BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.

“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”

BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control everything, the stewards of a protocol simply need to lean into the chaos and figure out how to turn unexpected situations into something great, Pollak said.

Something that's not a rugpull, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/07/31/bald-token-plunges-90-as-developer-pulls-liquidity" target="_blank">Bald unfortunately ended up being.</a>

Even though dozens of memecoins have launched on Base in the last year, Pollak wants the protocol to be known for more than that.

Pollak has been on something of a world tour with Base over the last few weeks meeting developers in Africa and Asia, stopping in conferences like Devcon.

During the interview, he emphasized that Base is witnessing significant growth in emerging markets like Southeast Asia, Kenya, and India, where the population wants access to secure economic options like stablecoins.

Indeed, <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins/chains" target="_blank">on-chain data shows</a> that Base is quickly catching up to Solana – a much older and more established blockchain – in stablecoin issuance. DeFiLlama data shows Base clocking in at just over $3.5 billion in stablecoin market cap, making it the sixth-highest chain for the dollar-pegged tokens.

Base also has its critics, who argue that <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/09/03/bitgo-ceo-says-wrapped-bitcoins-critics-arent-being-intellectually-honest-about-their-concerns" target="_blank">its ties to Coinbase</a> lead to an unhealthy amount of <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/carpe-consensus/did-centralization-cause-the-base-blockchain-outage" target="_blank">centralization in the industry.</a>

The recent one-two punch of delisting Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) while promoting a Base-powered competitor, cbBTC, earned the latter bitcoin analogue the epithet "<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/20/coinbase-delists-wrapped-bitcoin-wbtc-citing-listing-concerns" target="_blank">central bank bitcoin</a>" from the CEO of wBTC's custodian. But Pollak dismisses these concerns, pointing to Bald.

"Bald showed that Base wasn't going to be this place that was fully manicured, curated, controlled, and centralized," he said.

Pollak argues that if Bald can happen on Base with such incredible expressiveness that the Base team had no control over, it proves the platform’s openness.

"I think that was actually a really, really powerful welcoming for the rest of the ecosystem to embrace Base as an open economy where they could participate," he continued.

Base, a layer-2, is built to lean into the decentralization of Ethereum, the protocol that it's built upon, Pollak pointed out.

“Base is built on open source, so that anyone, anywhere can fork the code, know what’s running, and see that it’s actually doing the thing they wanted to,” he said, pointing to the recent launch of <a href="https://base.mirror.xyz/eOsedW4tm8MU5OhdGK107A9wsn-aU7MAb8f3edgX5Tk" target="_blank">fault proofs</a> on Base.

These proofs allow any of Base's 763,036 active addresses (<a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Base?addresses=true" target="_blank">according to DeFiLlama data</a>) to validate and challenge transactions, which Pollak says significantly increases decentralization by removing reliance on centralized entities.

Centralized entities, including Coinbase, which, technically, Base could outlive.

“There are seamless ways to get in and out of Base, so even if Coinbase completely disappeared, people would still be able to transact," Pollak said.

Kalshi may have tarnished its regulatory halo by slinging mud at a competitor.

Late Friday, Pirate Wires, a technology and culture publication owned by Founders Fund marketing executive Mike Solana, published a bombshell of a story. It documented how Kalshi, the U.S.-regulated prediction market, paid social media influencers to disparage crypto-based, offshore rival Polymarket and its CEO Shayne Coplan after the FBI raided Coplan's home this month.

Solana (no relation to the $120 billion cryptocurrency) disclosed up-front he had reasons to be biased and report what Kalshi allegedly did: Founder's Fund is an investor in Polymarket, and Pirate Wires has a paid partnership with Polymarket for ads, among other things.

Nevertheless, Solana wrote, "receipts are receipts," and the screenshots in the Pirate Wires article paint a damning picture.

One screenshot showed Kalshi employees asking former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown to quote-tweet a post about Coplan with the comment, "this [n-word] seem[s] guilty." Brown obliged.

Another influencer, who regularly tweets Kalshi-related content, called Coplan a "lookalike" of FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, misleadingly implying that the former committed comparable crimes. (According to The New York Times, the raid was part of an ongoing investigation into whether Coplan ran an unlicensed commodities exchange; Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud.)

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk.

The Pirate Wires article caused an uproar on X. Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise Investments, accused Kalshi, which has long touted its status as a regulated entity, of "moral hypocrisy."

