Analysis: Coinbase's Base Strategy Misstep Exposes Challenges in Crypto Industry Transformation, Needs to Shift from Speculative Era to Financial Infrastructure

On July 20, columnist Jeff John Roberts wrote that the developmental difficulties of Coinbase's Layer2 network, Base, reflect the crypto industry's departure from the past era of token speculation, with companies needing to transition towards more mature financial infrastructures and application scenarios.

The article points out that in 2024, Coinbase hoped to build a decentralized trading and social platform through Base, creating a new social ecosystem around "creator coins." However, this vision has not materialized, and the Base application currently resembles an expensive experiment, causing Coinbase to lag behind emerging platforms like Hyperliquid and Robinhood in competition.

Base's head, Jesse Pollak, previously publicly admitted that turning the Base application into a crypto social platform was the wrong direction. He stated that the market does not have a large number of users willing to abandon X and Instagram for blockchain-based social products.

The article also notes that Base's early ecosystem faced criticism due to resource allocation issues, with some users believing that specific projects and participants within the Coinbase network received more opportunities. Additionally, Pollak's frequent social media activity has sparked controversy within parts of the community.

However, the author believes that the issues facing Coinbase and Base are not only execution errors but also strategic misjudgments. For over a decade, the crypto industry has relied on developer communities, token issuance, and retail speculative funding to drive growth, but this model is failing.

As retail investors leave due to losses from multiple market cycles, the crypto market is entering a new phase. Predictive markets, on-chain trading platforms, and tokenized assets driven by Wall Street are becoming new growth directions. For example, Hyperliquid is leveraging blockchain infrastructure to serve traditional financial trading scenarios, and institutions are beginning to lay out RWA (Real World Asset tokenization).

The article argues that if Coinbase wants to maintain its competitiveness in the future, it needs to break away from the narrative of crypto subculture and shift towards broader financial infrastructure development. However, the Base experiment is not a complete failure. The article points out that Base has led to the creation of the X402 protocol, an open-source payment protocol aimed at the AI agent economy, which is currently becoming one of the industry standards, and Coinbase has the opportunity to benefit from it.

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