Background

Three months ago, Alex (proxystudio.eth) launched Clanker, a Farcaster bot that lets anyone launch an ERC20 token on Base with a simple prompt. Since then, 50,000+ tokens have been launched, 183,000 people have traded them, and total trading volume has surpassed $1.7 Billion.

Like many on the purple app, I and Puneet joined in the degen trading frenzy. It has been an interesting experience. But it also made us curious about how others trade. This post is based on conversations with 25 amazing people on farcaster who shared their experiences.

The Lifecycle of a Trade

The process starts with spotting a newly launched token or one showing breakout potential. Then comes basic vetting to ensure it’s not a rugpull. After that, the trade is made based on risk appetite, followed by an exit decision driven by profit targets or acceptable losses.

How Farcaster finds Alpha

Interface is by far one of the leading ways through which farcaster users are discovering new tokens. It’s a social network where you can follow wallets, see what tokens (both fungible and non fungible) they are buying and selling and even copy their trades. It integrates well with farcaster and you can look up your farcaster friends on the app.

I cant do anything without interface and trust me you cant find sth like it on other chain and interface is an alpha itself. You actually know what token people or whale follow and trade. Its just not like other alpha call group which people normally ape first then give a signal to you.

@tonyminh

Tony isn’t the only. Many others shared their love for Interface.

Beyond Interface, most people discovered tokens through their Farcaster or X feed from posts by someone they followed and respected. One surprising avenue of discovery, at least for me, were airdrops. Quite a few folks shared having received an airdrop that they got and then decided to buy some more of the airdropped token.

In addition to these, group chats on farcaster, telegram, and whatsapp are other popular mediums of discovering alpha. Also, tools like Dexscreener and specialized products like Alphagate (shout out to @beavs for sharing) and Arkham Intelligence (h/t to @skrim) help folks identify trending tokens.

The Vetting before the Buying

Crypto Trading ain’t for the faint-hearted. There are countless ways of getting rekt.

Tools like Dexscreener, Tokensniffer, and Bubblemaps help knowing if the contracts are safe, the LP burnt, and the supply fair. Infact, probably, an under appreciated aspect of Clanker had been how it made trading meme coins safer.

before clankers, base was filled with honey pots. I usually did my research, and had a test tx. but I still fell for one with more than $1 test tx, despite tokensniffer and geckoterminal saying it is not a honeypot. Clankers make sure this does not happen

@ramsey

Social signaling is the biggest factor in deciding whether to ape into a token. A few, though, take time to vet—checking if the project idea is novel, the website looks decent, and analyzing price movement and market cap within their range.

The Struggles before the Gold Rush

Good Alpha by nature tends to spread fast. This means once you have spot one you would want to execute your trade as soon as you can. Surprisingly though, this is one of the biggest challenges people face on Base.

From hearing about a token to buying it, the process is a bit longer, considering time matters so much. By the time you trade, the price may have already pumped hard.

@tian7.eth

Two factors slow down trading. First, the user workflow—discovery and vetting require jumping between apps to check different data points before buying.

Second, Ethereum’s approval process adds friction before trades can go through. Users usually require multiple attempts and bear high slippage to close the buy. Some users bypass this by using Telegram bots like Sigma and Banana Bot, which offer a faster mobile interface for execution.

Beyond this, Matcha emerged as the most popular DEX aggregator among Farcaster users, but many still preferred in-wallet swaps or swapping directly on Uniswap.

Making the Exit

People sell to take profits, rotate into a more promising token, or cut losses. Among Farcaster users, stop losses coupled with laddered selling is the preferred way to manage risk and lock in gains.

However, many pointed out the lack of tooling, forcing them to track positions manually or rely on alert services from platforms like Dexscreener to time their exits. Providing liquidity into an LP was a workaround that a few folks mentioned they use to lock in profits as prices rose.

Another key theme that came up often was managing your own psychology. Cristian shared this insight.

I've been around long enough that I come across gems all the time sometimes without even looking. But timing is hard especially with new coins, greed is a hell of a drug and sometimes we can't press sell.

@cristianisbased.eth

It is indeed difficult not to succumb to FOMO and greed. So, people struggle to take in the profits and cut their losses when they should. A nugget of wisdom shared by @yes2crypto.eth

weigh the downside of "if only I had held" against "if only I had sold" and realize it's better to be on the side of consistent profits who could have been a millionaire instead of the side of consistent hope and never making any money.

@yes2crypto.eth

Closing thoughts

The DEX volumes on Base is trending around 30%-40% of that of Solana. Solana has had a 3 years head start. But Base is catching up fast.

If you check out products such as BullX and Photon* on Solana, you will find them to fairly sophisticated and useful for power traders. This is something missing in the Base ecosystem.

Having said that, between Farcaster and Interface, Base does have a superior discovery layer. And platforms like Clanker and Virtuals are solving for simpler token creation. There is however a distance that needs to be covered to close the gap between the trading experience on Base vs that on Solana.

Acknowledgement

This post wouldn’t have been possible without the following people. Thank you, you all!

• https://warpcast.com/lawn.eth

• https://warpcast.com/langchain

• https://warpcast.com/oxcryptopanda

• https://warpcast.com/beavs

• https://warpcast.com/roadu

• https://warpcast.com/yes2crypto.eth

• https://warpcast.com/schmidtiest.eth

• https://warpcast.com/tian7.eth

• https://warpcast.com/ariansh.eth

• https://warpcast.com/kompreni

• https://warpcast.com/tonyminh

• https://warpcast.com/skrim

• https://warpcast.com/jph.eth

• https://warpcast.com/anna86

• https://warpcast.com/reisub.eth

• https://warpcast.com/ramsey

• https://warpcast.com/ionspired

• https://warpcast.com/cristianisbased.eth

• https://warpcast.com/tylerperrystein

• https://warpcast.com/maretus

• https://warpcast.com/kylepatrick.eth

• https://warpcast.com/om3ga3v3

• Piyush (via TG)

• https://warpcast.com/iamjdeenft

• https://warpcast.com/catta

• https://warpcast.com/0xhellia

• https://warpcast.com/momo1

• https://warpcast.com/zubyoha.eth

• https://warpcast.com/elrey

• Saumya Saxena and the FBI Community

Trading Toolkit

Here are some applications used by those who contributed to this post. Hope it’s helpful.