Retaliation?

Someone — it's not clear who — apparently decided that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and launched a retaliatory smear campaign.

Shortly after Pirate Wires ran its piece, RawsAlerts, a news aggregator, posted on X that Kalshi is under investigation by "multiple agencies," including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The post was awkwardly written ("allegations suggest …") and did not cite any sources, even anonymous ones.

When contacted by CoinDesk, a spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment. There is no mention of Kalshi on its cases and proceedings page nor on its warning letters page.

Other accounts quickly echoed the "Kalshi is being investigated" narrative.

Polymarket flatly denied that it had anything to do with these posts: "100% not us," a spokesperson said via email.

Big picture

In the tech industry, dirty tricks and smear campaigns are familiar territory. When Travis Kalanick ran Uber, it was notorious for using underhanded tactics against Lyft to make business difficult for the then up-and-coming competitor.

The Kalshi-Polymarket fracas comes at an otherwise fortuitous time for prediction markets.

Donald Trump's election victory vindicated the forecasting value of betting markets, which for most of the campaign showed him leading Kamala Harris while the polls indicated a toss-up.

Moreover, the incoming administration could create a more favorable regulatory environment. Trump campaigned as the first pro-crypto presidential candidate from a major party, and it's not hard to imagine his deregulatory agenda extending to prediction markets.

If it is true, as Polymarket claims, that the raid on Coplan's home was "political retribution" by the outgoing Biden administration for calling the election for Trump, the incoming administration might be inclined to drop the investigation.

Although it's not a crypto company, Kalshi too has chafed under regulatory supervision; it had to beat the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, led by Biden appointee Rostin Benham, in court before listing markets on the election.

Now on his way out, Benham has thrown in the towel on a proposed rule that would have banned election markets at all CFTC-supervised exchanges.

Kalshi may have tarnished its regulatory halo by slinging mud at a competitor.

Late Friday, Pirate Wires, a technology and culture publication owned by Founders Fund marketing executive Mike Solana, published a bombshell of a story. It documented how Kalshi, the U.S.-regulated prediction market, paid social media influencers to disparage crypto-based, offshore rival Polymarket and its CEO Shayne Coplan after the FBI raided Coplan's home this month.

Solana (no relation to the $120 billion cryptocurrency) disclosed up-front he had reasons to be biased and report what Kalshi allegedly did: Founder's Fund is an investor in Polymarket, and Pirate Wires has a paid partnership with Polymarket for ads, among other things.

Nevertheless, Solana wrote, "receipts are receipts," and the screenshots in the Pirate Wires article paint a damning picture.

One screenshot showed Kalshi employees asking former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown to quote-tweet a post about Coplan with the comment, "this [n-word] seem[s] guilty." Brown obliged.

Another influencer, who regularly tweets Kalshi-related content, called Coplan a "lookalike" of FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, misleadingly implying that the former committed comparable crimes. (According to The New York Times, the raid was part of an ongoing investigation into whether Coplan ran an unlicensed commodities exchange; Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud.)

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk.

The Pirate Wires article caused an uproar on X. Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise Investments, accused Kalshi, which has long touted its status as a regulated entity, of "moral hypocrisy."

Retaliation?

Someone — it's not clear who — apparently decided that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and launched a retaliatory smear campaign.

Shortly after Pirate Wires ran its piece, RawsAlerts, a news aggregator, posted on X that Kalshi is under investigation by "multiple agencies," including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The post was awkwardly written ("allegations suggest …") and did not cite any sources, even anonymous ones.

When contacted by CoinDesk, a spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment. There is no mention of Kalshi on its cases and proceedings page nor on its warning letters page.

Other accounts quickly echoed the "Kalshi is being investigated" narrative.

Polymarket flatly denied that it had anything to do with these posts: "100% not us," a spokesperson said via email.

Big picture

In the tech industry, dirty tricks and smear campaigns are familiar territory. When Travis Kalanick ran Uber, it was notorious for using underhanded tactics against Lyft to make business difficult for the then up-and-coming competitor.

The Kalshi-Polymarket fracas comes at an otherwise fortuitous time for prediction markets.

Donald Trump's election victory vindicated the forecasting value of betting markets, which for most of the campaign showed him leading Kamala Harris while the polls indicated a toss-up.

