Base is testing Solana’s dominance in token launches, with a recent burst of SocialFi activity pushing the Ethereum layer-2 network to the top of the industry’s leaderboard.

In recent years, Solana has been the go-to chain for new tokens. Its low fees and high throughput are drawing traders away from Ethereum. It’s become a hub for memecoins, with launchpads like Pump.fun spawning tens of thousands of tokens daily.

The surge on Coinbase’s Base is coming from a different kind of token economy, built on social media posts, viral moments and a new wave of creator tools. Coinbase recently introduced the Base App by rebranding its wallet, sparking a surge in SocialFi activity on applications like Zora.

Token launches have tilted to Base in recent weeks, but Solana still leads in key activity metrics, according to Nansen data. And even as Zora is onboarding crypto’s biggest names to Base, critics question whether the thousands of new tokens have monetary value or if they’ll fade away as just another blockchain fad.

Base App’s rebrand sparks new Ethereum L2 SocialFi wave

Coinbase’s July 16 rebrand to the Base App turned its wallet into a creators’ hub where users can post, mint and trade their posts through the integration of social tools like Zora and Farcaster.

The impact was immediate. On July 16, Base recorded 7,557 new token launches. The next day, that number roughly tripled to 22,098.

On July 17, Zora beat Pump.fun in token launches to place second in the industry, at a time when Solana launchpad LetsBonk was eating into Pump.fun’s market dominance. Zora then overtook LetsBonk to claim the top spot on July 23. The next day, Zora’s 38,254 token launches surpassed the combined total of Solana’s rival memecoin platforms, which recorded 29,012 tokens.