Trading Volume of Coinbase’s Base Tops $200 Million Thanks To Memecoin Degens

• Coinbase’s Layer 2 blockchain Base’s trading volume has exceeded $200 million.
• The layer 2 blockchain has recorded more than half a million transactions over the past 24 hours.
• The sudden surge in network activity can be attributed to new tokens like OPTISM, BASED, and meme tokens like BALD.
• Crypto degens have made more than 1000x returns by bridging to Base and blindly buying new tokens.

Base, the layer-2 blockchain developed by Coinbase, reached a major milestone earlier today following a significant rise in activity and trading volume. The sudden uptick in network activity was attributed to the emergence of several new tokens and crypto degens aping them, meaning investing in a new token without proper knowledge and research. 

Base Records Over Half A Million Transactions In 24 Hours

Base has become one of the most talked about topics on crypto Twitter after whale watchers and on-chain analysts highlighted several degen traders who make over a thousandfold profit by bridging to the layer 2 blockchain over the past 24 hours. 

Although the bridge launch is scheduled for August 9, 2023, opportunistic crypto traders bridged to the network and started buying newly launched tokens like BALD, OPTISM, COIN, and BASED through a decentralized exchange called LeetSwap. LeetSwap witnessed a trading volume of $233 million over the past 24 hours. RocketSwap, another DEX used by the degen traders to ape meme tokens on Base, saw a trading volume of $4.5 million. 

Data from DEX Screener showed that Base recorded more than 536,000 transactions over the past 24 hours, thanks to the degen traders trading meme tokens. The traders were able to bridge using a portal poxy contract released by the layer 2 blockchain. As per Dune Analytics, users have sent more than 33,000 ETH ($61.9 million) to Base. 

The sudden uptick in network activity led to some users facing issues with swapping leading tokens like BALD, leading to rumors of foul play. However, LeetSwap assured its users that no project was being rugged and that the issues stemmed from a lot of users using the same congested RPC node.

A user who goes by cheatcoiner on Twitter emerged as one of the most profitable traders amid the sudden popularity of memecoins on Base. The trader invested $500 into the BALD token, when it had a market capitalization of under $50,000, and watched his investment grow to a whopping $500,000 in less than 24 hours.