Moreover, the incoming administration could create a more favorable regulatory environment. Trump campaigned as the first pro-crypto presidential candidate from a major party, and it's not hard to imagine his deregulatory agenda extending to prediction markets.

If it is true, as Polymarket claims, that the raid on Coplan's home was "political retribution" by the outgoing Biden administration for calling the election for Trump, the incoming administration might be inclined to drop the investigation.

Although it's not a crypto company, Kalshi too has chafed under regulatory supervision; it had to beat the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, led by Biden appointee Rostin Benham, in court before listing markets on the election.

Now on his way out, Benham has thrown in the towel on a proposed rule that would have banned election markets at all CFTC-supervised exchanges.

Kalshi may have tarnished its regulatory halo by slinging mud at a competitor.

Late Friday, Pirate Wires, a technology and culture publication owned by Founders Fund marketing executive Mike Solana, published a bombshell of a story. It documented how Kalshi, the U.S.-regulated prediction market, paid social media influencers to disparage crypto-based, offshore rival Polymarket and its CEO Shayne Coplan after the FBI raided Coplan's home this month.

Solana (no relation to the $120 billion cryptocurrency) disclosed up-front he had reasons to be biased and report what Kalshi allegedly did: Founder's Fund is an investor in Polymarket, and Pirate Wires has a paid partnership with Polymarket for ads, among other things.

Nevertheless, Solana wrote, "receipts are receipts," and the screenshots in the Pirate Wires article paint a damning picture.

One screenshot showed Kalshi employees asking former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown to quote-tweet a post about Coplan with the comment, "this [n-word] seem[s] guilty." Brown obliged.

Another influencer, who regularly tweets Kalshi-related content, called Coplan a "lookalike" of FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, misleadingly implying that the former committed comparable crimes. (According to The New York Times, the raid was part of an ongoing investigation into whether Coplan ran an unlicensed commodities exchange; Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud.)

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk.

The Pirate Wires article caused an uproar on X. Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise Investments, accused Kalshi, which has long touted its status as a regulated entity, of "moral hypocrisy."

Retaliation?

Someone — it's not clear who — apparently decided that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and launched a retaliatory smear campaign.

Shortly after Pirate Wires ran its piece, RawsAlerts, a news aggregator, posted on X that Kalshi is under investigation by "multiple agencies," including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The post was awkwardly written ("allegations suggest …") and did not cite any sources, even anonymous ones.

When contacted by CoinDesk, a spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment. There is no mention of Kalshi on its cases and proceedings page nor on its warning letters page.

Other accounts quickly echoed the "Kalshi is being investigated" narrative.

Polymarket flatly denied that it had anything to do with these posts: "100% not us," a spokesperson said via email.

Big picture

In the tech industry, dirty tricks and smear campaigns are familiar territory. When Travis Kalanick ran Uber, it was notorious for using underhanded tactics against Lyft to make business difficult for the then up-and-coming competitor.

The Kalshi-Polymarket fracas comes at an otherwise fortuitous time for prediction markets.

Donald Trump's election victory vindicated the forecasting value of betting markets, which for most of the campaign showed him leading Kamala Harris while the polls indicated a toss-up.

Moreover, the incoming administration could create a more favorable regulatory environment. Trump campaigned as the first pro-crypto presidential candidate from a major party, and it's not hard to imagine his deregulatory agenda extending to prediction markets.

If it is true, as Polymarket claims, that the raid on Coplan's home was "political retribution" by the outgoing Biden administration for calling the election for Trump, the incoming administration might be inclined to drop the investigation.

Although it's not a crypto company, Kalshi too has chafed under regulatory supervision; it had to beat the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, led by Biden appointee Rostin Benham, in court before listing markets on the election.

Now on his way out, Benham has thrown in the towel on a proposed rule that would have banned election markets at all CFTC-supervised exchanges.

Kalshi may have tarnished its regulatory halo by slinging mud at a competitor.

Late Friday, Pirate Wires, a technology and culture publication owned by Founders Fund marketing executive Mike Solana, published a bombshell of a story. It documented how Kalshi, the U.S.-regulated prediction market, paid social media influencers to disparage crypto-based, offshore rival Polymarket and its CEO Shayne Coplan after the FBI raided Coplan's home this month.

