Jesse Pollak, best known as the creator behind American crypto exchange Coinbase’s Base Layer 2 network, has been seen as the person largely responsible for the network’s growth in popularity this year.
Pollak, who started at Coinbase in 2017, launched Base in 2023. Designed to make on-chain activity cheaper and easier and to support a new wave of decentralized applications, Base represented the first time a major crypto exchange launched its own Layer 2 network.
This year, Base saw significant growth, surpassing $15 billion in total value locked (TVL) in January and becoming one of the largest L2s by $10 billion (Arbitrum is the only Layer 2 network larger than Base).
Base’s rise in popularity is not only due to how low transaction costs are (well below a penny), but also due to the growing DeFi applications available in its ecosystem, as well as social applications and memecoins that have generated growth over the past year. (Pollak’s rising stardom was slightly tempered when he faced strong backlash for his launch of the $JESSE memecoin in November, after many users claimed that bots took over much of the supply and the token diverted liquidity from other Base projects.)
In 2025, several projects on Coinbase’s Base network have become major ecosystem drivers, with projects such as decentralized exchange Aerodrome Finance growing to over $1 billion in TVL in January 2025 and a central liquidity hub for the chain. Zora, a decentralized social network, also stood out, launching its token in April and capitalizing on the growing trend of Base’s on-chain creator economy. More broadly, Base itself has seen explosive growth in DeFi, social, and meme-based applications, creating a feedback loop that amplifies demand for native protocols as the network positions itself as a home for this type of on-chain culture and experimentation.
As for what the chain has in store next: Pollak hinted that a native token could be coming to Base, generating a lot of anticipation among users who are already driving the activity.
Read more: Base explores native token issuance, says creator Jesse Pollak
