Base is for Now

By: Xen Baynham-Herd

Culture is a blockchain’s greatest output. Raw technical specs don't transform societies; people do. The chains that endure aren't necessarily those with the fastest throughput or lowest gas fees—they're the ones that inspire and foster communities with aligned incentives and a shared vision.

Base’s mission is very clear: build a global onchain economy that increases innovation, creativity, and freedom. 

We repeat this line a lot, but I don’t think most of us appreciate the implications. This mission differs markedly from traditional tech's approach. While Web2 platforms built walled gardens that extract value from creators, we're building open infrastructure that lets value flow to those who generate it. Everyone can be involved, exercise their agency, and capture the value they’ve created. Everywhere in the world, people on Base are getting access to an economic system more open and abundant than ever before.

This mission arrives at a pivotal moment. AI is democratizing creation. The global workforce is becoming more fluid, with talent flowing across borders and organizational boundaries. Economic participation is increasingly digital, yet our financial infrastructure remains fragmented and exclusionary. These shifts call for new economic systems—ones that are permissionless, transparent, and aligned with our interests.

The onchain economy we envision is fundamentally new. Base provides the infrastructure where these new economic relationships can take shape.

The Network is the Product

I joined Base to lead Global Builders because I believe Base’s primary product is its network. We're crafting what I call a "Network Union"—a globally connected community with structure and purpose: to activate builders and support them creating products and services that bring the world onchain.

Building on Base means joining an ecosystem where your success strengthens the whole. Our Builder Rewards program puts real skin in the game—providing weekly rewards to top contributors—but the true value is plugging into a network where thousands of builders are invested in your success.

Look at history's innovation hotspots: Bell Labs, early Ethereum, Silicon Valley's garage-to-giant pipeline. These were communities bound by cultural gravity, where shared context produced exponential results.

We're cultivating this dynamic at global scale, taking Ethereum's "hardness” and making it accessible through new developer tools and lower barriers to entry. Base inherits Ethereum's cultural DNA but extends it to a broader audience, maintaining principles while expanding participation.

When you choose where to build, you're not just selecting a tech stack—you're joining a network. Our ethos attracts builders who value sustainable growth over pump-and-dump cycles, value creation over extraction. Folks are free to do what they want with open, permissionless technology, but a strong culture can attract the players who play positive-sum games and build long-term value.

Culture Needs Strong Infrastructure

Culture is important, but Base is also creating a superior technical environment for users and builders alike:

Fast and cheap transactions make getting onchain more accessible to anyone, anywhere, and we’re focused on a north star of less than one second and less than one cent. Typical transactions on Base are already less than 1 cent, and we recently rolled out Flashblocks on testnet to bring speeds up to less than a second.

Flashblocks deliver 200 millisecond block times—10x faster than before—creating the responsive infrastructure that transforms what's possible onchain, enabling applications that feel as responsive as their Web2 counterparts.

Simple, easy to use tools are crucial to make it as easy as possible for developers to build on Base. Our developer tooling strips away complexity. MiniKit enables one-click mini app deployment, removing friction that keeps creators on the sidelines. OnchainKit provides standardized components that accelerate development without sacrificing flexibility. AgentKit connects crypto with AI, opening new horizons for autonomous applications.

When you need a more custom environment, Base Appchains provide dedicated infrastructure with enterprise-grade support while maintaining connectivity to the broader ecosystem. They embody our "a bridge not an island" philosophy—specialized when needed, connected always. This approach lets projects scale without sacrificing the network effects of the broader ecosystem.

We’re also working on making getting onchain dead simple for end users. Smart Wallet allows users to go from zero to transacting onchain in minutes, not hours, and  tackle the approval fatigue that often drives users away. Sub-accounts enable fine-grained permissions without endless pop-ups. These improvements make participation possible for the next billion users by removing the technical barriers that kept mainstream adoption at bay.

Great culture needs the right foundation. Our technology creates the conditions where our community can thrive. Base has been created by builders for builders – technical excellence flows upward into cultural strength.

Global Network, Global Impact

Base is incubating at Coinbase, and seamless integration gives Base strong distribution. We're delivering impact today as Base is becoming the backbone for practical financial applications across different economies. 

Base dominated stablecoin transaction volume in early 2025 (50% of all stablecoin transaction volume was on Base last month) and local currency stablecoins are being launched all around the world. DeFi protocols on Base are delivering Bitcoin backed loans through the Coinbase App. Verified Pools by Coinbase enable a new wave of institutional and retail actors to safely transact onchain. This is real economic activity serving people's needs and it's only the start. Millions of users and billions of capital are going to come onchain through Base and Coinbase. 

We're expanding with purpose. Base East Africa, for example, is a dedicated team working with local builders to solve real problems, combining onchain capabilities with local knowledge to create solutions that address regional challenges. With community launches planned in 20+ countries this year, we're making onchain access truly global, bringing economic opportunity to regions historically excluded from financial innovation.

The application ecosystem is accelerating across verticals. Social platforms like Farcaster, Zora, and Rodeo, autonomous agents, and an explosion of mini apps are bringing diverse use cases to life. Base’s integration with Coinbase Wallet will soon make discovery seamless for millions by introducing a new onchain feed that helps builders get distribution and blurs the line between crypto-natives and mainstream consumers.

Base is for Builders

At its core, Base offers what serious builders need most: technical excellence serving an ambitious purpose. We're creating an environment where anyone can plug in and get the resources they need to pursue this vision with us. We are a community of builders who fiercely believe in a better future because we are empowered with the capacity to create it.

The mission remains clear: build a global onchain economy that increases innovation, creativity, and freedom, by creating infrastructure where value flows to those who generate it and by building products that improve people’s lives.

Base is for builders.