{"id":3831,"date":"2026-07-20T19:42:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T19:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=3831"},"modified":"2026-07-20T19:42:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T19:42:38","slug":"coinbases-big-base-mistake-offers-an-important-lesson-for-the-crypto-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=3831","title":{"rendered":"Coinbase\u2019s big Base mistake offers an important lesson for the crypto industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

How did this happen? In a remarkably candid X post, the Coinbase executive who leads Base, Jesse Pollak, admitted that trying to turn the app into a social media forum\u2014one where everyone sold \u201ccreator coins\u201d tied to the content they posted\u2014was a mistake. It turned out few people wanted to drop X and Instagram for a crypto-based alternative.<\/p>

Read more How CFOs can tell if AI is actually creating value<\/a><\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t help that Coinbase at times appeared to have its thumb on the scale, favoring people and projects from its own network, which let a chosen few cash in at the expense of other users and developers. Finally, there was the matter of Pollak himself, whose hyperactive social posts could come across as cringe, leaving many, including some inside Coinbase, to see him as high on his own supply.<\/p>

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

In his mea culpa post, Pollak owned his failings, but also noted that it\u2019s tough to \u201cbuild a decentralized blockchain inside of a big centralized public company.\u201d The comment underscores how, even though Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong remains a true crypto believer, he also must contend with quarterly earnings reports and impatient shareholders. This means building a major decentralized project under the Coinbase corporate umbrella was always going to have a short leash.<\/p>\n

But even as both Armstrong and Pollak admitted to missteps around Base, they didn\u2019t recognize an overarching strategic mistake: Building for an era of crypto that no longer exists. That era involved small cliques of devs talking a big game about decentralization (which often provided a pretext for no accountability) while shilling tokens at all turns. This model worked for well over a decade because, in those go-go speculative days, there was an ongoing influx of gullible retail investors eager to prop up the token flippers.Today, those amateur investors, burned by crypto one too many times, have moved on to things like prediction markets, and are unlikely to come back. Meanwhile, crypto has finally moved beyond its speculative era as new players like Hyperliquid adapt blockchain rails for trading conventional commodities like oil, and as big Wall Street firms embrace tokenized assets. If Coinbase wants to compete in this environment, it can\u2019t afford to carry on like a crypto subculture.<\/p>\n

The Base experiment, meanwhile, hasn\u2019t been all bad. It gave rise to the impressive X402 protocol, an open source protocol for agentic commerce that is fast becoming an industry standard\u2014and that Coinbase is in pole position to exploit. Meanwhile, as Armstrong has suggested, the Base app can be a vehicle to expand into lightly regulated overseas markets. To this end, Coinbase has moved Pollak into a new less-visible role building out the Base blockchain, while hiring crypto OG Jordan Fish a.k.a. Cobie (sorry, Jordan, the pseudonym era of crypto has also come to an end) to run the app, which is now focused entirely on finance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see whether these changes mean that Coinbase is now set to build for the next era of crypto rather than the last one. Thanks for reading\u2014as always drop me a note if you have thoughts or tips.<\/p>

<\/div><\/div>\n

jeff.roberts@fortune.com@jeffjohnroberts<\/p>\n

DECENTRALIZED NEWS<\/h3>

Cantor Fitzgerald <\/b>partnered with <\/span>Securitize<\/b> to help firms going public issue some of their shares as tokens\u2014a win for the <\/span>blockchain-native model of tokenization<\/b> (<\/span>Fortune<\/span><\/i>)<\/span><\/p>

Read more \u2018Everybody\u2019s a sucker for a dog\u2019: scholars see modern schmaltz in Christopher Nolan\u2019s Odyssey<\/a><\/p>

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

Visa<\/b> launched a <\/span>new platform<\/b> that will let its 200 million merchant clients and 15,000 financial institution partners more easily <\/span>integrate stablecoins<\/b> (<\/span>Fortune<\/span><\/i>)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

<\/div><\/div>\n

A <\/span>Stanford study <\/b>suggests that <\/span>bettors are<\/b> manipulating Polymarket\u2019s five-minute price-of-Bitcoin contracts<\/b> by firing a series of last-minute buys into Binance to nudge the price (<\/span>Unchained<\/span><\/i>)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

<\/div><\/div>\n

The Wall Street clearing shop <\/span>DTCC launched a trial program<\/b> with the likes of <\/span>JPMorgan and Goldman to digitize stocks<\/b> and trade them on private blockchains (<\/span>WSJ<\/span><\/i>)<\/span><\/p>\n

In \u201c<\/span>A Crypto Media Crisis is Upon Us<\/b>\u201d, the founder <\/span>of The Defiant notes how, as VC-made media and KOLs displace news sites, it is old-fashioned journalism\u2014for all its flaws\u2013that remains the industry\u2019s best source of information (<\/span>Camila Russo<\/span><\/i>)<\/span><\/p>\n

MAIN CHARACTER OF THE WEEK<\/h3>

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/span><\/p>\n

Brian Chesky gets the nod this week after his X account took a bizarre foray into crypto-pumping AI slop\u2014which the Airbnb CEO blamed on a hack.<\/p>

Read more \u2018I want to die broke\u2019: Billionaire philanthropist Denny Sanford dies after giving away $4 billion<\/a><\/p>

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

MEME O’ THE MOMENT<\/h3>

New kid on the block:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The project showed how Coinbase was building for the last era of crypto, not the new and emerging one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fortune-crypto"],"yoast_head":"\nCoinbase\u2019s big Base mistake offers an important lesson for the crypto industry - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=3831\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Coinbase\u2019s big Base mistake offers an important lesson for the crypto industry - 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