Solana (no relation to the $120 billion cryptocurrency) disclosed up-front he had reasons to be biased and report what Kalshi allegedly did: Founder's Fund is an investor in Polymarket, and Pirate Wires has a paid partnership with Polymarket for ads, among other things.

Nevertheless, Solana wrote, "receipts are receipts," and the screenshots in the Pirate Wires article paint a damning picture.

One screenshot showed Kalshi employees asking former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown to quote-tweet a post about Coplan with the comment, "this [n-word] seem[s] guilty." Brown obliged.

Another influencer, who regularly tweets Kalshi-related content, called Coplan a "lookalike" of FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, misleadingly implying that the former committed comparable crimes. (According to The New York Times, the raid was part of an ongoing investigation into whether Coplan ran an unlicensed commodities exchange; Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud.)

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk.

The Pirate Wires article caused an uproar on X. Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise Investments, accused Kalshi, which has long touted its status as a regulated entity, of "moral hypocrisy."

Retaliation?

Someone — it's not clear who — apparently decided that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and launched a retaliatory smear campaign.

Shortly after Pirate Wires ran its piece, RawsAlerts, a news aggregator, posted on X that Kalshi is under investigation by "multiple agencies," including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The post was awkwardly written ("allegations suggest …") and did not cite any sources, even anonymous ones.

When contacted by CoinDesk, a spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment. There is no mention of Kalshi on its cases and proceedings page nor on its warning letters page.

Other accounts quickly echoed the "Kalshi is being investigated" narrative.

Polymarket flatly denied that it had anything to do with these posts: "100% not us," a spokesperson said via email.

Big picture

In the tech industry, dirty tricks and smear campaigns are familiar territory. When Travis Kalanick ran Uber, it was notorious for using underhanded tactics against Lyft to make business difficult for the then up-and-coming competitor.

The Kalshi-Polymarket fracas comes at an otherwise fortuitous time for prediction markets.

Donald Trump's election victory vindicated the forecasting value of betting markets, which for most of the campaign showed him leading Kamala Harris while the polls indicated a toss-up.

Moreover, the incoming administration could create a more favorable regulatory environment. Trump campaigned as the first pro-crypto presidential candidate from a major party, and it's not hard to imagine his deregulatory agenda extending to prediction markets.

If it is true, as Polymarket claims, that the raid on Coplan's home was "political retribution" by the outgoing Biden administration for calling the election for Trump, the incoming administration might be inclined to drop the investigation.

Although it's not a crypto company, Kalshi too has chafed under regulatory supervision; it had to beat the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, led by Biden appointee Rostin Benham, in court before listing markets on the election.

Now on his way out, Benham has thrown in the towel on a proposed rule that would have banned election markets at all CFTC-supervised exchanges.

Kalshi may have tarnished its regulatory halo by slinging mud at a competitor.

Late Friday, Pirate Wires, a technology and culture publication owned by Founders Fund marketing executive Mike Solana, published a bombshell of a story. It documented how Kalshi, the U.S.-regulated prediction market, paid social media influencers to disparage crypto-based, offshore rival Polymarket and its CEO Shayne Coplan after the FBI raided Coplan's home this month.

Solana (no relation to the $120 billion cryptocurrency) disclosed up-front he had reasons to be biased and report what Kalshi allegedly did: Founder's Fund is an investor in Polymarket, and Pirate Wires has a paid partnership with Polymarket for ads, among other things.

Nevertheless, Solana wrote, "receipts are receipts," and the screenshots in the Pirate Wires article paint a damning picture.

One screenshot showed Kalshi employees asking former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown to quote-tweet a post about Coplan with the comment, "this [n-word] seem[s] guilty." Brown obliged.

Another influencer, who regularly tweets Kalshi-related content, called Coplan a "lookalike" of FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, misleadingly implying that the former committed comparable crimes. (According to The New York Times, the raid was part of an ongoing investigation into whether Coplan ran an unlicensed commodities exchange; Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud.)

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk.

The Pirate Wires article caused an uproar on X. Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise Investments, accused Kalshi, which has long touted its status as a regulated entity, of "moral hypocrisy."

Retaliation?

Someone — it's not clear who — apparently decided that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and launched a retaliatory smear campaign.

Shortly after Pirate Wires ran its piece, RawsAlerts, a news aggregator, posted on X that Kalshi is under investigation by "multiple agencies," including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The post was awkwardly written ("allegations suggest …") and did not cite any sources, even anonymous ones.

