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In a remarkable display of rising on-chain activity, Coinbase’s Layer-2 blockchain network, Base, has continued to garner significant traction within the crypto realm in recent weeks. To this point, analytics have revealed a significant uptrend in Base’s mainnet transaction volume, with daily transactions consistently surpassing the 1 million mark over the past month.
This upward trajectory became even more pronounced on March 28th, when daily transaction volumes on the Base chain soared beyond 2 million, peaking at a weekly high of 3 million transactions. This monumental surge in Base’s on-chain activity can be attributed to a confluence of factors, including a major network upgrade and the emergence of a “meme fever” within the ecosystem.
The Dencun upgrade, which introduced key improvements to the network, has sparked a notable increase in funding and developer activity, leading to a sixfold rise in high-quality contributors since the start of the year.
Bitget Wallet’s Surge Propels Base Network’s Success
One of the primary drivers pushing the aforementioned surge has been Bitget Wallet, a leading Web3 storage solution. To elaborate, during the first week of April alone, the offering recorded daily transactions exceeding 200,000, capturing more than 10% of the Base chain’s total transaction volume.
Alvin Kan, COO of Bitget Wallet, attributed this remarkable growth to a myriad of factors. Firstly, he believes that the Dencun upgrade sparked a surge in funding and fundamental improvements. Secondly, he noted that the total value locked (TVL) on Base witnessed a substantial jump, rising from $477 million in early March to $1.47 billion, surpassing other prominent Layer 2 platforms like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Starknet.
Meme Fever and SocialFi Boost Attention and Capital Inflow
Another factor that helped bolster Base’s ongoing surge, as per Kan, was the ‘Meme Fever’ event, ignited by the launch of a meme coin by the founder of the well-known NFT project called ‘mfers.’ The event, coupled with trades of popular meme coins, pushed the Base chain DEX’s transaction volume to an unprecedented $1.22 billion on March 30th.
Furthermore, the escalating excitement surrounding decentralized social media networks FriendTech, Farcaster, and the buzz around Degen Token seems to have also significantly boosted attention and capital inflow towards the Base ecosystem. Not only that, Kan believes that some of the project’s increasing on-chain activity can be partly attributed to the influence of the meme coin, MOEW, launched by Bitget Wallet on April 3rd.
Since its debut, MOEW has made waves by airdropping a substantial amount of free tokens targeted at BWB point holders. With nearly 100,000 addresses now holding MOEW and a total transaction volume exceeding $120 million, the coin briefly claimed the top spot on the Base chain’s interaction leaderboard.
The Base Network is primed for big things
Looking ahead, the Base network seems set to expand rapidly. According to L2BEAT, on April 8, the network’s TVL stood at $4.15 billion, with $1.45 billion representing canonically bridged value and $2.7 billion in natively minted assets. Moreover, the project currently holds the third position among Ethereum layer-2 solutions in terms of TVL — outpacing its closest competitor, Blast, which currently has a TVL of around $2.7 billion.
Also, in March 2024, Base’s 30-day transaction count surpassed that of Ethereum and its rival Arbitrum. Base recorded 50.34 million transactions, outpacing Arbitrum’s 40.1 million and Ethereum’s 37.9 million.
As a result, Kan and several other experts remain highly optimistic about the Base Network and its future prospects, especially since it is one of Ethereum’s most actively utilized Layer 2 solutions — boasting a thriving on-chain ecosystem, an engaged user base, and widespread developer support.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
