protos.com
Base, the blockchain that Coinbase incubated and heavily promotes, announced at its BaseCamp event this week that it is officially exploring the release of a proprietary token despite repeated promises to the contrary.
That new token removes “any doubts,” according to Alexander Cutler, that Base will surpass Solana and “become the #1 largest chain in the world.”
Cutler is a core contributor to two DEXs that enjoy a combined 6% market share of the decentralized exchange industry. He’s also a core contributor to Aerodrome, which provides liquidity on Base, and Velodrome, a top DEX on the Optimism network on which Base is built.
All of his work obviously casts him as a biased forecaster in the eyes of social media and means he’s one of many Base influencers whose simmering feud with Solana influencers boiled over this week.
Base not only enjoys the support of the world’s second-largest crypto exchange, Coinbase, but also supports memecoins, on-chain exchanges, and wrapped versions of major crypto assets like ETH.
Solana also offers each of those features, meaning that Base is an obvious competitor to Solana. This is despite Base founder Jesse Pollack’s insistence that the blockchains exist as friendly, side-by-side ecosystems.
‘If they had it their way, Solana would not exist’
Arguing from the pro-Base camp, Cutler believes Base’s new native token will provide “billions of dollars of economic stimulus flowing into the Base ecosystem” and supplant Solana entirely.
“If they had it their way, Solana would not exist,” wrote Solana Foundation manager Vibhu Norby in response to Cutler, clearly not mincing words.
Pollack fired back at this claim, pointing to Base’s announcement of a Solana-Base blockchain bridge as evidence of cooperation.
Entirely unimpressed, Norby retorted, “You didn’t set up a single Solana partner for launch, didn’t talk to Solana Foundation marketing or ops, just dropped a [GitHub] repo.”
Crypto historians quickly took notice and archived the subtextual skirmish between Base and Solana.
Read more: 90% of Jesse Pollak’s Base tokens are down bad
Planning for a Base token despite years of denials
As Protos summarized after Base unexpectedly launched BASEISFOREVERYONE on April 17, a de facto proprietary token that has crashed 88% from its high that day, Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong and Base founder Jesse Pollack swore for years that Base was opposed to any native token launch.
- “We do not currently plan to issue a new network token.” — Coinbase, March 2023
- “We’re not planning to make any token for Base.” — Brian Armstrong, December 1, 2023
- “There are no plans for a Base network token.” — Jesse Pollack, November 30, 2024
- “[Base has] no plans for a token.” — Jesse Pollack, April 9, 2025
All of that changed in the past few months. Like Solana, which conducted a traditional initial coin offering with large insider allocations for its SOL token, Base is actively exploring issuing a major token soon.