levels of funding during a bear market.

  However, the Web3 social sector is known as a "graveyard of protocols," where countless projects born with golden spoons have failed. Towns Protocol faces the same challenges as its predecessors: how to solve the ultimate problem of user migration? Its product form closely resembles Discord, meaning it has to directly compete for users from industry giants. Although it has achieved decentralization and user ownership technically, for ordinary users, what is the motivation to abandon a mature product with a vast existing network and smooth experience to migrate to a new platform? This question has yet to be perfectly answered by any Web3 social project. Towns has a top-tier team and capital, but it is challenging deeply rooted user habits, making it a very difficult battle.

• Funding Situation: The core team of Towns previously developed the social video application Houseparty, which was acquired by Epic Games. The project has received support from well-known investment institutions such as a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures, and Benchmark.

• Team Introduction: The Towns project is developed by Here Not There Labs, led by Brian Meek (CEO) and Ben Rubin (co-founder). Ben Rubin is a co-founder of the well-known social applications Houseparty and Meerkat. The team is based in the United States and has a rich background in social applications and blockchain technology.

B3 (Base)

• Market Cap: $60.98 million

• Sector: Gaming

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Bybit, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC

• Brief Evaluation:

  B3 is a Layer 3 network in the Base ecosystem specifically designed for gaming. Its core philosophy is "Open Gaming," aiming to solve the "island" problem of current Web3 games being isolated and not interoperable. Its technical architecture allows each game to operate independently through GameChains, while also achieving interoperability of underlying assets and users through "Chain Abstraction" technology, enabling players to seamlessly experience different games without manually switching networks or cross-chains.

  The biggest highlight of B3 is its strong background and resource integration capabilities. As a startup team within the "Coinbase system," it benefits from the traffic and compliance advantages of the Base ecosystem, along with $21 million in funding, providing a solid starting resource. From early data (over 80 games integrated, millions of active wallets), its operational and ecosystem-building capabilities are indeed impressive.

  However, B3 has chosen a "middle path," not wanting to be purely a technical infrastructure nor deeply bind itself to a single blockbuster game IP, which presents both opportunities and challenges. The opportunity lies in theoretically larger imaginative space, but the risk is potentially falling into an awkward position of "not relying on either side." Its real challenge is not technical but profit distribution: how to persuade game projects that already have their own tokens and economic models to genuinely integrate into the B3 ecosystem and even accept $B3 as a universal token? This requires strong business negotiation and ecosystem operation capabilities. It can be said that B3 has laid the groundwork for infrastructure, but whether it can succeed ultimately depends on how many genuinely enjoyable games that can retain users can be launched on top.

• Funding Situation: Seed round (July 22, 2024): $21.00M, with investors including Pantera Capital, Hashed, Collab+Currency, Sfermion, Mirana Ventures, Bitscale Capital, Makers Fund, Mantle Network, Geoff Renaud (indicates lead investor).

Impossible Cloud Network

• Market Cap: $39.75 million

• Sector: DePIN

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Bitget, Bybit

• Brief Evaluation:

  Impossible Cloud Network is a decentralized cloud infrastructure (DePIN) platform, which can be understood as a Web3 version of AWS or Alibaba Cloud. Its model allows global hardware providers (ScalerNodes) to contribute idle storage, computing, and network resources, forming a resource pool; while also establishing monitoring nodes (HyperNodes) to ensure service quality. Enterprises and individual users can rent these cloud services, and the operation, governance, and incentives of the entire network are realized through its native token ICNT.

  The concept of a "decentralized AWS" is an extremely grand and appealing narrative, but it is also one of the hardest nuts to crack in the DePIN sector, with countless projects failing on this path. The blueprint described by Impossible Cloud Network is almost a standard template that every similar project would tell, lacking novelty.

  The classic "death spiral" of DePIN projects—the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg—is particularly prominent here: how do you attract enough, stable, and professional hardware suppliers without a large number of paying enterprise clients? Conversely, without forming a stable and reliable resource network, how do you convince enterprise clients to abandon mature AWS and deploy their critical business on your uncertain network?

• Funding Situation: The most recent funding round raised $33.9 million, led by NGP Capital. After the funding, its post-money valuation is approximately $470 million.

• Team Introduction: Headquartered in Zug, Switzerland; the founder/CEO is Dr. Kai Wawrzinek.

CLANKER

• Market Cap: $37.33 million

• Sector: AI, Launchpad

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Bitget, Coinbase, Gate, MEXC

• Brief Evaluation:

  CLANKER is an autonomous agent deployed on the Base chain, with its core function being to help ordinary users "issue tokens with one click." Users do not need to understand any code; they simply @clanker on the social platform Farcaster and provide basic information such as the token name, and it can automatically complete a series of complex operations like token creation and establishing liquidity pools. The recently upgraded V4 version has integrated new features from Uniswap V4 and added advanced customization features like dynamic fees and anti-sniping auctions, providing token creators with greater flexibility and more profit potential.

