In the early hours of April 17, Base made a high-profile move by creating MEME coins such as "Base is for everyone." However, this carefully orchestrated attempt to reignite on-chain cultural enthusiasm quickly spiraled out of control, pushing Base into the eye of a public storm. Yet, in a surprising twist, as the "failures" were remixed and turned into viral memes, the MEME coin prices staged a dramatic V-shaped recovery, sending on-chain sentiment on a rollercoaster ride.

Author: Nancy, PANews

Unlike the recent gradual warming of MEME culture on Solana, the MEME ecosystem on Base had remained dormant. However, on April 17, Base's official team suddenly made a bold move, sharing on X their creation of MEME coins like "Base is for everyone," in an attempt to rekindle the passion for on-chain culture.

This carefully planned experiment to revive on-chain culture quickly went awry— the related MEME coins surged briefly before crashing, and Base found itself at the center of public criticism. Yet, the story didn't end there. As the "failures" of "Base is for everyone" were remixed and turned into viral memes, the MEME coin prices unexpectedly staged a V-shaped recovery, and on-chain sentiment followed suit with its ups and downs.

Base's Token Launch Sparks Controversy, Unexpectedly Reverses After Marketing Flop

In the early hours of April 17, Base officially launched a token named "Base is for everyone" on the Zora platform, sharing it prominently on their official Twitter account. Subsequently, the price of this MEME coin skyrocketed to $17 million, instantly reigniting the long-dormant community atmosphere. However, Base's immediate launch of a second token, "Base @ FarCon 2025," was seen as a "betrayal" by the community, causing the price of the "Base is for everyone" token to plummet by 99% within hours, bottoming out at $717,000.

Behind this crash, besides the uncontrollable token issuance节奏, high trading taxes and allegations of insider trading also played a role. It is reported that the MEME coin has a 20% trading tax, which greatly reduces liquidity due to the high actual trading cost. In addition, the distribution of the token is extremely uneven. The top three wallets hold 47% of the tokens, one of which alone holds 25.6%, raising concerns about market manipulation. According to Lookonchain monitoring, three wallets bought a large amount of the token before Base's official tweet about the token and then sold it, making a total profit of about $666,000. The community's anger over insider trading further damaged Base's credibility.

Facing the controversy, Base officials attributed the incident to an "experimental marketing" campaign. Base responded that the reason for posting on Zora is because they believe that everyone should bring their content on-chain and use the tools that can achieve this. Memes, moments, culture. If Base wants the future to belong to the on-chain world, it must be willing to boldly experiment in the public eye. This is exactly what Base is doing. It needs to be clear that Base will never sell these tokens, and they are not the official network tokens of Base, Coinbase or any related products. The content shared by Base is a creative expression and will continue to bring culture on-chain.

Base Global Builder NKECHI also clarified on Twitter that Base did not issue tokens to pump up prices. This is a "content coin," which is fundamentally different from MEME coins. The core of content coins is not speculation, but meaning. What you buy is not a project, but a moment, an atmosphere, a culture. This is an expression on-chain, not an expectation on-chain. This field is still new, and Base is still learning, but do not take "misunderstanding" as "failure". Base has always been talking about bringing culture on-chain, openly experimenting, and supporting permissionless creative expression. Because in this new economy, everyone - whether brands, developers, artists or shitposters - can put content on-chain and turn it into a "coin". Posters, advertisements, videos, memes, art - can all be coined. This is not just content, this is a new way of marketing, a new way of creation, a new way of expression.

Despite the official clarification, the controversy did not subside immediately, but unexpectedly ignited a meme movement. Communities and crypto projects flocked to the "** is for everyone" template, sparking a viral creation boom filled with mockery and narrative power. Assisted by market sentiment, Base's marketing unexpectedly gained extremely high attention, and the price of the "Base is for everyone" token staged a dramatic V-shaped recovery. According to GMGN data, the token rebounded to a high of $22.55 million, with trading volume exceeding $33 million in the past 24 hours.

