Base’s promotion of creator coins, largely through its close alignment with NFT marketplace Zora, is drawing increasing criticism from community members who say the strategy alienates projects that helped launch the network’s early momentum.
In recent months, Base has become the epicenter of “creator coins,” which are tokens tied to individual creators, posts or pieces of content, with Zora positioned at the center of this narrative.
Supporters argue that the model represents a new onchain revenue stream for creators and a cultural ascension to crypto. Onchain data also reflects strong activity, with daily token coins on Base overtaking Solana in August this year.
But frustration is growing among the Base community on X. Builders say Base is pushing a narrow, favored ecosystem while sidelining other Base-native projects with established communities and track records.
Jacek, who runs the dough token ecosystem at Base, vented his frustration on X with a post echoing a negative shift in sentiment.
Jacek argued that Base’s marketing and social support has become increasingly selective, favoring Zora-related initiatives while ignoring projects that previously provided meaningful growth and liquidity for the chain.
“I’m really disappointed with @base’s forced push around creator coins,” he wrote. “We still can’t even get the official Base X account to follow us, let alone acknowledge launches with a retweet or mention. It’s not just us either. Lots of other projects feel the same way: that if you’re not part of the preferred narrative, you don’t actually exist. At that point, what’s the incentive to build on Base?”
Jacek added that when the dough bridged to Solana, they received immediate support from the official Solana X account and Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius.
The setback highlights a broader tension facing Base as it struggles to bridge the gap between scaling while maintaining positive sentiment with those building apps or tokens on Base.
In the short term, Base is fine as it continues to average more than 10 million transactions per day, according to Basescan, but waning sentiment could see an exodus to other chains such as Solana or Sui.
Whether or not Base adapts to the changing sentiment remains to be seen, but rival blockchains will be waiting in the wings to take advantage if the general sentiment among Base builders continues to plummet.