When contacted by CoinDesk, a spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment. There is no mention of Kalshi on its cases and proceedings page nor on its warning letters page.

Other accounts quickly echoed the "Kalshi is being investigated" narrative.

Polymarket flatly denied that it had anything to do with these posts: "100% not us," a spokesperson said via email.

Big picture

In the tech industry, dirty tricks and smear campaigns are familiar territory. When Travis Kalanick ran Uber, it was notorious for using underhanded tactics against Lyft to make business difficult for the then up-and-coming competitor.

The Kalshi-Polymarket fracas comes at an otherwise fortuitous time for prediction markets.

Donald Trump's election victory vindicated the forecasting value of betting markets, which for most of the campaign showed him leading Kamala Harris while the polls indicated a toss-up.

Moreover, the incoming administration could create a more favorable regulatory environment. Trump campaigned as the first pro-crypto presidential candidate from a major party, and it's not hard to imagine his deregulatory agenda extending to prediction markets.

If it is true, as Polymarket claims, that the raid on Coplan's home was "political retribution" by the outgoing Biden administration for calling the election for Trump, the incoming administration might be inclined to drop the investigation.

Although it's not a crypto company, Kalshi too has chafed under regulatory supervision; it had to beat the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, led by Biden appointee Rostin Benham, in court before listing markets on the election.

Now on his way out, Benham has thrown in the towel on a proposed rule that would have banned election markets at all CFTC-supervised exchanges.

Kalshi may have tarnished its regulatory halo by slinging mud at a competitor.

Late Friday, Pirate Wires, a technology and culture publication owned by Founders Fund marketing executive Mike Solana, published a bombshell of a story. It documented how Kalshi, the U.S.-regulated prediction market, paid social media influencers to disparage crypto-based, offshore rival Polymarket and its CEO Shayne Coplan after the FBI raided Coplan's home this month.

Solana (no relation to the $120 billion cryptocurrency) disclosed up-front he had reasons to be biased and report what Kalshi allegedly did: Founder's Fund is an investor in Polymarket, and Pirate Wires has a paid partnership with Polymarket for ads, among other things.

Nevertheless, Solana wrote, "receipts are receipts," and the screenshots in the Pirate Wires article paint a damning picture.

One screenshot showed Kalshi employees asking former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown to quote-tweet a post about Coplan with the comment, "this [n-word] seem[s] guilty." Brown obliged.

Another influencer, who regularly tweets Kalshi-related content, called Coplan a "lookalike" of FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, misleadingly implying that the former committed comparable crimes. (According to The New York Times, the raid was part of an ongoing investigation into whether Coplan ran an unlicensed commodities exchange; Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud.)

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk.

The Pirate Wires article caused an uproar on X. Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise Investments, accused Kalshi, which has long touted its status as a regulated entity, of "moral hypocrisy."

Retaliation?

Someone — it's not clear who — apparently decided that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and launched a retaliatory smear campaign.

Shortly after Pirate Wires ran its piece, RawsAlerts, a news aggregator, posted on X that Kalshi is under investigation by "multiple agencies," including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The post was awkwardly written ("allegations suggest …") and did not cite any sources, even anonymous ones.

When contacted by CoinDesk, a spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment. There is no mention of Kalshi on its cases and proceedings page nor on its warning letters page.

Other accounts quickly echoed the "Kalshi is being investigated" narrative.

Polymarket flatly denied that it had anything to do with these posts: "100% not us," a spokesperson said via email.

Big picture

In the tech industry, dirty tricks and smear campaigns are familiar territory. When Travis Kalanick ran Uber, it was notorious for using underhanded tactics against Lyft to make business difficult for the then up-and-coming competitor.

The Kalshi-Polymarket fracas comes at an otherwise fortuitous time for prediction markets.

Donald Trump's election victory vindicated the forecasting value of betting markets, which for most of the campaign showed him leading Kamala Harris while the polls indicated a toss-up.

Moreover, the incoming administration could create a more favorable regulatory environment. Trump campaigned as the first pro-crypto presidential candidate from a major party, and it's not hard to imagine his deregulatory agenda extending to prediction markets.

If it is true, as Polymarket claims, that the raid on Coplan's home was "political retribution" by the outgoing Biden administration for calling the election for Trump, the incoming administration might be inclined to drop the investigation.

