Base Founder Jesse: Building a Global On-Chain Economy to Bring One Billion People into Web3

Last autumn, I spent several weeks in Asia and communicated with some developers. This experience made me more convinced that we need to invest more energy in this region.

We recently hired a country manager in the Philippines, and there are similar vacancies in Indonesia and Singapore, with plans to open more positions in the future. We also plan to engage in closer cooperation with developers in China. I understand the importance of localization for the Chinese market, so we will provide more communication channels and resources for Chinese developers, creators, and users. Stay tuned for more related information later this year.

Base is a global on-chain economy, and we aim to make Base accessible to everyone by executing the 2025 strategy while always adhering to our core values. Specifically, this means:

• Build powerful and open tools to help anyone create world-class on-chain applications.
• Cultivate a vibrant ecosystem that connects open on-chain applications and expands the Base user base.
• Create a powerful on-chain account that provides seamless funding, identity, and management services.
• Make Base the center of the on-chain economy, with high liquidity and a constantly online global capital market.
• Decentralize, scale, and accelerate Base, allowing everyone around the world to participate in the on-chain economy.

I understand that it is indeed very difficult to meet everyone's needs, but I believe that if we can execute in these directions, it should be achievable. I have great respect for the Solana team; if we want to bring a billion people on-chain, this is certainly not something that can be accomplished by any single action.

Recently, there have been a lot of negative news about ETH prices, and I believe most of them are just distractions. I am more focused on using Base to address what I see as key issues, to ensure that everything runs "smoothly" on-chain.

• Fast and cheap: Transactions on Base have maintained a cost of less than one cent for over a year. We recently launched Lightning Blocks on the testnet, which has reduced transaction speed to 200 milliseconds. Both fast and cheap.

• Safe and Convenient: The smart wallet eliminates much of the complexity, helping users who are not familiar with cryptocurrency get started easily, and it only requires operations in the browser without the need for additional extensions or app installations. We can also ensure everything "runs smoothly" by subsidizing Gas fees and providing recovery features.

• Developer<>User Flywheel: Many people initially engage for a specific token, then want to learn more about other features, but lack a clear next step. We are bringing Farcaster and miniapps into Coinbase Wallet to smoothly integrate everything and drive the expansion of this flywheel.

Low-key and pragmatic, continue to build.

Memes are definitely a part of our culture and a key factor that strategically differentiates Base from other platforms. I once gave a lecture on why I think memes are so important in this process. In simple terms, I believe memes are an important user guidance tool, just like in Web2. And the meme builders on Base have brought us our strongest cultural force.

Additionally, I have recently been discussing "content coins." Just like a social media post may just be an image, it can also turn into a viral meme, content coins are also a type of post that does not anticipate its value. I believe that a lot of content will turn into memes, and many memes will also create content!

First, let me clarify: Base is for everyone is a post published by Base on a certain platform, and it is not an official token. We have been publishing content on that platform for several years and are very interested in their new content minting model.

Why do this? Because unlocking tokens provides creators with a powerful tool to earn income through creativity, while also paving the way for more experimental attempts. There has been a lot of discussion about this, with people debating whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. My view is that people are accustomed to the traditional understanding of tokens, and this approach is new and different. We anticipate some criticism, and it does feel a bit daunting. If I could do it again, I would have Base make more statements and explanations from the very beginning.

Looking to the future, we will continue to mint coins because we believe everyone should bring their content on-chain. Our goal is to lead by example through action and experiment in front of the public.

Every day I think about how to bring a billion people on-chain, and the reality is that we cannot achieve this goal just by attracting those who are already interested in cryptocurrency. We need to expand this "cake", and to do that, I believe the answer lies in all the methods mentioned earlier. Our mission is to build a global on-chain economy that is inclusive of everyone.

Payment is a great example of how on-chain technology can improve people's lives. I witnessed firsthand last year while traveling around the world how important foreign exchange and international payments are for people's access to the global economy. Stablecoins pegged to local currencies and fast, cheap on-chain payments solve many practical problems for people: they are almost instantaneous, unlike traditional payments that take days, and the fees are less than one cent ( USD priced ), rather than 3% or $50 or even more in fees.

On-chain finance, social, entertainment, music, art, games, content... all these fields can improve people's lives by transferring control to developers and creators, rather than concentrating it in the hands of large companies.

It's coming soon! We have been rebuilding Coinbase Wallet from scratch over the past few months, aiming to make it 10 times faster while focusing on solving the discovery and distribution issues.

When someone buys their first token, the next steps may not be intuitive if they are interested in what they can do next or what applications they can try. Therefore, we have integrated the Farcaster social dynamics and mini-apps directly into the Coinbase Wallet, allowing users to easily discover on-chain experiences within the app without leaving it.

