If there is one thing we don’t have enough of in crypto it's gotta be memecoins, right?

I mean why bother building out a high-tech, fundamentally solid project over the course of years when, instead, you can just launch a cat coin today and go straight to a few hundred million in valuation overnight. The path of least resistance is generally the path most trodden.

Until now, we have seen the vast majority of shitcoin shenanigans play out on the Solana network, its fast transaction speed and low fees have made it the perfect place to become the Las Vegas of crypto, but there is a new kid on the block, Base.

If you spend as many waking hours digging around in the Dexscreener trenches as I do, you will notice that Base is quickly becoming the center of degenerate attention. Accepting that it seems glaringly obvious that this memecoin narrative is here to stay probably makes taking a closer look worth your attention.

So what makes Base such a fertile breeding ground for shitcoin madness? How does it stack up when compared to the current king of the shitcoin casino, Solana? And what are some of the top tokens in the Base meme space?

Let’s find out.

What makes Base the perfect shitcoin arena?

First and foremost, it makes sense to point out the most obvious factor of all. The Base chain is Coinbase’s own network and Coinbase is the ultimate on-ramp for pretty much anyone entering the crypto game. In a world where fundamentals are basically non-existent, attention and pure numbers reign supreme. Base has the power to generate both of these in extortionate amounts.

Picture your normies friends sitting around, talking about how they just caught wind that they can become overnight trillionaires now that crypto is on the move. They know about Doge, Shib, and Bonk and have heard all about WIF, too.

They already understand the power of the meme as they spend most of their time scrolling mindlessly through TikTok and Instagram. They want in on the action and start checking exchanges and prices.

The true magic happens when they see all those zeros after the decimal and begin to imagine their lives when that token worth 0.00000007 goes to 1 whole dollar. Quickly, they rush to download the Coinbase app and transfer all the contents of their bank accounts onto the exchange, where they are funneled like rats by the Pied Piper into the Base network to remain as precious exit liquidity forever. Too easy, right?

This onboarding factor gives Base a massive edge over its competitors, and once real attention starts to return to crypto, everyone will most likely see the sheer power of this. This onboarding edge will be even more powerful when Coinbase launches its in-app wallet, through which people can use the Base chain.

As of the end of 2023, Coinbase boasted around 89 million users and is growing rapidly. The Coinbase app currently sits at 320th place in US app rankings, having dropped off in the past month from smashing into the top 50 in early March. No top signals just yet!

Base vs Solana - The battle for shitcoin supremacy

Solana has certainly secured its place in the shitcoin hall of fame. Thanks to lightning-fast transaction speeds and low fees, you can sling bets to your heart's content with maximum efficiency. The Phantom mobile wallet has likely played a major role in its shitcoin success, giving degens the ability to ape tokens on the go and from the comfort of their office toilet cubicles. We both see and respect you!

However, there are some downsides, and we are currently experiencing some serious congestion issues on the Solana network giving room for competitors to eat up shitcoin market share.

Base, being an Ethereum Layer2, has all the advantages of being built on the most secure and reliable settlement layer in crypto. Downtime is no issue here, and transaction fees are also just pennies (thanks to EIP 4844), making things almost as efficient as Solana. Block time is slightly slower, meaning it takes a few seconds longer for transactions to be processed, but the difference in speed is certainly not enough to deter the mighty degenerate.

Coinbase also has its own mobile wallet that allows users to either create a new wallet or import their seed phrase from other EVM-compatible wallets like Metamask, Trust wallet, and so on.

I have not personally put this wallet to the test but I could imagine the UX would be on par with the likes of Phantom. Internal swapping functions, in-app access to the leading dApps on multiple chains, and in-app lending and borrowing are all featured. Add to this the ease of on-ramping fiat into the Coinbase exchange and transferring funds to a Coinbase wallet, and you have a recipe ripe for some serious shitcoin speculation.

BSC season on crack, as some would put it.

So, you’ve got yourself a Coinbase wallet, and you're ready to enter the casino. The next logical question is what to buy. Obviously, I can’t give you the answer to that question and have lost my fair share of shekels in the shitcoin arena trying to figure this out for myself.

We can, however, take a look at some of the leading memecoins on the Base network and what gives them their edge so you can hopefully put the pieces together for yourself. There is no finance advice to be found here!

Notable shitcoins on Base

$Brett

$Brett draws inspiration from a funny-looking blue character in Matt Furie’s Boy's Club comic. If you have never heard of Matt Furie, then all you need to know is he is claimed to be the creator of possibly the greatest crypto meme of all time, Pepe the frog. With a current market cap just shy of $700 million USD, Brett is one of the highest valued memes on Base.