Daily revenue hits a two-year high, Zora is about to issue tokens

"Zora is a social network where every post is a MEME coin." In this Base token issuance controversy, Zora is the direct beneficiary of traffic and revenue.

According to Blockworks data, Zora's latest daily revenue exceeded $137,000, a rare high point in nearly two years. Prior to this, affected by the sluggish NFT market, Zora once faced the困境 of a sharp decline in participation. But compared with the income during the previous NFT boom, Zora's current income has declined a lot.

Not only that, but Zora's market participation is still limited. Dune data shows that in the past two months, the number of daily independent creators on Zora has remained in the tens of millions, and the number of daily token creations has been between several thousand and tens of thousands. Compared with other MEME coin issuance platforms such as Pump.fun, Zora still has a gap in market share: as of April 16, the market share of Pump.fun and Zora was 74.3% and 25.7%, respectively. And within the Base ecosystem, Zora's token issuance only accounts for 4%, and its influence is very limited.

This Base token issuance was interpreted by outsiders as a momentum-building move for Zora. In March of this year, Zora announced in a post that it plans to launch a native token ZORA on the Base network, with a total supply of 10 billion. The first snapshot was taken at 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on March 3, 2025, and the second snapshot will be taken three days before the launch of ZORA.

Not only that, but Zora's operating model is in line with the vision of Base and Coinbase, with each post on the platform being transformed into a tradeable ERC-20 token. In fact, Coinbase has been actively promoting the development of the "on-chain creator economy," encouraging creators to launch projects in an on-chain manner, and jointly holding Onchain Summer with Base. According to previous disclosures by Zora, the platform already has more than 2.4 million collectors and 618,000 creators, creating rewards of more than $2.77 million and driving transactions of more than $376 million on the secondary market.

Overall, from ignition, to flopping, and then to going viral, this farcical cultural experiment not only reignited attention in the MEME market for Base, but also once again demonstrated the absurdity and vitality of on-chain culture.

In the early hours of April 17, Base made a high-profile move by creating MEME coins such as "Base is for everyone." However, this carefully orchestrated attempt to reignite on-chain cultural enthusiasm quickly spiraled out of control, pushing Base into the eye of a public storm. Yet, in a surprising twist, as the "failures" were remixed and turned into viral memes, the MEME coin prices staged a dramatic V-shaped recovery, sending on-chain sentiment on a rollercoaster ride.

Author: Nancy, PANews

Unlike the recent gradual warming of MEME culture on Solana, the MEME ecosystem on Base had remained dormant. However, on April 17, Base's official team suddenly made a bold move, sharing on X their creation of MEME coins like "Base is for everyone," in an attempt to rekindle the passion for on-chain culture.

This carefully planned experiment to revive on-chain culture quickly went awry— the related MEME coins surged briefly before crashing, and Base found itself at the center of public criticism. Yet, the story didn't end there. As the "failures" of "Base is for everyone" were remixed and turned into viral memes, the MEME coin prices unexpectedly staged a V-shaped recovery, and on-chain sentiment followed suit with its ups and downs.

Base's Token Launch Sparks Controversy, Unexpectedly Reverses After Marketing Flop

In the early hours of April 17, Base officially launched a token named "Base is for everyone" on the Zora platform, sharing it prominently on their official Twitter account. Subsequently, the price of this MEME coin skyrocketed to $17 million, instantly reigniting the long-dormant community atmosphere. However, Base's immediate launch of a second token, "Base @ FarCon 2025," was seen as a "betrayal" by the community, causing the price of the "Base is for everyone" token to plummet by 99% within hours, bottoming out at $717,000.

Behind this crash, besides the uncontrollable token issuance节奏, high trading taxes and allegations of insider trading also played a role. It is reported that the MEME coin has a 20% trading tax, which greatly reduces liquidity due to the high actual trading cost. In addition, the distribution of the token is extremely uneven. The top three wallets hold 47% of the tokens, one of which alone holds 25.6%, raising concerns about market manipulation. According to Lookonchain monitoring, three wallets bought a large amount of the token before Base's official tweet about the token and then sold it, making a total profit of about $666,000. The community's anger over insider trading further damaged Base's credibility.