I am very optimistic about on-chain social, as it has the potential to drive viral dissemination, and a certain platform is a great example (. If you haven't downloaded it yet, hurry up and try this app ).

On traditional social platforms, centralized companies control content and users. In on-chain social media, creators own their content and can earn income when publishing it, not just from likes. Posts on a certain platform are automatically minted, and creators also receive a portion of the transaction fees. In this way, on-chain social media disrupts the traditional model and hands control back to the creators.

Over the past week or so, I have witnessed just how much potential this model has to attract new users into this space. You don't need to understand cryptocurrency to use a certain platform or earn profits from your own posts. I believe we need more applications like this to help bring a billion people on-chain.

Looking forward to seeing more creativity from other developers in this field!

These are what we call "grand, bold, and ambitious goals." If we achieve 100% of our goals, it means we haven't thought boldly enough, so I ask our team to set bigger goals. If we want to bring a billion people on-chain, this is the strategy we must take.

So, what are we doing to achieve this goal?

Increase investment in more powerful and open developer tools. We are particularly focused on developers because they will build on-chain applications that can attract a billion users.

Rebuilding Coinbase Wallet from scratch to increase its speed by 10 times, make it more user-friendly, and enhance content discovery by adding Farcaster social dynamics, while integrating mini-apps so that users can experience everything without leaving the app.

Continue to decentralize, expand, and accelerate Base, because we believe the only way to build a truly global economy is to create a decentralized, open platform. The first phase has a capacity of 250 mgas/s and faster blocks.

We have just launched Base Batches, which covers four themes: AI, stablecoins, mini-apps, and consumer applications. I am really looking forward to seeing developers build more projects in these areas, as there are truly many opportunities. If you are a developer looking for support from zero to one, feel free to join Base Batches!

I know that a certain platform has not yet localized for Chinese users, but I am very happy to see that clients like a certain application are accelerating to fill this gap. However, if we want the Chinese community to fully embrace this network, there is still a lot of work to be done.

This is very important to me and is one of the reasons I am hosting this AMA, hoping to interact more directly with the Chinese community. At the moment, I don't have specific features or a timeline to share, but my team is hiring country leaders across Asia, especially prioritizing those who speak Chinese, as we place great importance on building a more inclusive global network.

Base is for everyone - this means that we will invest more effort in the localization of Base, Farcaster, and the entire community in the future.

We are rebuilding Coinbase Wallet from scratch, with plans that include complete Farcaster social dynamics and mini-apps that can interact directly within the dynamics. This will begin rolling out soon!

I believe that the strength of adding this feature to Coinbase Wallet lies in our ability to provide support within the existing usage scenarios of our users. This not only offers more distribution channels for applications but also helps users discover applications they might be interested in. I am confident that this will bring more user engagement for developers like you, and I am very excited about it.

We do not plan to issue new network tokens. Base uses ETH as the native asset to pay for Gas fees. What I am currently most focused on is building an excellent product that can serve developers ( who create applications, as well as users and enterprises ) who use these applications (.

Base is open and permissionless. Although we are incubating ) at a certain company just like many other networks are also being incubated in labs (, we have a deep commitment to decentralization. Why? Because we believe that only on a decentralized platform can a global on-chain economy be built that fosters innovation, creativity, and freedom.

From the beginning, a certain company and Base reached a principle of neutrality to ensure users' autonomy over their crypto assets, ensure that transaction ordering on Base is unbiased, protect the discretion of non-public data, and guarantee that users can withdraw from Base without restrictions. Over the past year, we have focused on achieving the first phase of decentralization, and we will soon share more progress on this.

I also think we need to continue working hard to build Base as an independent brand and ecosystem, so that it is perceived as distinct from certain companies, while also being able to leverage all the advantages from collaboration. We will soon have some interesting content to share this progress :)

We are committed to supporting developers at all stages, whether you are just launching your first on-chain experiment or scaling a real business, we are here to support you.

I am very excited to introduce a brand new project - Base Batches, which is a global developer program aimed at providing developers with everything they need to grow - funding, exposure, mentor support, and community resources, all of which are available.

It is divided into several stages: first, you join the Buildathon( in your region, where we hold events worldwide). If you perform well, you will have the opportunity to enter our incubator, where you will receive practical support from mentors, members of the Base core team, and outstanding partners. Then comes Demo Day, when the best-performing teams will present to the jury, vying for up to $1 million in funding support.

This is not just a one-time event - we are building a long-term support system to help you from the creative stage to gaining attention, and then to developing into a complete company. We hope to assist you at every stage.