Although it's not a crypto company, Kalshi too has chafed under regulatory supervision; it had to beat the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, led by Biden appointee Rostin Benham, in court before listing markets on the election.

Now on his way out, Benham has thrown in the towel on a proposed rule that would have banned election markets at all CFTC-supervised exchanges.

Kalshi may have tarnished its regulatory halo by slinging mud at a competitor.

Late Friday, Pirate Wires, a technology and culture publication owned by Founders Fund marketing executive Mike Solana, published a bombshell of a story. It documented how Kalshi, the U.S.-regulated prediction market, paid social media influencers to disparage crypto-based, offshore rival Polymarket and its CEO Shayne Coplan after the FBI raided Coplan's home this month.

Solana (no relation to the $120 billion cryptocurrency) disclosed up-front he had reasons to be biased and report what Kalshi allegedly did: Founder's Fund is an investor in Polymarket, and Pirate Wires has a paid partnership with Polymarket for ads, among other things.

Nevertheless, Solana wrote, "receipts are receipts," and the screenshots in the Pirate Wires article paint a damning picture.

One screenshot showed Kalshi employees asking former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown to quote-tweet a post about Coplan with the comment, "this [n-word] seem[s] guilty." Brown obliged.

Another influencer, who regularly tweets Kalshi-related content, called Coplan a "lookalike" of FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, misleadingly implying that the former committed comparable crimes. (According to The New York Times, the raid was part of an ongoing investigation into whether Coplan ran an unlicensed commodities exchange; Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud.)

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk.

The Pirate Wires article caused an uproar on X. Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise Investments, accused Kalshi, which has long touted its status as a regulated entity, of "moral hypocrisy."

Retaliation?

Someone — it's not clear who — apparently decided that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and launched a retaliatory smear campaign.

Shortly after Pirate Wires ran its piece, RawsAlerts, a news aggregator, posted on X that Kalshi is under investigation by "multiple agencies," including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The post was awkwardly written ("allegations suggest …") and did not cite any sources, even anonymous ones.

When contacted by CoinDesk, a spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment. There is no mention of Kalshi on its cases and proceedings page nor on its warning letters page.

Other accounts quickly echoed the "Kalshi is being investigated" narrative.

Polymarket flatly denied that it had anything to do with these posts: "100% not us," a spokesperson said via email.

Big picture

In the tech industry, dirty tricks and smear campaigns are familiar territory. When Travis Kalanick ran Uber, it was notorious for using underhanded tactics against Lyft to make business difficult for the then up-and-coming competitor.

The Kalshi-Polymarket fracas comes at an otherwise fortuitous time for prediction markets.

Donald Trump's election victory vindicated the forecasting value of betting markets, which for most of the campaign showed him leading Kamala Harris while the polls indicated a toss-up.

Moreover, the incoming administration could create a more favorable regulatory environment. Trump campaigned as the first pro-crypto presidential candidate from a major party, and it's not hard to imagine his deregulatory agenda extending to prediction markets.

If it is true, as Polymarket claims, that the raid on Coplan's home was "political retribution" by the outgoing Biden administration for calling the election for Trump, the incoming administration might be inclined to drop the investigation.

Although it's not a crypto company, Kalshi too has chafed under regulatory supervision; it had to beat the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, led by Biden appointee Rostin Benham, in court before listing markets on the election.

Now on his way out, Benham has thrown in the towel on a proposed rule that would have banned election markets at all CFTC-supervised exchanges.

Kalshi may have tarnished its regulatory halo by slinging mud at a competitor.

Late Friday, Pirate Wires, a technology and culture publication owned by Founders Fund marketing executive Mike Solana, published a bombshell of a story. It documented how Kalshi, the U.S.-regulated prediction market, paid social media influencers to disparage crypto-based, offshore rival Polymarket and its CEO Shayne Coplan after the FBI raided Coplan's home this month.

Solana (no relation to the $120 billion cryptocurrency) disclosed up-front he had reasons to be biased and report what Kalshi allegedly did: Founder's Fund is an investor in Polymarket, and Pirate Wires has a paid partnership with Polymarket for ads, among other things.

Nevertheless, Solana wrote, "receipts are receipts," and the screenshots in the Pirate Wires article paint a damning picture.

