2024, Base's 7 Price Breakouts

Original Article Title: "Base's Seven Breakthroughs"

Original Article Author: Zhou Zhou, Foresight News

Throughout the entire year of 2024, two blockchain ecosystems stood out the most: Solana and Base.

Despite being less than a year and a half old, Base has already gone through seven breakthroughs, becoming Ethereum's most powerful L2. At two major events in 2024 (the approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF and Donald Trump's election as the new President), it did not miss any opportunity to break through and expand the crypto industry's depth and breadth.

Starting from February of last year, I have been consistently bullish on Base, from Degen (up to 50x), Clanker (up to 70x) to Virtuals (with multiple interviews with founder Wee Kee)... Apart from friend.tech, I have hardly missed any significant breakthrough event involving Base, witnessing Base's journey from its inception to becoming the second most active blockchain innovation ecosystem in the crypto world today.

History reflects the future, so I have compiled the seven breakthrough moments of Base.

First Breakthrough: friend.tech Raises a Whopping $54 Million

Although friend.tech ultimately failed, it marked the first step of Base's entry into the crypto stage.

The emergence of friend.tech in August 2023 was Base's first breakthrough. This breakthrough attracted a large number of industry practitioners and well-known KOLs to join, allowing many to see Base for the first time. In the first month, friend.tech's revenue exceeded $2 million, with a net deposit of over $33 million.

From August 2023 to May 2024, friend.tech's protocol revenue reached 17,056.5 ETH (valued at approximately $54.647 million at the time), surpassing the protocol revenue of most L2 solutions, and the total number of users reached 909,861 unique addresses.

However, after May, friend.tech took a nosedive. Co-founder of friend.tech, Racer, posted on social media, indicating intentions to migrate the friend.tech protocol out of the Base platform, immediately causing a sharp drop in the native token FRIEND's price. On the day of the announcement, the FRIEND token price plummeted to $1.01, with a 32.2% decrease in 24 hours. Racer stated that friend.tech was marginalized and isolated within the Base community, labeled with the tag of "negative speculation."

This tense relationship led friend.tech to seek a way out. However, following this, friend.tech's development took a nosedive. Once a shining star, when it first launched on August 10, 2023, its platform had over 100,000 users within two weeks; however, by July 2024, the daily user count was less than 100.

Second Breakthrough: Farcaster Monthly Users Soar by 200,000, Degen Token Surges Thousandfold

Although friend.tech failed, another social product on Base—Farcaster—began its path to success.

In February 2024, Farcaster started gaining traction, reaching 200,000 users in that month, marking Base's second breakthrough. According to Farcaster's founder, Dan Romero, the platform hit 85,000 daily active users in April.

Following that, Farcaster grew steadily, reaching 350,000 users in May, 500,000 users in June, and 600,000 users in August (actual daily active users should be between 4,000 and 50,000) ... By January 24, 2025, Farcaster's total users reached nearly 800,000, with protocol revenue hitting $2.53 million. Although Farcaster's daily active users have fluctuated significantly over time, it has continued to accumulate more users and awaits the next opportunity.

Farcaster itself has seen two remarkable breakthroughs, with the first occurring between February and April 2024, where the Degen token surged a thousandfold, and FDV briefly reached nearly $1 billion. This scene left a deep impression on many traders in the Farcaster ecosystem.

However, by the end of April, the cryptocurrency market started to top out and experienced a sharp decline, with the Degen token losing value rapidly. Farcaster also ceased its rapid growth and entered a period of adjustment.

Third Breakthrough: Three $10 Billion Tokens Emerge, Becoming the New Top "Dark Horse" of Public Chains

In March to April 2024, Solana led the entire crypto market's meme wave. In this wave, Base became the public chain that attracted the most funds from Solana's ecosystem.

During this period, Base saw the emergence of billion-dollar market cap tokens like Aero, Brett, and Degen, successfully capturing the overflow of funds from the Solana meme craze. At the same time, it surpassed Blast in TVL, becoming the third-largest L2 on Ethereum, only behind Arbitrum and Optimism.

Base has not only become the "second largest meme hub" after Solana during this time, but also the third largest L2 after Arbitrum and OP, becoming the biggest dark horse in the crypto world in just half a year.

The Fourth Breakout: Surpassing Arbitrum to Become Ethereum's Largest L2

In August 2024, Base surpassed Arbitrum to become the true largest L2 on Ethereum.

According to my calculations, from August 2023 to August 2024, Base protocol's total revenue reached $70 million; Arbitrum's protocol revenue was $60 million, OP's protocol revenue was $30 million; Scroll $40 million; ZKSync $45 million.

In addition, whether it is on-chain revenue, transaction volume, or active address count, among other key metrics, Base far exceeds other L2s, becoming the de facto largest L2 on Ethereum, marking Base's fourth breakout.

The Fifth Breakout: Base Launches cbBTC, Attracting $2.4 Billion in Funds

In September 2024, Base launched cbBTC, backed by Coinbase's over $600 billion Bitcoin reserves, with a TVL reaching $170 million within a week, competing with WBTC for a share, marking its fifth breakout.

As of January 22, 2025, the cbBTC market size has reached $2.4 billion, with 200,000 holders. This number is still rapidly growing. Currently, WBTC has a market share of around $13 billion, while cbBTC is rapidly approaching this figure.

The Sixth Breakout: Clanker Ecosystem Emerges, Unveiling Three $50 Million Tokens

In November 2024, the Clanker ecosystem emerged, with the LUM, ANON, and Clanker meme tokens reaching $50 million each. Once again catching the largest overflow funds outside of Solana, Base's application-based meme culture gradually formed, marking Base's sixth breakout.

However, as the AI Agent narrative further develops, funds on Base gradually flow from the Clanker ecosystem to the Virtuals ecosystem. The liquidity on Base is not enough to support two large ecosystems, causing the Clanker ecosystem tokens to gradually decline.

The Seventh Breakthrough: The AI Agent Wave, Base Stands Shoulder to Shoulder with Solana for the First Time

The rise of the Virtuals ecosystem, supporting five AI Agent tokens each worth over $1 billion. Meanwhile, Solana also has five AI Agent tokens with a market cap exceeding $1 billion.

In previous competitions, Base has always been the perennial second-place contender, surpassing various public chains but never quite matching Solana's massive funds. However, in this round of the AI Agent narrative, Base has finally reached the same level as Solana.

In January 2025, as the Virtuals token market cap briefly reached $50 billion, the Base ecosystem saw five AI Agent tokens surpassing $1 billion, including tokens like aixbt which currently have a market cap still exceeding $5 billion. Base has achieved parity with Solana, marking its seventh breakthrough.

Final Thoughts

Base has been established for less than a year and a half, yet it has repeatedly surpassed other well-established public chains, starting with Blast, OP, then Arbitrum, and now Solana. In this AI Agent wave, Base has even shown momentum comparable to Solana.

Although Base still has some way to go in terms of liquidity compared to Solana, the peak of $50 billion market cap for Virtuals once again demonstrates Base's success in increasing the liquidity ceiling for its flagship project.

Throughout these seven breakthroughs, Base has effectively captured the surge of massive funds following the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024 and the widespread flooding after Donald Trump was elected as the next President of the United States in November 2024. This emergence has brought forth a multitude of tokens with market caps exceeding $1 billion, making it the public chain with the most opportunities post-Solana.

It can be anticipated that this is not Base's final breakthrough. In 2025, Base will see more breakthrough products.

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