The “Base Is for Everyone” Debacle

On April 16, something strange, and very Web3, happened.

The official Base account, posted a simple message on X:

“Base is for everyone.”

A few moments later, they followed up with a second post that linked to a Zora page with the caption “Coined it.” 

Zora, for those unfamiliar, is an on-chain media platform, kind of like Instagram, but for tokenized content. On Zora, anything you post can become a token.

That’s exactly what happened here. But it didn’t stop at content creation.

The post, now a tradable token titled “Base is for everyone,” instantly sparked a speculative frenzy. Within just over an hour, this freshly minted memecoin surged to a market cap of $17 million, triggering a frenzy of buys and trades from thousands of wallets who interpreted the post as a quasi-official token launch.

Hype, Hope… and a 94% Collapse

As rapidly as the token rose, it collapsed.

Roughly 20 minutes after its peak, the price cratered by 94%, falling below $1 million in market cap. In the hours that followed, it partially recovered m at one point even exceeding a $26 million valuation, before stabilizing in the $9–$18 million range.

But for most retail participants, the story ended at the crash. Wallets were drained. Sentiment flipped. And fingers began to point.

Was this an official Base-endorsed rug pull?

• Short answer: No.

• Long answer: Not officially — but the optics were a disaster.

Follow the Whales, Find the Truth

On-chain data told a much murkier story than Base’s public-facing innocence.

Analysts quickly uncovered that three wallets had purchased massive amounts of the token before the Base post even went live. These wallets collectively profited over $666,000 in under an hour. One address in particular — 0x099... — made a $200,000 profit from a $2,400 investment in under five minutes, before dumping its entire position near the top.

Some of the proceeds were traced to a wallet named bandemic.base.eth, which had a history of meme coin sniping and was labeled “smart money” by tracking platforms.

The coin’s top three holders controlled nearly 47% of the supply, an extreme concentration that only accelerated the collapse once they dumped.

This wasn’t a rug in the traditional sense, liquidity wasn’t pulled by the team, but it was a classic pump-and-dump, amplified by thin liquidity and a wave of FOMO from users who assumed the token had some official legitimacy.

Content Coin or Meme Coin?

Jesse Pollak, the public face of Base, quickly tried to draw a distinction between content coins and memecoins, defending the move as a creative, on-chain experiment, not a token launch.

According to Pollak:

“A content coin is a singular, tokenized expression of media. There can be many of them. No roadmaps, no expectations. A memecoin, by contrast, implies ongoing value, community building, and often an implicit promise of future action.”

Pollak argued that the “Base is for everyone” token fell into the first category. It wasn’t intended to be traded, hoarded, or treated as a financial product — it was just content, monetized.

That explanation, however, felt like semantic gymnastics to many.

• After all, the official Base account posted it.

• They even earned about $81,000 in fees from the frenzy.

• And they never warned users what to expect.

The community wasn’t wrong to think this was something bigger. But they were the ones left bag-holding while “smart money” got rich.

Public Reaction: From Memes to Mayhem

The backlash was swift and cutting.

Users accused Base of “destroying brand trust,” “openly farming exit liquidity,” and “playing games with retail.” Memes flooded Crypto X, satirizing the slogan “Base is for everyone” as “Base is for rugs,” or “Base is for insiders.”

Even Solana developers chimed in, sarcastically praising Base for its bold vision of democratized pump-and-dumps.

Ironically, amid the backlash, the token began to recover, attracting new waves of speculators hoping to catch the next swing. By then, however, the damage was already done.

Lessons We Can’t Ignore

• Just because it’s “official” doesn’t mean it’s safe.

• Monitor top holders. Always.

• Clear communication matters.

• Web3 needs maturity.