One screenshot showed Kalshi employees asking former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown to quote-tweet a post about Coplan with the comment, "this [n-word] seem[s] guilty." Brown obliged.

Another influencer, who regularly tweets Kalshi-related content, called Coplan a "lookalike" of FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, misleadingly implying that the former committed comparable crimes. (According to The New York Times, the raid was part of an ongoing investigation into whether Coplan ran an unlicensed commodities exchange; Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud.)

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk.

The Pirate Wires article caused an uproar on X. Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise Investments, accused Kalshi, which has long touted its status as a regulated entity, of "moral hypocrisy."

Retaliation?

Someone — it's not clear who — apparently decided that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and launched a retaliatory smear campaign.

Shortly after Pirate Wires ran its piece, RawsAlerts, a news aggregator, posted on X that Kalshi is under investigation by "multiple agencies," including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The post was awkwardly written ("allegations suggest …") and did not cite any sources, even anonymous ones.

When contacted by CoinDesk, a spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment. There is no mention of Kalshi on its cases and proceedings page nor on its warning letters page.

Other accounts quickly echoed the "Kalshi is being investigated" narrative.

Polymarket flatly denied that it had anything to do with these posts: "100% not us," a spokesperson said via email.

Big picture

In the tech industry, dirty tricks and smear campaigns are familiar territory. When Travis Kalanick ran Uber, it was notorious for using underhanded tactics against Lyft to make business difficult for the then up-and-coming competitor.

The Kalshi-Polymarket fracas comes at an otherwise fortuitous time for prediction markets.

Donald Trump's election victory vindicated the forecasting value of betting markets, which for most of the campaign showed him leading Kamala Harris while the polls indicated a toss-up.

Moreover, the incoming administration could create a more favorable regulatory environment. Trump campaigned as the first pro-crypto presidential candidate from a major party, and it's not hard to imagine his deregulatory agenda extending to prediction markets.

If it is true, as Polymarket claims, that the raid on Coplan's home was "political retribution" by the outgoing Biden administration for calling the election for Trump, the incoming administration might be inclined to drop the investigation.

Although it's not a crypto company, Kalshi too has chafed under regulatory supervision; it had to beat the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, led by Biden appointee Rostin Benham, in court before listing markets on the election.

Now on his way out, Benham has thrown in the towel on a proposed rule that would have banned election markets at all CFTC-supervised exchanges.

Kalshi may have tarnished its regulatory halo by slinging mud at a competitor.

Late Friday, Pirate Wires, a technology and culture publication owned by Founders Fund marketing executive Mike Solana, published a bombshell of a story. It documented how Kalshi, the U.S.-regulated prediction market, paid social media influencers to disparage crypto-based, offshore rival Polymarket and its CEO Shayne Coplan after the FBI raided Coplan's home this month.

Solana (no relation to the $120 billion cryptocurrency) disclosed up-front he had reasons to be biased and report what Kalshi allegedly did: Founder's Fund is an investor in Polymarket, and Pirate Wires has a paid partnership with Polymarket for ads, among other things.

Nevertheless, Solana wrote, "receipts are receipts," and the screenshots in the Pirate Wires article paint a damning picture.

One screenshot showed Kalshi employees asking former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown to quote-tweet a post about Coplan with the comment, "this [n-word] seem[s] guilty." Brown obliged.

Another influencer, who regularly tweets Kalshi-related content, called Coplan a "lookalike" of FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, misleadingly implying that the former committed comparable crimes. (According to The New York Times, the raid was part of an ongoing investigation into whether Coplan ran an unlicensed commodities exchange; Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud.)

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk.

The Pirate Wires article caused an uproar on X. Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise Investments, accused Kalshi, which has long touted its status as a regulated entity, of "moral hypocrisy."

Retaliation?

Someone — it's not clear who — apparently decided that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and launched a retaliatory smear campaign.

Shortly after Pirate Wires ran its piece, RawsAlerts, a news aggregator, posted on X that Kalshi is under investigation by "multiple agencies," including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The post was awkwardly written ("allegations suggest …") and did not cite any sources, even anonymous ones.

When contacted by CoinDesk, a spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment. There is no mention of Kalshi on its cases and proceedings page nor on its warning letters page.

Other accounts quickly echoed the "Kalshi is being investigated" narrative.

Polymarket flatly denied that it had anything to do with these posts: "100% not us," a spokesperson said via email.

