Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has drawn a line under the era of content coins on the Base network. He directly stated that the experiment was unsuccessful. At the beginning of the year, the team changed its development direction, acknowledging that the focus on tokenizing publications and creator assets was a mistake.
Base is an L2 solution on Ethereum launched by Coinbase in 2023. For most of last year, developers tried to catch popular on-chain trends. The experiments attracted new users, but for many participants, they resulted in serious financial losses. Four failed directions stand out in particular.
Four Unsuccessful On-Chain Bets
The network actively supported the content coin application for over a year. Users could turn their social media posts into tokens and trade them freely. Against the backdrop of the token issuance boom in Zora, activity within the network surged, but the project never developed a permanent and stable audience — this was its main vulnerability.
| Direction | Essence | Outcome |
| Zora | Tokenization of publications | No permanent audience |
| Creator coins | Author tokens and indices | Financial losses for investors |
| Team-backed tokens | Coins under management's auspices | Rapid decline and losses |
| Base social app | Universal hub | Misunderstanding by the community |
Creator coins became another controversial initiative. The network offered fans to buy tokens tied to specific authors. Developers urged funding special indices for content creators. However, some authors had highly questionable achievements, and when prices began to fall, it was ordinary users who ended up at a loss.
Team-backed tokens also failed to meet expectations. Tokens associated with former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan and Base creator Jesse Pollak initially generated hype but later brought only disappointment to holders. The same people regularly lost money on coins promoted by the team.
The socially-oriented Base application was promoted as a universal hub. Contrary to expectations, developers added features that users did not need at all. Later, Armstrong reformatted the product. Currently, the platform operates as a trading application with self-custodial storage, featuring all network tokens.
Armstrong Acknowledged Failure with Base Content Coins
Armstrong directly responded to criticism and agreed that the era of content coins had come to an end. "I agree with the first part and your opinion on content coins. The experiment did not justify itself; we changed course at the beginning of the year. We were wrong, time to move on," he wrote.
The abandonment of the previous concept coincided with a sharp decline in network activity. The total value locked (TVL) in Base fell from approximately $5.3 billion in January to $3.9 billion by mid-February. The $1.4 billion decline occurred during a period of disagreements over the new strategy. At the time of publication, the network's TVL reached $4.37 billion.
According to the CEO, current resources are primarily directed toward developing trading. At the same time, payments and the artificial intelligence sector are taking a back seat. Armstrong denies that Base is trying to occupy the niche of AI agents. This focus did not protect the core business from a downturn: Coinbase's revenue for the last quarter decreased by 31% to $1.41 billion due to a 37% drop in spot trading.
Whether the new focus on trading will be successful remains to be seen. Whether the platform can regain the trust of affected users is an open question. Armstrong has already offered to personally hear the opinions of all dissatisfied community members.