Base founder admits mistakes and focuses on trading, payments and AI

Jesse Pollak, the founder of the Base network, is changing course. After a difficult start to 2026, he openly acknowledges that his focus on social products and creator coins was the wrong bet. In a lengthy post, he explains what went wrong and what Base will concentrate on in the coming period: trading, payments and AI agents.

A Painful First Quarter of 2026

Pollak describes the first quarter of 2026 as a slap in the face. He had bet on two tracks: builders who would drive crypto adoption, and social experiences such as creator coins, messaging and content. The first track worked, the second did not at all. Platforms like Farcaster, Zora and mini-apps almost completely fell away, and the creator coins Base had targeted met the same fate.

The damage was considerable. Base fell behind competitors in the areas of perpetuals and prediction markets, and still had a lot of work to do on tokenisation and payments. Pollak says he was confronted with his mistakes weekly via Crypto Twitter and indicates that this weighed heavily. Nevertheless, he chooses to keep building rather than wallow in despair.

jessepollak @jessepollak

lots of conversations about base over the last week. wanted to share my candid take after a week of listening and a lot of reflection over the last 6 months.

first off - in case it’s not obvious, the first quarter of 2026 was a punch in the face. I spent 2024 and 2025 making a two pronged bet to bring base to the world: (1) builders would unlock the next wave of crypto adoption; (2) adoption would be driven by new onchain-native social experiences - creators, content, messaging. imo we made the right bet on builders, but obviously the wrong bet on social. builders did drive the next wave of crypto adoption - prediction markets, perpetuals, stablecoins - but social was not at the center of it. in fact, the entire social side of the market that many of us had been building towards - farcaster, zora, miniapps, and yes, creator coins - disintegrated completely. I was wrong - whether it was timing wrong (is $ansem a creator coin?) or fully wrong, only time will tell, but regardless, i was definitively wrong.

the collateral damage was pretty bad! and this year has been an exercise in eating shit. we realized how our focus on social had meant that base had fallen behind in key areas that were now increasingly critical - we had perps (shoutout avantis!) and prediction markets (shoutout limitless!), but both were well behind scaled competitors. and we had a lot of room to improve in unlocking base as a platform for tokenization and payments that really worked for enterprises. people lost confidence, and CT spectators reminded me weekly of all of my mistakes as often as they could. it felt bad man, still feels bad.

but if there’s one thing i’ve learned from the last decade of building in this space, it’s that when things feel the worst, the best thing to do is just put your head down and build. so that’s what i’m doing. I refocused my time and attention back to the chain away from the app, started writing code again, shipped a bunch of stuff (azul, beryl, b20, privacy, ledgers) and questioned a bunch of my assumptions: does crypto need social to grow? does base need an app? can base be bigger than coinbase?

I thought for a long time that social was the only thing that could drive the sort of viral growth to get crypto to a billion people. unsurprisingly, I now believe that’s wrong. It’s clear that better money is more than enough - we are seeing this live with stablecoins, predictions, perpetuals, tokenization and i only expect it to accelerate. I am now focused on bringing a billion people onchain just by making global finance actually work.

on the app, my focus is on building base into the blockchain for global finance. to that end, i’ve handed the base app back to the coinbase mothership, where my now good friend @cobie will be taking it from here to make it the best damn app for onchain you’ve ever seen, including expanding beyond the base ecosystem in ways that tbh i won’t love as the leader of base.

it’s incredibly hard to grow a decentralized network inside of a big public corporation. and i feel like much of the discourse on CT over the last week is downstream of this. the following things can be true: (1) base (and i) love memes and (2) brian probably won’t ever bullpost memes on the tl (this activity is illegal once you’re over 40 years of age). it’s weird and we’re working through it as we continue to decentralize base, which has been our commitment from the beginning.

we’re going to build base into the blockchain for global finance and do everything we can to be the place that the world’s money settles over the next century. we will surely have formidable competitors (welcome robinhood and stripe!) and people may abandon our cause, but we welcome the competition and believe it’s our duty to win the respect and commitment of those who rally to our banner.

in 2026, this concretely means three things: winning trading, payments, and agents.

[continued in the reply]

15 Jul 2026View full tweet on X ›

Cobie Takes Over Base App, Pollak Focuses on the Blockchain

One concrete change is that Pollak is returning the Base App to Coinbase. Well-known crypto figure Cobie is taking over development of that app and will have the freedom to go beyond just the Base ecosystem. Coinbase has meanwhile also opened registration for users in China, indicating that the company has ambitious growth plans. Pollak himself will now focus entirely on building Base as a blockchain for the global financial sector.

For 2026, he names three concrete pillars. First, trading: every type of asset must be tradable on Base, from tokenised stocks to memecoins and app coins. Second, payments via stablecoins that work globally, both for individuals and businesses. Third, AI agents, because crypto as native money for computers could unleash trillions in new economic activity in the coming years. Competitors Stripe and Robinhood are mentioned by name as serious challengers that Base welcomes.

jessepollak @jessepollak

trading means every asset. tokenized stocks, memes, app coins, whatever you want to trade. payments means stablecoins that work globally, for people and for enterprises. agents means accelerating all of it because crypto is native money for computers and artificial intelligence is going to create trillions of new economic actors.

and against these three pillars, builders are the backbone. If there’s one thing i’m deeply proud of since the beginning of base, alongside all the mistakes, it’s betting on builders. base is what it is because of the people who built it. not the roadmap, not the infrastructure - the builders who showed up, shipped, and kept going through every version of this, the good stretches and the hard ones. and we're going to keep backing them: Base Layer, Base Batches, the Base Ecosystem Fund, my time, my teams time, coinbase and base app distribution as much as we’re able to. we will do everything we can to make builders win on base. because when builders win, base wins.

if you’ve made it this far and you couldn’t already tell: i don't have everything figured out. we try stuff, we make mistakes, and we adapt in public. the feedback, even the sharp stuff, genuinely makes us better. we see it all, and even when we can't respond to everything, it burrows its way into my brain and makes me better. so thank you.

we are building a global economy that increases innovation, creativity, and freedom. we will do this by doing the right thing, working hard, staying optimistic, pushing boundaries with creativity, and putting the team over the individual. and it’s working: with QoQ growth in dex share and payment volume, and a renewed focus on products that drive sustainable growth.

hopefully we can shut up about content coins now. i was wrong and i’m sorry! (although if someone else builds content coins and they work then i’m going to lose it. and I'm also not going to just let $jesse fade away - when I launch something, I'm in it for the long term)

ok thats enough typing, back to work

15 Jul 2026View full tweet on X ›

Builders Remain the Backbone of Base

Despite all the mistakes, Pollak remains proud of one thing: the commitment to builders. He states that Base has become what it is thanks to the people who actually built on it. He wants to continue that support through initiatives such as Base Layer, Base Batches and the Base Ecosystem Fund.

Pollak concludes with an honest message: he does not have everything figured out yet, but wants to experiment in public and learn from feedback. He considers the creator coin strategy to have definitively failed and offers his apologies for it. However, he leaves the door open: if someone else ever does make content coins a success, he will still be surprised by it.

Base founder admits mistakes and focuses on trading, payments and AI

A Painful First Quarter of 2026

Cobie Takes Over Base App, Pollak Focuses on the Blockchain

Builders Remain the Backbone of Base

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