Franklin Templeton declares it’s  “Base Season” as the Coinbase low-cost L2 sees significant rise in activity

• Base has seen a significant rise in activity, with TVL rising by $166 million in May.
• Base meme coins, trading activity, and SocialFi apps like Friend.tech have contributed to the popularity.
• The Coinbase, Base, and USDC flywheel continue to accelerate.
• Over $20 billion USDC was transferred on Base in April alone, up from nearly $15 billion in February.

Franklin Templeton, an investment firm with up to $1.46 trillion in assets under management, has declared that “It’s Base Season.” It comes amid growing activity on the low-cost Ethereum Layer-2 (L2) solution.

Also Read: Base TVL up $104 million in May, in line to make Coinbase a DeFi powerhouse as stock price skyrockets

It’s Base Season, Franklin Templeton

Base was built to scale Coinbase’s on-chain user base by making transactions faster. With this, the L2 solution continues to be a key value addition for the trading platform. According to investment firm Franklin Templeton, it is time for Base to shine.

In a recent FXStreet publication, we indicated the active role that Base continues to play in the success of Coinbase. Now, data from the DeFi dashboard DefiLlama shows that Base Total Value Locked (TVL) has jumped by a stark $166 million between May 1 ($1.379 billion) and May 9 ($1.545 billion).

Base TVL

A rise in TVL suggests more assets are coming into the Base chain and are locked into the DeFi protocol. It signifies growing user participation and confidence in the platform. It also suggests increased liquidity and trading volume within the protocol. This can potentially lead to higher returns for users and a stronger ecosystem overall.

Understanding the popularity of Base

The popularity that base enjoys is attributed to Base meme coins such as Brett (BRETT), Degen (Base) DEGEN, and Toshi (TOSHI), among others.  The Base L2 scaling solution allows users to create new meme coin tokens easily, while at the same time giving them access to a wide variety of buyers and volume through Coinbase's platform.

Trading activity is also a factor in the popularity of Base. With Coinbase as the largest publicly traded US-based cryptocurrency exchange, boasting more than 100 million verified users, Base provides a gateway to introduce these users to DeFi. By association, this relationship incentivizes existing decentralized applications (Dapps) to build on Base.

The catch is that they can leverage Coinbase's existing products and user base to access a new pool of non-DeFi natives.

Furthermore, SocialFi apps such as Friend.tech have also contributed to the popularity of Base. Friend.tech is the biggest social app on Base, allowing creators to link to their audience by means of tokenized attention. 

Meanwhile, the Coinbase, Base, and USDC flywheel continues to accelerate, with a recent report by Blockworks indicating that over $20 billion USDC moved on Base in April alone. This is a significant increase compared to the nearly $15 billion and $3.5 billion recorded in March and February respectively.