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Base, an Ethereum layer 2 (L2) blockchain developed by crypto exchange Coinbase, saw its total value locked (TVL) print a new all-time high of nearly $320 million on August 31. The jump comes amid growing hype around the newly launched decentralized exchange (DEX) Aerodrome, which offers substantial incentives for new traders.
Base DeFi Desposits Soar Amid Aerodrome Hype
The total value locked across DeFi contracts on Coinbase’s Base blockchain network soared to a new all-time high on Thursday, according to data by DefiLlama. Notably, the new record high comes after TVL saw an overnight spike of more than 62%, taking the total figure to $319.6 million from $196.8 million a day ago.
The sharp increase in total deposits on the network was primarily driven by the current liquidity mining incentives on Aerodrome, a new DEX built for Base. Essentially, liquidity mining is an incentive a project distributes to new platform users. In this instance, Aerodrome is paying users to conduct trades on the exchange.
Launched as a fork of Velodrome, a popular DEX on the Optimism network, Aerodrome aims to become a go-to liquidity solution on the Base blockchain. The DEX was rolled out on August 29 by the team behind Velodrome, which also added liquidity mining for the exchange’s native token, AERO.
The team behind this venture allocated 10% of Aerodrome’s initial token supply of 500 million tokens for liquidity mining. Furthermore, it also airdropped 40% of that supply to token holders of VELO, a native governance token of Velodrome.
Bald Attracting Interest Despite BALD Fiasco
The resurgence in DeFi deposits on Base comes just weeks after the blockchain network debuted.
The layer-2 chain, built with Optimism’s OP stack, witnessed a significant memecoin scam before the mainnet launch. In particular, a meme coin BALD, launched on Base at the end of July, turned out to be a major rug pull after deployers removed over $25 million in liquidity.
However, the scam did little to deter major crypto projects from launching on Base, as seen in the Aerodrome case. Another Base-powered project that garnered significant interest was the social Web3 platform Friend.Tech, which allows users to tokenize themselves and sell “shares,” to fans and followers. Nevertheless, this project later became a subject of controversy due to privacy concerns.
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