  CLANKER has precisely tapped into the highly demanding sector of meme coin issuance with its extreme ease of use, making it a "small but beautiful" success model. From its impressive revenue and profit data far exceeding most similar platforms, it is clear that the market highly recognizes its product, proving its foundational position in the meme issuance field on the Base chain.

  However, CLANKER's success is also deeply tied to the fervor and high-risk nature of the meme coin market. As a tool, it significantly lowers the barrier to creating "air coins," which, while convenient for creators, also means that its ecosystem is filled with numerous projects that have very short lifecycles and high speculation. Therefore, the long-term reputation and development of the protocol will test the team's ability to maintain the openness of "anyone can issue tokens" while guiding and incubating higher-quality, more viable meme projects, thereby establishing a deeper moat in the wild meme world.

• Team Introduction: Key figures include Jack Dishman (co-founder) and proxystudio.eth, with a strong engineering background in technology/social/AI agents.

MAMO

• Market Cap: $32.08 million

• Sector: AI, DeFi

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Coinbase, MEXC

• Brief Introduction:

  MAMO is an AI personal finance management platform based on the Base chain, which can be simply understood as Base App's "money market fund" or "savings account." Its core function is "automated compound mining," where users simply deposit assets (especially stablecoins), and the Mamo Bot automatically invests the funds into high-quality DeFi strategy pools to earn returns, achieving true on-chain "passive income," with annualized returns reportedly reaching 7%.

  MAMO's development journey can be described as a "dark horse." It launched during the peak of Virtual's new project frenzy, initially not attracting much attention, as many viewed it as just another vague DeFi financial robot. However, while other popular projects were chasing short-term trends, MAMO successfully integrated into Base App.

  This integration was a turning point in its fate, propelling it from an ordinary DApp to one of the core infrastructures of the Base ecosystem, directly reaching a vast number of Coinbase users.

• Team Introduction:

  Core member: chrizy.eth

CreatorBid

• Market Cap: $28.44 million

• Sector: AI, Launchpad, Creator Economy

• Native: Yes

• CEX Listings: Gate, MEXC

• Brief Introduction:

  Creator Bid is a platform focused on the AI creator economy and Launchpad. Recently, it welcomed an important 2.0 version upgrade, introducing a series of new mechanisms, including "staking for new projects," in collaboration with the leading InfoFi project Kaito, aiming to enhance user engagement and expand its offerings in the creator economy sector.

  Creator Bid's recent actions show strong signs of recovery. By strategically partnering with Kaito and drawing on the successful experiences of projects like Virtual, launching market-validated mechanisms like "staking for new projects" can be seen as a very clever "version iteration." If the team can continue to iterate on features and leverage the synergies brought by the collaboration with Kaito, Creator Bid still has good potential for sustained growth in the creator economy sector.

• Funding Situation:

• On January 23, 2025, it raised $2.5 million through a public token sale on Base.

• The investment scale on April 26, 2024, was not disclosed, but the investor lineup includes Mechanism Capital, Moonrock, Zee Prime Capital, and others.

Upside

• Sector: Social, Creator Economy, Prediction Market

• Native: Yes

• Brief Introduction: Upside is a social prediction market platform based on the Base chain. Users can upload links to social content they believe might "go viral," such as Twitter/X posts, articles, videos, etc., and then create markets; other users can purchase "Upside tickets" to predict whether that content will spread widely. Participants can either hold tickets to wait for value appreciation or sell tickets midway for profit. The platform mechanism includes unique content markets, revenue distribution (for content uploaders, voters, creators, etc.), and transparent on-chain records.

• Funding Situation: Upside completed a pre-seed funding round in December 2024, raising $1.2 million, with a valuation of approximately $10 million. Supporters among the investors include Jason Choi, Arthur Hayes, and about 25 other angel investors.

About Movemaker

Movemaker is the first official community organization authorized by the Aptos Foundation, jointly initiated by Ankaa and BlockBooster, focusing on promoting the construction and development of the Aptos ecosystem in the Chinese-speaking region. As the official representative of Aptos in the Chinese-speaking area, Movemaker is committed to building a diverse, open, and prosperous Aptos ecosystem by connecting developers, users, capital, and numerous ecosystem partners.

Disclaimer:

This article/blog is for reference only, representing the author's personal views and does not represent the position of Movemaker. This article does not intend to provide: (i) investment advice or recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. Holding digital assets, including stablecoins and NFTs, carries high risks, with significant price volatility, and they may even become worthless. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you based on your financial situation. For specific issues, please consult your legal, tax, or investment advisor. The information provided in this article (including market data and statistics, if any) is for general reference only. Reasonable care has been taken in compiling this data and charts, but no responsibility is accepted for any factual errors or omissions expressed therein.