Facing the controversy, Base officials attributed the incident to an "experimental marketing" campaign. Base responded that the reason for posting on Zora is because they believe that everyone should bring their content on-chain and use the tools that can achieve this. Memes, moments, culture. If Base wants the future to belong to the on-chain world, it must be willing to boldly experiment in the public eye. This is exactly what Base is doing. It needs to be clear that Base will never sell these tokens, and they are not the official network tokens of Base, Coinbase or any related products. The content shared by Base is a creative expression and will continue to bring culture on-chain.

Base Global Builder NKECHI also clarified on Twitter that Base did not issue tokens to pump up prices. This is a "content coin," which is fundamentally different from MEME coins. The core of content coins is not speculation, but meaning. What you buy is not a project, but a moment, an atmosphere, a culture. This is an expression on-chain, not an expectation on-chain. This field is still new, and Base is still learning, but do not take "misunderstanding" as "failure". Base has always been talking about bringing culture on-chain, openly experimenting, and supporting permissionless creative expression. Because in this new economy, everyone - whether brands, developers, artists or shitposters - can put content on-chain and turn it into a "coin". Posters, advertisements, videos, memes, art - can all be coined. This is not just content, this is a new way of marketing, a new way of creation, a new way of expression.

Despite the official clarification, the controversy did not subside immediately, but unexpectedly ignited a meme movement. Communities and crypto projects flocked to the "** is for everyone" template, sparking a viral creation boom filled with mockery and narrative power. Assisted by market sentiment, Base's marketing unexpectedly gained extremely high attention, and the price of the "Base is for everyone" token staged a dramatic V-shaped recovery. According to GMGN data, the token rebounded to a high of $22.55 million, with trading volume exceeding $33 million in the past 24 hours.

Daily revenue hits a two-year high, Zora is about to issue tokens

"Zora is a social network where every post is a MEME coin." In this Base token issuance controversy, Zora is the direct beneficiary of traffic and revenue.

According to Blockworks data, Zora's latest daily revenue exceeded $137,000, a rare high point in nearly two years. Prior to this, affected by the sluggish NFT market, Zora once faced the困境 of a sharp decline in participation. But compared with the income during the previous NFT boom, Zora's current income has declined a lot.

Not only that, but Zora's market participation is still limited. Dune data shows that in the past two months, the number of daily independent creators on Zora has remained in the tens of millions, and the number of daily token creations has been between several thousand and tens of thousands. Compared with other MEME coin issuance platforms such as Pump.fun, Zora still has a gap in market share: as of April 16, the market share of Pump.fun and Zora was 74.3% and 25.7%, respectively. And within the Base ecosystem, Zora's token issuance only accounts for 4%, and its influence is very limited.

This Base token issuance was interpreted by outsiders as a momentum-building move for Zora. In March of this year, Zora announced in a post that it plans to launch a native token ZORA on the Base network, with a total supply of 10 billion. The first snapshot was taken at 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on March 3, 2025, and the second snapshot will be taken three days before the launch of ZORA.

Not only that, but Zora's operating model is in line with the vision of Base and Coinbase, with each post on the platform being transformed into a tradeable ERC-20 token. In fact, Coinbase has been actively promoting the development of the "on-chain creator economy," encouraging creators to launch projects in an on-chain manner, and jointly holding Onchain Summer with Base. According to previous disclosures by Zora, the platform already has more than 2.4 million collectors and 618,000 creators, creating rewards of more than $2.77 million and driving transactions of more than $376 million on the secondary market.

Overall, from ignition, to flopping, and then to going viral, this farcical cultural experiment not only reignited attention in the MEME market for Base, but also once again demonstrated the absurdity and vitality of on-chain culture.