Table of Contents
Jesse Pollak just dropped the Base app, and it's not another social media clone – it's crypto's first real shot at an everything app that actually pays creators fairly.
Key Takeaways
- The Base app functions as your front door to everything on-chain, not just Base chain itself
- Creators can earn immediately from viral posts, with some making thousands of dollars in their first week
- Unlike traditional social media where creators earn less than 5% of platform revenue, Base redistributes value directly to content creators
- Mini apps represent a completely novel content format that can go viral within the feed
- The app integrates nine different blockchain networks, making it truly cross-chain rather than ecosystem-locked
- Early creators have massive opportunity since only a few thousand people are currently using the platform
- Market-based algorithms replace traditional engagement algorithms, letting the free market determine content value
- Video content, crypto Twitter-style posting, and interactive mini apps are emerging as the three main viral content types
What Makes Base App Different From Every Other Social Platform
Here's the thing about social media – we've all felt that nagging sense that something's fundamentally broken. You create content, it goes viral, and somehow everyone except you makes money from it. Jesse Pollak gets this frustration, and that's exactly why the Base app exists.
When Pollak and his team were building Base chain over the past two years, they had a vision problem. They could articulate this grand idea about "bringing the world on-chain" and "building a global economy," but when they explained it to friends, family, or random people on the street, nobody got it. The disconnect was brutal – they'd show people Coinbase Wallet with Base integration, and people just stared blankly.
"We did not have a product that matched the vision," Pollak admits. The Base app changes that completely. For the first time, there's a consumer experience where you can hand someone your phone, they immediately understand what's happening, and they think it's awesome.
The app isn't just another social media platform trying to compete with Twitter or Instagram. It's what Pollak calls an "everything app" – you can post, earn, chat with friends, explore thousands of applications, trade, and pay, all within one seamless experience. But here's what makes it revolutionary: it's built on open protocols instead of closed corporate systems.
Think of it like this – traditional social media platforms are like walled gardens where one company controls everything and keeps most of the profits. Base app is more like a public square built on shared infrastructure where value flows back to the people actually creating and engaging with content.
The Creator Economics Revolution That's Already Happening
The numbers coming out of Base app's early days are frankly insane. Content creators are posting something, watching it go viral, and immediately seeing money flow into their accounts. Not in 60 days after reaching some arbitrary follower threshold – immediately.
One creator named Jack made his first viral post and watched a stream of earnings roll in: 0.01 ETH, 0.02 ETH, building up to thousands of dollars. Another creator, Sierra, earned around $3,000 to $8,000 from a single viral post. Brian Armstrong, Coinbase's CEO, earned $150,000 over a week of posting. Pollak himself earned $30,000 in the same timeframe.
Now, skeptics immediately jump to "but that's not sustainable" or "only famous people will earn." Pollak's response is refreshingly honest: of course not every post goes viral, and of course people with bigger audiences earn more. That's just how social media works. But here's what's different – the economics actually favor creators instead of extracting value from them.
In traditional social media, creators capture less than 5% of the overall value they generate for platforms. The rest goes to shareholders and advertising revenue. Base app flips this model by letting the free market value content directly, then routing that value back to creators and engaged users.
The immediacy factor can't be overstated. When Pollak explained the concept to his personal trainer – "every post is an asset and people can buy it and you earn from it" – the guy immediately asked if he could get access. He made his first post about fitness content and earned $10. That $10 was enough to hook him.
Building Your Audience From the Ground Floor
Here's where things get really interesting for aspiring creators. Right now, only a few thousand people are actively using the Base app, with maybe another 10,000 in the broader Farcaster network it's built on. This creates a massive opportunity for new creators willing to get in early.
Pollak's team is actively searching across every content vertical – fitness, food, makeup, small business, you name it – looking for up-and-coming creators who don't have big audiences on existing platforms. Their strategy isn't just to poach established influencers (though that's happening too – Gary Vee is apparently "fired up" about the app). They want to find people with creativity and help them build audiences from scratch.
The global accessibility aspect is crucial here. It doesn't matter where you're born, where you live, or what phone you have. You can download the app, start creating, and start earning immediately. It's genuinely a level playing field in a way that traditional social media never was.
This reminds me of the early days of platforms like YouTube or TikTok, where getting in early and understanding the platform's unique dynamics could catapult unknown creators to massive success. Except now there's immediate monetary feedback instead of hoping to eventually qualify for monetization programs.
Three Content Formats That Actually Go Viral
Pollak sees three main content types emerging as viral on the platform, and understanding these is crucial if you're thinking about becoming a Base app creator.
First is video content, which shouldn't surprise anyone. The same type of content that works on Instagram and TikTok translates well to Base app, though you need to think more globally since the audience is international. The team is actively recruiting creators across different verticals to ensure there's actually engaging content for users to discover.
