jesse.base.eth on Farcaster

basil pfp

i love this place but it’s not getting any better. i talk to four or five builders every single day, and over the past few weeks, the tides have started to turn. almost everyone i’ve spoken to who’s trying to build a real, scalable product with the intention of surviving across cycles is seriously questioning the direction of base & exploring alternatives. it’s heartbreaking. nobody — not a single person i’ve spoken to — wants creator coins. not one. the only people building in that vertical are the ones trying to fix the very problems they created. we’re perpetually pushing ten people on zora all with deep coinbase relationships. what does this have to do with base blockchain? half of them aren’t even builders & more than half of them won’t be here in a year. can we be honest about that? it’s not even because they’re bad ideas, but because they launched on a creator coin launchpad that makes zero sense. are they creator coins? are these projects? why is there a trading competition? none of this makes sense. why are we forcing a square peg into a round hole just to sustain a broken narrative that doesn’t make sense? do you know what builders really want? they want a faster chain. they want gas stability & sponsorships. they want $10k checks. they want to build on YOUR blockchain, not build around it, not forced into an app chain or elsewhere. you ARE the blockchain. build the blockchain & support the folks building on it. that’s all they want. that is your only job. instead, we’re throwing invalidated shit at the wall — doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on failing, directionless projects while real, multi-person teams with momentum & traction get ignored. we hide behind greed, ignorance & inertia, pretending not to see what’s happening right in front of us. talk to the people. this isn’t good. they are not happy. they are leaving. you think i’m loud for clout on a 100 person network? i am loud because these builders are my friends; because i am building with them. i’m loud because they don’t care to be: they are ready to throw in the gloves. we’ve learned nothing from the lessons that came before — from friend tech, from virtuals, from zora x5, from farcaster, from tba, from crypto itself over the last eight years — why are we ignoring all of it? why? do we really not see this? again? for the nth time? this only goes ONE way. please, can we be real? farcaster tried to build for creators for THREE years & got NOWHERE. what about lens? what about every single attempt before? what about the last 5 zora models? cmon, man… these are people’s livelihoods; these builders have families, children, spouses. they quit their jobs to build on YOUR chain; to strengthen YOUR network, to make YOU money. why are we doing this? and now, we’re about to push another unvalidated model as if Jesus came down from the heavens & wrote the code himself — one that lets founders dump FIFTY PRECENT of their token on their holders, with zero connection to fundamentals, revenue, product, or users. just another attention game, another cycle of manipulation… zero validation, yet we’re rolling it out across multiple pads, multiple teams, as THE model that will feed the hungry, pushing it top-down. come on. we laughed at binance for asking 8% for a listing. the whole base community joined in: “how absurd! we don’t want the largest exchange in the world dumping on us!” and yet here we are, pushing creator coins with fifty percent insider ownership whose ENTIRE purpose is to be dumped on their own communities… launchpads with fifty percent insider ownership whose ENTIRE purpose is to be dumped on their own communities… it’s just sad. genuinely sad; and it’s painful to hear the same thing, every day, from people who’ve been here for years. i just don’t get it anymore.

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Jesse Pollak pfp

@jesse.base.eth

1. i've talked to 100+ creators who like/love their creator coins. it's a powerful model for monetization and community building. just like app coins! coins are good. 2. i think it's good that creators own 50% of their coin (and that it safely vests over a 5 year period). open to any and all feedback on how you think that model could work better. 3. supporting creators is not our only investment — we are massively invested in builders and have been since day one. that's why we are allocating tons of our energy to running base batches (basebatches.xyz) and so many other programs that support builders. 4. i agree attention right now can feel zero sum — that us talking about creator coins means that other things don't get air — but i also believe that comes from the fact that as a space, we aren't growing right now. that's the problem. how do we solve it? by taking more quality shots on goal that can credibly bring consumers onchain. that's my primary focus. thank you for all the feedback. i am always listening, learning, and trying to do better. day one.

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Jesse Pollak pfp

@jesse.base.eth

also this is a great post from @wilsoncusack who now leads all things base platform (including the chain). base is many things :) https://farcaster.xyz/wilsoncusack/0xe2a4edba

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basil pfp

appreciate your response & i hope you know that i am never trying to attack, so with the utmost respect, a question: why are you talking to creators as the #1 at a blockchain in the first place? this is precisely what folks are most worried about. you should be talking to builders, not creators. i'm told my words can be wrong, so i will point you to derek's post. we need to be credible neutral. this perception problem we are creating will not go away. experimentation is the name of the game, but we can't push unvalidated concepts at the most fundamental level straight from the top. let the builders figure it out first; only then push what works. https://farcaster.xyz/derek/0x0c94827b

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Samuel ツ pfp

@samuellhuber.eth

re base batches: Simple question. If it's so important and so much energy goes into it. then why can't one get information about it when we are asked to organize workshops and "get ready"???? Why is the only time reliable information comes literally the start day at midnight US time? Why can't we properly prepare workshops, sessions and work with our partners? I mentor the IRL sessions in Aachen Germany, Frankfurt Germany and St. Gallen right now while being on call for tech support in Vienna & Munich. We have 1-2 weeks max to get full IRL events coordinated and promoted. We made it work because we prepared without information for 6 weeks before that!!! Doesn't screem like "allocating tons of energy" the way I've come to appreciate from Base before. I've voiced these concernes and feedback weeks before, ahead of launch and in person at basecamp. All with "we're working on it" as response. imo actions >>>> words. I love base batches, bringing literally new folks to base and seeing what everyone builds. Though seeing it as showcase for how base can support builders when the ones building base batches can't get information seems a bit odd? We had the SAME struggles with base batches 001 and it got worse :(( webpage for base batches was the 001 version literally even through base camp announcement of start times for base batches 002. Like how can this be tons of energy if the big thins like the literal landing page isn't even set until day of launch? if the information we are thought to run workshops with changes more then autumn weather here in Germany. Would love base batches 003 to be better and am looking forward to tomorrow, where i'll continue mentoring the base batches event in switzerland that we are running right now with 10 teams and ~30 builders. -- heading to sleep now, but thought being clear in feedback may be helpful. LFB 🫡

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thebasedcabal pfp

Personally I love the idea of app coins, especially miniapps on Farcaster and Base are a great way to push some fun projects with a tech layer, while making it accessible to the wider audience.

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Chris pfp

fyi the process on devfolio is broken, it was the same for onchain summer unclear and confusing appreciate your work on Base, Jesse!

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Kender Mage pfp

Can I special request to back my new creator coin with $PAXG instead?

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axel-foley pfp

#2 It seems like you’ve gone too deep into the Zora narrative — and that could turn out to be fatal. I’ve never seen a successful blockchain push a single app this hard while neglecting everything else. Look at Ethereum — it’s number one because it has dozens of successful apps. So what about Base? Maybe it’s time to rename it to Zora Chain?

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axel-foley pfp

I get the feeling that @jesse.base.eth and @wilsoncusack have completely forgotten that they’re supposed to be building Base, not Zora. Every day I see posts from @jesse.base.eth only about Zora and creator coins — it feels like 100% of the focus is on Zora, not on Base. But what if you’re wrong? What if this isn’t the right path for Base’s growth? You’re pumping Zora while ignoring the rest of the ecosystem — that’s a serious leadership mistake that could lead the entire chain to failure. Why did you stop supporting projects like @clankeronbase, @virtualsprotocol.eth, @flaunch and others? The situation with @clankeronbase, is especially strange — the team built something great, but now they’re lost, trying to align with Abstract or Rainbow. What about Base? Don’t you want projects to actually grow within your own chain? It feels like parents abandoning their children.

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