Base—a Layer 2 blockchain backed by Coinbase is currently attracting more and more users to one of the most interesting sectors: memecoin. It becomes the key driver with astonishing stories of some “get rich soon” cases with memecoins. With the total market cap for top memecoins on Base reaching $1.59 billion, it’s clear this is no longer a temporary trend.
Why Did Memecoins “Choose” the Base Ecosystem?
A Layer 2 Ecosystem Base
Many people see memecoins as just a form of digital gambling, but on a new ecosystem like Base, their role is more complex and important. They act as a strategic tool to start and grow the ecosystem. A fact that is clearly demonstrated by the scale of the phenomenon: the total market cap for memecoins on Base has already reached a staggering $1.59 billion.
As a Layer 2 on Ethereum, Base provides fast transaction speeds and very low fees, creating an ideal environment for the small, frequent trades that are typical for memecoins. This favorable environment has directly led to huge on-chain activity. Data from charts shows that the daily DEX volume on Base is often between $20 million and $40 million, with peaks over $60 million. Along with that, the number of daily trades has also spiked at times, passing 150,000 transactions. These numbers prove that the Base platform is strong enough to handle the large wave of economic activity created by memecoins.
For more: The Base Ecosystem is Facing a Major Growth Opportunity
The Back of Coinbase
The backing from the huge exchange Coinbase brings trust and a very easy on-ramp for millions of users. The result of this trust and easy access is a verifiable explosion of new users. Holder Analysis data shows that the total number of memecoin wallets on Base has jumped to over 800,000. More importantly, this is a movement driven by small investors. Deeper analysis shows that the great majority of participants are small investors (holding 0-10 tokens), while the number of “whale” wallets (holding over 0.1% of the supply) is very small and has been decreasing.
SocialFi Narrative
Finally, from 2024 up until now, we have clearly seen the explosion of SocialFi applications like Farcaster on the Base blockchain. Surprisingly, it has successfully created a unique SocialFi community culture. And more impressively, memecoins like DEGEN are not just for speculation but are also used for tipping, creating real social utility. This combination of meme culture and finance has helped create an active market with a huge number of users and trading volumes and has gained a good impression for the Base blockchain as well. It creates a strong cycle: social interaction drives economic value, and that economic value attracts more users to join the social platforms, strengthening the entire ecosystem.
The Rise of BRETT, DEGEN, and TOSHI
The success of a memecoin is never random. It is always based on a story, a “meme” strong enough to create a cultural and community connection.
BRETT: The Cultural Symbol of Base
The BRETT memecoin is based on a character from Matt Furie’s “Boy’s Club” comic book, which is also where the “Pepe the Frog” meme came from. Brett is positioned as “Pepe’s best friend” on Base. This story immediately creates a deep connection to crypto’s core meme culture.
Its success comes from the fact that it doesn’t try to create a complex utility but instead focuses completely on building a cultural symbol for Base. It became the “people’s coin,” a mascot that represents the fun and somewhat rebellious spirit of the ecosystem. In reality, the BRETT market cap reached $560 million. In that case, the two key ideas behind the success of this memecoin are a strong community and an easy-to-spread story.
During its peak in December 2024, BRETT reached an ATH of $0.2342, which helped early investors receive back huge returns. Its strength is also reflected in its activity metrics. Currently, the token has a trading volume of over $20 million on a daily basis. It is held in more than 120,000 unique wallets. Of course we can see that the token is showcasing a large and active community.
TOSHI: The Unofficial Mascot
TOSHI is named after the cat of Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase. This is a brilliant marketing move. The act of linking itself to the image of the Base project’s leader is the key here. People somehow feel the memecoin with a level of trust and recognition that no other memecoin could get.
The founding team uses the “mascot of Base” story to build a loyal community. It represents a close connection to the development team and Coinbase’s vision. For many investors, holding TOSHI feels the same way as “betting” on the success of the Base ecosystem itself. And it is the effective narrative that fueled its rapid growth, pushing its market cap to nearly $300 million.
At its ATH price in May 2025, TOSHI was one of the best-performing assets in the entire ecosystem. The community’s loyalty is evident, with the number of holders now exceeding 95,000 addresses.
DEGEN: From Memecoin to Social Utility Token
The DEGEN memecoin has a completely different start. It was born in the community of the decentralized social network Farcaster, originally just as a token for users to “tip” for good content.
This social utility is what helped the memecoin move beyond being just a memecoin. It has a reason to exist and be used daily in a rapidly growing application. Different from the above cases, the DEGEN success is proof that a memecoin can evolve, add utility, and also become an essential part of a digital social economy.
This unique use case has helped the project attract a massive user base, with a number of holders reaching approximately 170,000. The total market cap of the project is $140 million, updated as August 2025. But when looking clearly at this case, we could see the growth of the token is tied to the adoption of Farcaster. Its ATH was achieved during a period of explosive growth for the social platform, especially from Farcaster. The whole story demonstrates a clear link between its price and its real-world application.
“The Traps” of “Memecoin Season” on Base
Besides the exciting success stories, the “memecoin season” on the Base ecosystem is also a wild land full of dangerous traps that all investors need to be aware of to protect their assets.
Rug Pull
One of the most common and devastating forms of scams is the Rug Pull. In this scenario, the anonymous development team, after attracting a significant amount of money from users through many marketing activities, suddenly removes all the liquidity from the project. And surprisingly, this causes the token’s price to instantly drop to zero, and they disappear with the investors’ money. In that case, a retail investor, a trader, or anybody involved needs to have in mind clear warning signs for a potential rug pull.
These include:
- The project’s liquidity is not locked.
- A few “whale” wallets hold a very large percentage of the tokens, which could create selling pressure.
- A completely anonymous and untrustworthy development team.
Price Volatility
Even with projects that aren’t scams, investors still face the risk of extreme price volatility. As in most of the cases, the value of any coins/tokens is tied to its hype and market sentiment. And memecoin is not an exception. Its price can increase by 1000% in one day and can also crash by 95% in just a few hours. Those acts happen just right after some bad news or when a “whale” decides to sell. Using leverage to trade in such a volatile market is an extremely risky action and can lead to a total loss of capital.
Others
Additionally, there are also other kinds of clever traps. The malicious smart contract trap can contain a hidden code to prevent investors from selling the token. In which, it can be understood as the same as a honeypot, even granting access to their wallets, leading to the loss of assets. Finally, one cannot forget the psychological trap of FOMO. This is one of the most popular mistakes of retail investors, big whales, or anybody else in the crypto market.