Second is what Pollak calls "crypto Twitter" style content – thoughtful, text-based posting that can bootstrap off the existing network of crypto-native users. This high-minded posting style has natural product-market fit with the early user base.
But the third format is where things get really interesting: mini apps. These are interactive applications that can be shared in your feed or in messages, and they represent something completely novel in social media.
Imagine scrolling through your feed, seeing something cool, tapping it, and immediately being able to check out or play a game or interact with some other application – all without leaving the social context. These mini apps can go viral just like regular posts, but they offer much richer interaction possibilities.
Pollak mentions examples like mini games or one-tap commerce experiences. The viral potential comes from the fact that you can turn any post into a canvas that developers can build on, creating hooks that weren't possible in traditional social media.
The Technical Infrastructure That Makes It All Work
What makes Base app genuinely different isn't just the user experience – it's the underlying infrastructure. The app is built on Base chain, which itself runs on Ethereum, but it integrates with eight other EVM-compatible networks including Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Avalanche. Solana and other networks are coming soon.
More importantly, it's built by composing together existing open protocols. Base app uses Farcaster for social functionality, XMTP for messaging, Zora for NFTs, Aero for trading, and Uniswap for swaps. Instead of building everything from scratch in a closed system, they've "legoed together" these protocols to create new functionality.
This composability creates possibilities that don't exist in traditional social media. For example, when you create a post, it automatically becomes a tradeable asset. People can buy and sell attention on your content, and you earn fees from that trading activity. The more viral your content goes, the more trading happens, the more you earn.
The coin mechanics sound complex, but users report that once they turn on monetization, they just stop thinking about it. Money flows in automatically based on engagement and trading activity. You're not actively managing some complex financial instrument – you're just posting good content and earning from the value it creates.
Market-Based Algorithms vs Corporate Control
Here's something that should make everyone pause and think: instead of having some corporate algorithm decide what content gets seen, Base app uses market mechanisms. People literally vote with their money on what content is valuable.
Traditional social media algorithms optimize for engagement to serve more ads. Base app's "algorithm" is actually the free market determining what content is worth attention and money. It's a fundamentally different approach to content discovery and distribution.
Pollak frames this as taking content that we know is incredibly valuable – trillion-dollar businesses have been built around it – and bringing it on-chain where the free market can value it directly. Instead of one corporation capturing most of that value through advertising or subscriptions, the market redistributes value back to creators and engaged users.
This market-based approach extends to features like quote posting. Right now, when you quote someone's post, monetization is turned off to prevent value extraction. But Pollak mentions they're experimenting with more sophisticated approaches, like pairing quote post coins with the original post's coin, creating economic incentives that benefit both creators.
Addressing the Skeptics and Cultural Resistance
Not everyone is convinced that turning social media posts into tradeable assets is a good idea. Some creators have expressed concern about having to "dump on their holders" to monetize their content, feeling uncomfortable with the financial dynamics.
Pollak's response is pretty straightforward: you don't need to sell your tokens to get paid. Creators earn in two ways – from trading fees whenever people buy or sell their content's coin, and from a 1% allocation when they create the content. The sustainable approach is to hold your content tokens and just earn from the ongoing trading activity.
The trading fee model means that viral content generates ongoing revenue streams rather than one-time payments. If your content continues to generate attention weeks or months later, you continue earning. This creates better long-term incentives for creators compared to traditional monetization models.
There's definitely cultural resistance to the "everything is a coin" approach. Pollak admits he was initially skeptical when his team first proposed it. But after seeing how it works in practice – how it enables composability, how it redistributes value to creators, how it creates new product possibilities – he became convinced it's a better foundation for building social networks.
The key insight is that coins have consistently shown the best product-market fit in crypto, whether we're talking about meme coins or more serious projects. They're liquid, composable, and easy for people to understand conceptually. When Pollak explained the concept to his trainer as "every post is an asset and people can buy it," the guy immediately got it.
What This Means for the Future of Social Media
Base app represents something bigger than just another social media platform – it's a proof of concept for how social networks could work when built on open protocols instead of closed corporate systems. The composability, the creator economics, the global accessibility, and the market-based content discovery all point toward a fundamentally different model.
We're still in the very early days. Pollak emphasizes this is "day one" of something much larger. The current user base is tiny, the features are still evolving, and there's tremendous opportunity for creators willing to experiment with this new model.
But the early signals are promising. Creators are earning meaningful money immediately. Users are engaging with content in new ways. Developers are building mini apps that create novel social experiences. The combination of social media with blockchain infrastructure is finally producing something that feels like it could actually replace traditional platforms rather than just existing alongside them.
Whether Base app specifically becomes the dominant everything app or just proves the model for others to follow, it's clear that social media built on open protocols offers possibilities that closed corporate platforms simply can't match. For creators tired of having their value extracted by big tech companies, that's reason enough to pay attention.
