Base's head acknowledged the failure of the social media strategy and handed over the Koby application.
Jesse Pollak, the leader of the Base blockchain, has made a significant strategic pivot. He publicly admitted that his multi-year bet on decentralized social networks and creator coins was a mistake. Moreover, the Base consumer app is returning under the wing of its parent company Coinbase, and its new leader will be the well-known trader and podcaster Koby.
In a detailed post on platform X, Pollak explained that the app is returning to Coinbase's "parent structure." This project will now be handled by Koby, whom Pollak calls a close friend. Koby faces an ambitious task: to turn the app into "the best onchain product." Koby is no stranger to the Coinbase ecosystem; he joined the company after his onchain fundraising platform Echo was acquired by the giant.
A Double Bet That Didn't Pay Off
Pollak candidly called the first quarter of 2026 a "slap in the face." He admitted that in 2024 and 2025, he made a double bet. The first part was on developers, who he believed would drive a new wave of cryptocurrency adoption. The second was that this wave would be led by new social services.
As it turned out, he was right about the developers. The new wave was indeed driven by prediction markets, perpetual contracts, and stablecoins. However, the second part of the strategy failed. "Decentralized social networks were not at its center," Pollak stated. Moreover, according to him, the entire social segment of the market literally "crumbled." He directly stated that he made a mistake, and time will tell whether he misjudged the timing or was completely wrong, but the failure was obvious.
The Cost of the Mistake and a New Course
Pollak described the damage from this bet as "serious." Due to the focus on social networks, the Base project fell behind in critically important areas. In the segments of perpetual contracts and prediction markets, the network lags behind its competitors. People lost confidence, and the entire year, by Pollak's own admission, was a difficult ordeal for him. However, he chose a familiar path: to focus on the blockchain itself, get back to coding, and reconsider previous dogmas.
Previously, Pollak believed that only social networks could bring a billion people into cryptocurrency. Now he is convinced of the opposite. "Better money" is more than sufficient for this goal. His new objective is to bring a billion people onchain by making global finance "truly work." This is why he has focused on turning Base into a blockchain for global markets.
Pollak is not afraid of competition. He welcomed the entry of Robinhood and Stripe into the sector and stated that in 2026, the Base project is "aiming to win" in three areas: trading, payments, and agents.
Expert opinion: Pollak's admission is not just an emotional post, but a clear signal to the market. Base is abandoning its image as a "network social showcase" and betting on hardcore financial infrastructure. This is the right move, given that DeFi and real-world assets (RWA) show much more sustainable growth than speculative social tokens. If Base can build competitive liquidity in derivatives and payments, it has every chance of securing a spot in the top 3 L2s by real volume.