Big picture

In the tech industry, dirty tricks and smear campaigns are familiar territory. When Travis Kalanick ran Uber, it was notorious for using underhanded tactics against Lyft to make business difficult for the then up-and-coming competitor.

The Kalshi-Polymarket fracas comes at an otherwise fortuitous time for prediction markets.

Donald Trump's election victory vindicated the forecasting value of betting markets, which for most of the campaign showed him leading Kamala Harris while the polls indicated a toss-up.

Moreover, the incoming administration could create a more favorable regulatory environment. Trump campaigned as the first pro-crypto presidential candidate from a major party, and it's not hard to imagine his deregulatory agenda extending to prediction markets.

If it is true, as Polymarket claims, that the raid on Coplan's home was "political retribution" by the outgoing Biden administration for calling the election for Trump, the incoming administration might be inclined to drop the investigation.

Although it's not a crypto company, Kalshi too has chafed under regulatory supervision; it had to beat the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, led by Biden appointee Rostin Benham, in court before listing markets on the election.

Now on his way out, Benham has thrown in the towel on a proposed rule that would have banned election markets at all CFTC-supervised exchanges.

Kalshi may have tarnished its regulatory halo by slinging mud at a competitor.

Late Friday, Pirate Wires, a technology and culture publication owned by Founders Fund marketing executive Mike Solana, published a bombshell of a story. It documented how Kalshi, the U.S.-regulated prediction market, paid social media influencers to disparage crypto-based, offshore rival Polymarket and its CEO Shayne Coplan after the FBI raided Coplan's home this month.

Solana (no relation to the $120 billion cryptocurrency) disclosed up-front he had reasons to be biased and report what Kalshi allegedly did: Founder's Fund is an investor in Polymarket, and Pirate Wires has a paid partnership with Polymarket for ads, among other things.

Nevertheless, Solana wrote, "receipts are receipts," and the screenshots in the Pirate Wires article paint a damning picture.

One screenshot showed Kalshi employees asking former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown to quote-tweet a post about Coplan with the comment, "this [n-word] seem[s] guilty." Brown obliged.

Another influencer, who regularly tweets Kalshi-related content, called Coplan a "lookalike" of FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, misleadingly implying that the former committed comparable crimes. (According to The New York Times, the raid was part of an ongoing investigation into whether Coplan ran an unlicensed commodities exchange; Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud.)

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour declined to comment when contacted by CoinDesk.

The Pirate Wires article caused an uproar on X. Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise Investments, accused Kalshi, which has long touted its status as a regulated entity, of "moral hypocrisy."

Retaliation?

Someone — it's not clear who — apparently decided that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and launched a retaliatory smear campaign.

Shortly after Pirate Wires ran its piece, RawsAlerts, a news aggregator, posted on X that Kalshi is under investigation by "multiple agencies," including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The post was awkwardly written ("allegations suggest …") and did not cite any sources, even anonymous ones.

When contacted by CoinDesk, a spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment. There is no mention of Kalshi on its cases and proceedings page nor on its warning letters page.

Other accounts quickly echoed the "Kalshi is being investigated" narrative.

Polymarket flatly denied that it had anything to do with these posts: "100% not us," a spokesperson said via email.

Big picture

In the tech industry, dirty tricks and smear campaigns are familiar territory. When Travis Kalanick ran Uber, it was notorious for using underhanded tactics against Lyft to make business difficult for the then up-and-coming competitor.

The Kalshi-Polymarket fracas comes at an otherwise fortuitous time for prediction markets.

Donald Trump's election victory vindicated the forecasting value of betting markets, which for most of the campaign showed him leading Kamala Harris while the polls indicated a toss-up.

Moreover, the incoming administration could create a more favorable regulatory environment. Trump campaigned as the first pro-crypto presidential candidate from a major party, and it's not hard to imagine his deregulatory agenda extending to prediction markets.

If it is true, as Polymarket claims, that the raid on Coplan's home was "political retribution" by the outgoing Biden administration for calling the election for Trump, the incoming administration might be inclined to drop the investigation.

Although it's not a crypto company, Kalshi too has chafed under regulatory supervision; it had to beat the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, led by Biden appointee Rostin Benham, in court before listing markets on the election.

Now on his way out, Benham has thrown in the towel on a proposed rule that would have banned election markets at all CFTC-supervised exchanges.