How Socialfi, Memecoins and AI Pushed Base to the Top of the L2 Ladder

Base will transition to a unified, internally maintained stack, expected to be its biggest architectural shift since launch.

After debuting in 2023 as a rollup built on Optimism’s OP Stack, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer 2 is now consolidating its software into an in-house distribution, which can unlock faster upgrades and greater autonomy over its technical roadmap.

It has been exactly three years since Base launched its testnet. The network has experienced SocialFi explosions and ridden its own memecoin wave. It even went through a phase that both fascinated and unnerved Crypto Twitter as AI agents began transacting on its chain.

Here’s how it got here.

Friend.tech headlines Base’s “Onchain Summer” fest

Base’s mainnet opened to builders in July 2023, and users followed in August. The period after Coinbase cut the ribbon was promoted as “Onchain Summer.” In the first week, Base attracted 700,000 new users, who brought with them about $242 million in inflows.

Friend.tech was the headline act of Coinbase’s summer festival. It was a social app that allowed users to buy and sell access to their connections. The loudest voices on Crypto Twitter tested the industry’s newest toy, which also attracted the rich and famous outside the community. In less than two weeks after launching, it generated over $1 million in daily fees, surpassing Bitcoin at the time.

It didn’t last long.

By the end of August, fees and transaction volume had tanked, and the platform was declared “dead.”

A little over a year later, the team relinquished control of the project by ditching the admin rights of its smart contracts.

Base rides its own memecoin wave

The memecoin frenzy became one of the defining crypto stories in recent years, drawing in political figures and public personalities. Eventually, it prompted the US Securities and Exchange Commission to state that such tokens fall outside the scope of securities laws.

Solana is the go-to blockchain for memecoins. Its data shows the memecoin boom gaining momentum in late 2023, when its daily active addresses began climbing toward Ethereum’s levels. In March 2024, Solana decisively surpassed Ethereum on that metric when Base users started showing some post-Friend.tech signs of life.

From March 19 to 25, Cointelegraph Magazine found more than 380,000 ERC-20 tokens deployed on Base. That activity brought in fresh liquidity into Base’s DeFi ecosystem, and by June 2024, the layer 2 had flipped Ethereum in active addresses. It held on to that lead until December 2025.

AI agents begin transacting on Base

In the latter half of 2024, AI agents claimed the driver’s seat in crypto. As with memecoins, early experiments took off on Solana, such as Goatseus Maximus, ai16z and Truth Terminal.

Developers launched agent-linked tokens, autonomous trading bots and social accounts that presented themselves as autonomous onchain actors.

Related: Can Solana shed its memecoin image in 2026?

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 capable of holding balances, tipping users and interacting directly with smart contracts. In October 2024, Coinbase introduced “Based Agents,” a toolkit that allowed users to build AI agents equipped with crypto wallets.

The most visible Base-native experiment was Virtuals Protocol, which enabled users to create agents tied to tokens and onchain addresses.

One such Virtuals agent, Luna (not related to Terra), became the first on Base to autonomously execute onchain tips.

Virtuals later expanded to Solana in January 2025 to tap into its larger retail base. However, activity across AI-agent tokens soon slowed, and Virtuals cooled with it.

The second coming of SocialFi on Base

Base’s 2023 debut was followed by the breakout of Friend.tech. In 2025, SocialFi returned to Base in a different form, sparked by deeper integration with Coinbase’s consumer ecosystem.

That push was tied to Coinbase’s “super app” ambitions. Super apps are platforms that support a variety of 21st-century necessities, such as messaging, digital banking, ride sharing or even food delivery.

Related: Banks can’t seem to service crypto, even as it goes mainstream

Such platforms already exist in Asia. WeChat in China is used in the everyday lives of more than 1 billion users, combining messaging, payments and commerce. South Korea’s KakaoTalk and Japan’s Line serve similar functions in their respective markets. Social media giants like X and Meta have said they are exploring similar models.

In July 2025, Coinbase rebranded its wallet as the Base App, making its Ethereum layer 2 the default execution layer within its wallet ecosystem.

At the center of this phase was Farcaster, a decentralized social network where accounts are linked to crypto addresses. Posts, tips and token launches connected directly to onchain activity.

At the same time, 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 were often promoted on Farcaster.

The second coming of SocialFi on Base lasted longer than Friend.tech, but interest faded after the initial hype period. On Feb. 9, 2026, Coinbase announced it would sunset its Creator Rewards program and Farcaster-powered social feeds. The change does not directly affect Zora users, though activity there has also cooled from its peak.

Base becomes Ethereum’s most active layer 2

Throughout the first three years, Base showcased the distribution power of the largest US exchange, similar to how BNB Chain’s user activity is influenced by Binance.

Aside from their technical differences, Binance has attempted to distance itself from the blockchain it founded by attempting to give it its own brand, while Coinbase has kept Base close to its orbit.

Coinbase and its blockchain have ridden the tides of emerging trends such as memecoins and AI agents while becoming the center of creator economies and SocialFi applications.

Those trends came and went, but they did push Base to the top of the Ethereum layer-2 ladder. It now leads in users, transactions, fees and total value locked, according to data from Nansen and DefiLlama.

Trends onboarded users and distribution brought scale. Now, Base is consolidating its foundation. Whether the unified stack cements its lead or merely bookends its first growth era will define its next three years, as Ethereum’s focus shifts from L2s back to scaling the main chain.

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