Base App reverts to Coinbase Wallet as SocialFI experiment fails to gain traction

Coinbase is putting the Coinbase Wallet name back on its self-custodial app about 14 months after rebranding it as the Base App, conceding that its bet on a crypto social network never gained traction and steering the product toward multichain trading instead.

Coinbase had hoped to pull in its retail users, who are in the millions, into an “everything app”; however, the firm is now leaning more into perpetual futures, prediction markets, and tokenized stocks.

The reversion was confirmed on the app’s official X account with the line “Base App is now Coinbase Wallet.”

Why the social bet got dropped

The Base App was unveiled over a year ago in July 2025, with Coinbase pitching it as a Farcaster-powered social feed that has encrypted chat with AI agents, mini-apps, payments through USDC, and in-feed trading, among others. 

The features all cuminated into an “everything app,” which was called a potential game changer at the time. It was described as a possible starting point for a new kind of social network.

However, the leadership was already having a rethink about its potential as early as the first quarter of 2026. Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO, said in March that the social experiment “didn’t quite work” and added that the app was already shifting toward trading and becoming a self-custodial version of Coinbase’s main app.

In July, Base creator Jesse Pollak handed day-to-day leadership to Jordan “Cobie” Fish and later said in a podcast that some of the app’s social and creator features had come up short and that the product would grow “less Base-centric” as it broadened into a trading platform. Pollak said Base is growing following the rebrand announcement

What the renamed wallet does now

Ryan Kass, head of Coinbase Wallet product, told The Block, “The Coinbase Wallet name better captures the product’s role as Coinbase’s self-custodial front door to the ‘everything exchange.'”

Kass also added that Base App had been “an opinionated experiment” while the wallet “gives users access to all of onchain finance.”

The app now supports more than 10 networks, including Robinhood Chain and Monad, both new additions alongside Base, Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Avalanche.

On the trading side, it offers perpetual futures powered by Hyperliquid, prediction markets, tokenized stocks, and long-tail assets.

Kass stated that users can also follow other traders to “gain additional alpha” since every trade settles onchain.

Where Base still fits and what remains gated

According to Coinbase, the wallet is a “test kitchen” for products and assets that may not appear on its centralized exchange, with Hyperliquid-powered perps cited as the first example. 

The company is marketing it on “no KYC, no waiting, and no borders,” claiming users can download the app and trade within minutes, though it notes on its website that some features stay subject to geographic limits.

Base is not being sidelined. “Base remains central to Coinbase Wallet, and you’ll see Base assets naturally appear in the app as they trend,” Kass said. 

Assets show up by default once minted on a supported chain, he added, while the wallet flags and hides scam tokens, and new asset classes such as predictions and tokenized stocks pass what he called “vigorous product and compliance reviews” first.

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