The Base blockchain, an Ethereum Layer-2 (L2) network incubated by Coinbase, has been making news lately. It’s rapidly become a key place of connection for developers and users. Thabo Nkosi is a passionate crypto-born creative writer. In this episode, he takes a look at the booming ecosystem and its exciting investment opportunities, especially with the recent release of Base-native tokens on Coinbase. He advocates for a comprehensive knowledge of the technology itself, the various projects developing atop it, and the risks involved by nature.

Overview of Base (Coinbase L2) Airdrop

One of the most discussed features of new blockchains has been their potential airdrops. These events reward early adopters and busy users of the network with new, free tokens. Although talk of a Base airdrop has been floating around, it’s important to take these promises with a grain of salt.

What is the Base Airdrop?

At the moment, there is no Base token to speak of, and thus no official Base airdrop. Any claims that will be unscathed should be met with the highest degree of skepticism. One of the favorite tactics of scammers taking advantage of the hype behind new blockchains is offering fake tokens and airdrops to steal unsuspecting users’ funds. Thabo encourages developers using Base to always verify information directly through official Coinbase and Base channels. …so do this before you jump into any potential airdrop scams! For starters, he always brings everyone back to that old adage — if an offer sounds too good to be true, it just is.

Importance of Points and NFTs in the Airdrop

Additionally, further down the line, some projects within the Base ecosystem may offer their own airdrops or reward programs. There isn’t officially a token right now. These could take the form of ways to earn points by using the platform or by owning certain NFTs. That’s why doing your due diligence on these projects is key before jumping into any sort of investment. Research the project’s developers, objectives, and community. A serious project will be transparent with a roadmap and plan, as well as communication through official channels like Discord and Telegram. Thabo recommends looking to see if the project has ever been audited by trusted security companies.

Exploring the Base Blockchain

Base’s mission has evolved to building a global onchain economy structured around four core pillars: Decentralization, Scalability, Security and keeping its growth on track while staying transparent and adaptable. As the growth of the Coinbase L2 network continues, maintaining transparency and flexibility will be key to ensuring that network continues to thrive. Base supports native cross-chain transactions, thanks to integrations with protocols like Axelar, Crossmint, Chainlink CCIP, Wormhole, and LayerZero that make cross-chain transfer seamless and secure.

Understanding the Base Architecture

Base is developed atop the OP Stack, a modular framework that uses Optimistic Rollups. With this technology, Base can process a far greater number of transactions off-chain, bundling them together before submitting a small number of them to the Ethereum mainnet. This saves a lot in transaction costs and increases efficiency compared to interacting with Ethereum directly. Thabo underscores why this architecture is so essential. This flexibility allows Base to offer a more seamless user experience across DeFi & NFT applications.

To save on transaction costs and Ethereum’s mainnet transaction congestion, Base Chain utilizes an off-chain processing model. For its governance, Base is moving towards a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) structure. This collaborative approach gives developers and users a true stake in the platform’s long-term development. Continued regulatory uncertainty in the United States could be a stumbling block to widespread adoption of blockchain solutions. Without a resilience framework, businesses and users are understandably wary to invest and adopt.

Analyzing Base to ETH Bridge Activity

One of the most important pieces to getting a sense of how Base is being used is looking at the flow of assets between Base and Ethereum. This is usually accomplished by bridges, which let users move tokens back and forth between the two chains. Simply by monitoring bridge activity we can gain a better overall picture of the health and adoption of the Base ecosystem, as one example. More bridge activity from Ethereum to Base indicates growing interest in applications deployed on Base. Activity returning to Ethereum might be a good sign that users are cashing out and/or finding better prospects.

Utilizing Base Data

The network is picking up steam in DeFi. In fact, its total value locked (TVL) soared from $438 million at the beginning of 2024 to more than $1.4 billion by August 2024. Daily transactions on Base L2 multiplied from under 500k in March 2024 to over 3 million in April. Since then they have never dropped below 1 million a day.

