Crypto Chaos: Base Token Launch Turns into Wild West Showdown!

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Well, it started innocently enough. A simple little tweet that might as well have said, “Hey, want to see a magic trick?” and BOOM! Coinbase’s Layer 2 network, Base, went ahead and kicked off one of the most unpredictable and chaotic experiments the Web3 world has seen. A tweet went out, “Base is for everyone,” and, as you might expect, the internet reacted like a cat with a laser pointer. 😹

Base is for everyone.

— Base (@base) April 16, 2025

Next thing you know, we had tokens, a market frenzy, a wave of backlash, and more people talking about tokenized content than we thought possible. And all this over one little phrase. Go figure. 💸

The Spark: A Tweet, a Token, and a Frenzy

It all started when Base’s official X account tweeted something along the lines of, “Hey, guess what? Base is for everyone!” And then, just for kicks, they followed it up with “just coin it.” You know, like Nike but with more blockchain. The link sent you to Zora, a platform where content gets minted as tokens. What could possibly go wrong?

Just coin it.

— Base (@base) April 16, 2025

Fast forward to a full-blown crypto rollercoaster. That innocent little link led to the creation of an ERC-20 token called “Base is for everyone.” A disclaimer was quickly issued by Zora to clarify that this wasn’t “official.” But who needs disclaimers when you’ve got the internet in full meltdown mode?

Within mere hours, the token surged to a $17 million market cap, dropped by 94% to almost $1 million, then shot back up to over $23 million. All in the blink of an eye. And right now, it’s hanging around the $14 million mark, with trading volume of over $33 million. Talk about a wild ride. 🎢

Who Benefited?

While the rest of us watched in horror (and possibly a little schadenfreude), some wallets were raking in the profits like it was a clearance sale at a crypto warehouse. One lucky wallet, 0x0992, scooped up 256 million tokens for just 1.5 ETH (~$2,370) and flipped them for a cool 108 ETH (~$170,400). That’s a nice little profit of $168,000. 👀

Meanwhile, two other wallets made some hefty gains as well, one pulling in $266,000 and the other $231,800. All in a day’s work for a few wallets with a knack for timing. The true skill? Knowing when to pull out. 🤫

3 wallets bought a large amount of “Base is for everyone” before @base posted and sold them, making a profit of ~$666K.

0x0992 spent 1.5 $ETH($2,370) to buy 256.39M “Base is for everyone”, and sold all for 108 $ETH($170.4K), making $168K.

0x5D9D spent 1…

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) April 17, 2025

But, as always, with big wins come big complaints. Some accused the whole thing of being “sniped” in the most dramatic way possible. Harrison Leggio (aka “Pop Punk”) had a meltdown and called it “HORRIFICALLY sniped.” Okay, calm down, Harrison. It’s just crypto. 😂

Base token on Zora was HORRIFICALLY sniped.

From a quick look, here’s 2 wallets that purchased 21% of the supply for 2 ETH.

They then transferred to other wallets and sold for $300k profit.

This is what can happen if you don’t have snipe protection…

— Pop Punk (@PopPunkOnChain) April 16, 2025

The Controversy

As expected, critics wasted no time in expressing their concern. Pierre Rochard, a former Vice President at Riot Platforms, called the whole thing “terrible for the industry.” So helpful, Pierre. 🙄

Meanwhile, on-chain analyst Hantao Yuan did some digging and revealed that just three wallets controlled nearly 47% of the total supply. One wallet alone had 25.6%. Sure, that’s a healthy distribution… if by “healthy” you mean “monopolized.”

Let me get this straight> base tweets a token on their main account> Top 3 holders had 47% of the supply (sold a lot)> Jesse defends it> Posts 2 more tokens> “This is culture”> Rugs 2500 holders (potentially new base users)

— Hantao (@Hantao) April 16, 2025

Oh, and let’s not forget the bots! Volume bots added their own spin to the chaos, creating the kind of pump-and-dump that crypto enthusiasts claim to be *so* over. But it seems not quite over yet. 🕵️‍♂️

The Defense

Amid all the chaos, Base and its creator, Jesse Pollak, stood tall and proud. Jesse explained that putting content on-chain is the future—basically the new marketing frontier. Ads, posters, memes, and videos could all be tokenized assets, bringing in new income streams for creators and engaging their communities. Exciting, right? Oh, the possibilities. 😏

Base is posting on Zora because we believe everyone should bring their content onchain, and use the tools that make it possible.

Memes. Moments. Culture.

If we want the future to be onchain, we have to be willing to experiment in public. That’s what we’re doing.

To be clear,…

— Base (@base) April 16, 2025

And just to calm everyone down, Base received 10 million tokens as the original content creator, but they promised they won’t sell them. Probably a good move, considering how things are going right now. 😉

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2025-04-17 12:53