With record monthly revenues and a TVL exceeding $3.8 billion, Base, the layer 2 of Ethereum launched by Coinbase, has established itself as a leader in its sector. Innovative wallet, promising DeFi projects and AI narrative: immerse yourself in the world of this booming blockchain.
Basis: A growing ecosystem
The Base blockchain, a layer 2 of Ethereum launched in August 2023 by the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, is experiencing phenomenal growth. Indeed, since last March, Base has become the layer 2 generating the highest monthly revenue.
Revenue per month for the main Ethereum layer 2s
As an example, Base achieved $10.9 million in revenue in November. In comparison, Arbitrum, the second layer 2 in terms of revenue, generated 1.3 million dollars, or approximately 8 times less.
In the same logic, Base has surpassed Arbitrum in terms of total value locked (TVL), which currently exceeds 3.8 billion. However, according to DeFiLlama data, the Arbitrum ecosystem has more than 700 protocols compared to only 400 on the Base blockchain.
In this article, we present several projects that are being built on the Base blockchain and which deserve special attention.
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Coinbase Wallet: The ideal Wallet to evolve in the Base ecosystem
First of all, to navigate the Base ecosystem with peace of mind, you need to have a wallet. So what could be better than starting this tier-list of projects built on Base by the crypto wallet developed by Coinbase?
Indeed, The Coinbase Wallet is a tailor-made tool for the Base blockchain. It simply presents a better user experience than its competitors due to its ergonomics and fluidity of action. Equipped with multiple features, the Coinbase Wallet is the ideal tool for evolving in the Base ecosystem, whether you are a beginner in the crypto world or an experienced user.
đź‘› Find our selection of the best wallets for your cryptocurrencies
In addition, the Coinbase Wallet benefits from a gamified interface, the polar opposite of a regular hot wallet such as MetaMask, which for its part offers a rather rustic, although functional, interface. For example, on the Coinbase Wallet, it is possible to directly access many decentralized applications (dApps) which is a significant advantage for avoiding scams.
On the Coinbase Wallet interface, in the home section, NFTs are regularly highlighted. Mining some of these NFTs, or exploring dApps highlighted by the Base team, allows you to earn a certain number of points.
Example of different NFTs highlighted on Coinbase Wallet, allowing you to earn points
Although these points have no use in writing these lines, it is highly likely that they will be taken into account if Base ever decides to launch a token and airdrop it to its users to decentralize its governance.
Be careful though, although speculation around a potential Base airdrop is rife in the crypto community, an ecosystem developer recently claimed that launching a token was not part of Base's plans at the moment, and that the team would prefer to focus its strategy on the development of its products rather than on the management of a native token.
Example of points acquired and rank achieved on Coinbase Wallet
Beyond the Base blockchain, the Coinbase Wallet allows you to interact with the main blockchains compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) but also to swap cryptocurrencies directly from the interface. Coinbase Wallet then acts as an aggregator by finding the best possible route to swap cryptos between them.
Coinbase: register on the most famous crypto exchange in the world
Aerodrome: The benchmark DEX on the Base blockchain
Aerodrome is the largest decentralized exchange (DEX) on the Base blockchain. It is defined as the “ central marketplace for liquidity on Base “. Aerodrome allows you to trade cryptocurrencies and earn returns by depositing liquidity into the protocol, all without going through the tedious KYC stepcommon to most centralized exchanges.
Swap interface on the Aerodrome platform
Aerodrome plays a central role in the Base ecosystem, being the protocol with the largest TVL on the blockchain. With more than $1.7 billion locked, it alone represents nearly 45% of Base's total TVLhighlighting its strategic importance and massive adoption.
Beyond the attractive returns that Aerodrome offers in exchange for liquidity, swaps are relatively inexpensive in terms of fees and a large number of cryptocurrencies are available.
The underlying token, AERO, is up over 50% over the past 14 days.
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Cygnus Finance: An innovative protocol in the RWA space on the Base blockchain
Cygnus Finance is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol built on the Base blockchain, with a focus on real asset (RWA) tokenization. In particular, it allows its users to benefit from yields on short-term US Treasury bonds.while remaining in the crypto ecosystem.
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The project offers 2 different stablecoins, which natively generate a yield, with properties similar to those of Ondo Finance, safe solutions (vaults) but also restaking solutions.
What caught our attention with Cygnus is that it does not yet have a governance token. In addition, a points system should soon be implemented on the platform, which could suggest an airdrop in the coming months. Cygnus Finance has not benefited from external investments to our knowledge, which is reminiscent of the Hyperliquid project which recently distributed a historic airdrop to its users.
We still recommend a certain amount of caution because Cygnus Finance is the youngest project – and therefore the least proven – that we are presenting to you. Cygnus Finance holds at the time of writing these lines almost $130 million TVL.
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Virtuals Protocol: The platform to launch your autonomous AI agent
Virtuals Protocol is certainly the most trending project on this tier-list, and for good reason: the price of VIRTUAL, the underlying token of the protocol, has exploded upwards by almost 600% in the last 30 days !
Indeed, Virtuals Protocol is located at the intersection of several promising narratives such as memecoins, artificial intelligence, and more particularly autonomous agents.
We talked about it in more detail in our last article on the narrative of autonomous agents, Virtuals Protocol is currently one of those projects that must be kept under surveillance.
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Morpho: The flagship DeFi platform on the Base blockchain
The Morpho protocol is an innovative solution in the DeFi ecosystem. It is designed to optimize loans and borrowing (lending/borrowing) on platforms like Compound and Aave.
Morpho acts as an overlay that improves returns for lenders while reducing costs for borrowers, thanks to a hybrid peer-to-peer mechanism. This model combines the liquidity of traditional pools with the efficiency of direct user-to-user lending, providing competitive interest rates.
Since its launch, Morpho has raised more than $69 million from reputable venture capital funds like a16z, Coinbase Venture, Variant, Pantera Capital and many others.
The protocol launched its cryptocurrency in November, MORPHO, which saw its price appreciate by 61% in the last 14 days.
Since the launch of its cryptocurrency, the Morpho protocol has earned $1 billion in TVL, setting its total TVL at over $2.8 billion as of this writing.
The Base ecosystem: fertile ground for innovation
As we have seen through this non-exhaustive list of projects developing on the Base blockchain, this ecosystem is particularly conducive to innovation. From DeFi to autonomous agents and an innovative wallet, the Base ecosystem is varied and attractive for users and developers alike.
According to data from Artemis Terminal, Base is the blockchain to attract the most net capital for over a yearwhich demonstrates a real interest in this layer 2 of Ethereum.
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Source: CoinGecko
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Passionate about the blockchain ecosystem, I like to deepen my knowledge and share my discoveries. In a perpetual quest to learn more about cryptos, I recently joined the Cryptoast Research team where I provide weekly fundamental analysis.
Théo Zananiri
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