Running Natural Language Queries on Indexed Base Data

One of the most intriguing innovations in blockchain analytics is natural language blockchain data querying. This experience flattens the learning curve for more casual, non-technical users to dive into complex, technical Base network info. For example, one could ask, "What are the top 10 tokens traded on Aerodrome Finance in the last 24 hours?" and receive a clear, concise answer. This ability provides users the analytical power to better inform their planning decisions and spot trends on the horizon.

Visualizing Base Indexed Data with Dashboards

Dashboards are intuitive, easy to read visualizations that help to tell the story of the key metrics and trends in the Base ecosystem. These dashboards can track metrics such as:

  • Total Value Locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols
  • Daily transaction volume
  • Active users
  • Top performing tokens
  • Bridge activity

By keeping an eye on these dashboards, users will be able to get a complete picture of the health and growth of the Base network.

Indexing Your Smart Contract on Base

For developers developing on Base, getting their smart contracts indexed is important for allowing their applications to be discoverable and accessible to all. Indexing means storing all the data emitted by smart contracts, providing a structure that enables easy search and access to all data. This allows users to intuitively discover and engage with the various applications that make up Base’s vibrant ecosystem. A few tools and services are already out there to assist developers with getting their smart contracts indexed on Base.

Creating a Custom Base Blockchain Explorer

Base runs on the OP Stack, a modular framework that further extends efficiencies to the ecosystem with the use of Optimistic Rollups. Community engagement has always been at the core of Base, and it’s making a strong case to be the people’s blockchain network.

A tailored blockchain explorer fujsher emphasizes a user-centered design, allowing exploration of transaction details, blocks, and smart contracts. This tool makes finding your way around the Base network even more enjoyable. This is especially helpful to developers and power users who may want close look for debugging or data analysis purposes. Creating a custom explorer from scratch takes technical know-how as well as intimate familiarity with underlying blockchain data structures. Fortunately, there are many open-source tools and libraries that can help make this much easier.

Space and Time: Indexing Tool for Base Data

Base has already onboarded with other popular platforms such as OpenSea and Zora. Now, developers can seamlessly add functionality to allow their users to list/trade any NFT they mint directly on the Base network. One of the most notable projects in Base’s growing DeFi ecosystem is Aerodrome Finance. Additionally, it serves as the main trading and liquidity aggregator hub on Base.

Space and Time is a web3 data platform that delivers unparalleled indexing and querying capabilities for blockchain data, including Base. It allows developers and analysts to access real-time and historical data from the Base network, enabling them to build data-driven applications and gain valuable insights. Space and Time works natively and effortlessly with Base. This powerful combination reduces the complexity of accessing blockchain data, allowing users to gain new insights into the ecosystem.

My Personal Experience — Case Study

Base is built to be cost-effective with low transaction fees while being seamlessly interoperable. Their mission is to grow the ecosystem and onboard the next billion users to web3.

Thabo invites you to take a listen as he recounts his own journey of discovering the Base ecosystem. He emphasizes the ease of use and how much faster transactions are than Ethereum mainnet. He raises the deep pipeline of creative projects flushing to build on Base from DeFi protocols to NFT marketplaces. He warns about the dangers of rolling the dice on these new, unproven investments. He always stresses the necessity of doing diligent, in-depth research and diversifying investments.

He expands on his travel experience with Aerodrome Finance, a decentralized exchange (DEX) on Base. He’s a big fan of its intuitive interface, including providing liquidity for all sorts of tokens. Yet, at the same time, the father of Ethereum also warns against the dangers surrounding impermanent loss and the risk of a rug pull. These risks exist on all DEXs, and he encourages people to think critically about these risks before providing liquidity on any DEX.

On the whole, Thabo thinks that Base could be a strong player in the blockchain ecosystem. He stresses the importance of approaching the ecosystem with a balanced perspective, recognizing both the opportunities and the risks. His mission is to promote financial literacy, help users learn how to do their own research, and invest responsibly.