Now I have absolutely no idea what kind of creature Brett is meant to be, but the word on the shitcoin streets is Brett is based, and that seems to be all that matters.

$Degen

Although Degen may have now transcended the realm of what we class as a memecoin, it very much started off as so. 

Currently sitting pretty with a market cap of $500M+, this token was born on the popular crypto native social media platform, Farcaster. It was primarily used as a tipping token on the platform and really rose to popularity when Vitalik mentioned it in one of his ‘casts.’ Yeah, that’s still weird to say. 

Now the token has its own L3 on top of Base, with a native DEX, memecoins, bridges, and more. Degen has certainly had one of the more unique lifecycles for an average shitcoin, and I believe it’s far from over. 

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$Toshi

The current memecoin meta has been all about the cat coins. Even the great GCR called it some time ago and, in doing so, added some serious weight to the narrative. Toshi is the tokenized representation of Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong’s cat, who just so happens to be named after the mysterious founder of Bitcoin itself, Satoshi Nakamoto.

The Toshi team aims to be the face of Base and have a roadmap that contains the Meow DAO, Toshi Tools to help builders on Base, a multisender to allow for easy airdrops, a token launcher and launchpad for aspiring shitcoin devs, and an NFT collection called NFToshis.

It is clear these guys aim to add as much utility to the token as possible, but as we all know, the best utility is price go up, and the best roadmaps are the ones that never get completed.

$Normie

Next, we have Normie, who has the valiant goal of onboarding the next million normies onto the Base network. These guys, as most memecoins do, claim to be community-focused and entirely for the people, and their mascot reflects this idea.

Who isn’t backing the regular, broke normie out there who is just trying to catch a break? There is a little normie in all of us.

$Keycat

Just a cat with a keyboard, simply vibing. What more could anyone ask for in a project?

This one has seen some major attention from some of the top influenzas in the shitcoin space, and it was even shilled by an Instagram K-popper with over 100 million followers in the past few days.

Keycat has been pumping out the content and certainly has what it takes to bring a smile to the face of even the biggest crypto cynic. Being a cat coin, it fits the current shitcoin narrative perfectly, and with a catchphrase that sounds very familiar, one can only imagine the heights that this may one day reach.

The cat plays on!

$Mfer

A peer-to-peer electronic mfer system is exactly what crypto has always needed, and Mfercoin is here to provide exactly that. Founded by @sartoshi_rip, the founder of the successful Mfer NFT project, means that there is likely a solid community behind this one, and community is a key to success in the shitcoin attention economy.

Time will tell if the mfers really follow mfers.

$TYBG

Well it probably comes as no surprise that the bald icon that is Brian Armstrong is himself, the Base God. Not only that but he is now building a steady following in his Disciples of B who are here to follow Big B down the road of salvation and spread his commandments across the Base network.

Big B is apparently rizzin and is here to put an end to the false crypto prophets once and for all. These guys are taking things pretty seriously, it appears, and have even established their own four commandments.

If it feels like a cult, it probably is, and we have all seen what cults can do in crypto.

$Normillio

The normalist coin on Base. Completely normal, nothing redacted about this one whatsoever. Playing on the common CT catchphrase of Remilio and mashing it together with some normie vibes this could be one to keep an eye on.

Releasing their own NFT collection that is minted by burning Normilio tokens is just another play that Normilio have added to their arsenal to increase the totally normal community vibes.

$CJ

Grove Streets finest has traveled his way from the ghetto of Los Santos and has arrived on the Base chain. If you spent your youth hanging around at the local Burger Shot, then this one's for you. After being stabbed in the back by his homies, Ryder and Big Smoke, CJ is out for some revenge, and what better way than by cashing in on the Base shitcoin casino.

It is worth noting that green just so happens to be the color of choice for Grove Street gang-bangers, something that all CJ holders will be hoping to see more of in the near future.

Closing Thoughts

The future success of Base chain is a real no-brainer. Coinbase holds a lot of power in the cryptosphere and can use its huge reach and marketing machine to bring in some serious punters as things continue to heat up.

It’s fair play to presume that there will be at least a few seriously profitable shitcoin plays to be had here. Your guess is as good as mine as to what they will be!

As fun as the shitcoin casino is, it does bring with it a hint of cynicism to the crypto space. The more money that flows into these vaporware meme tokens, the more the point is proven that nothing in crypto really has any value at all. In saying this, however, one could certainly argue that everything in the world of crypto, as well as traditional finance, is simply a meme and that memes are ultimately the value behind everything that exists in our weird world.

It appears that the latter could be closer to the truth, and we are seeing some big names from other chains, like Fantom’s Andre Cronje, jumping on the meme bandwagon to attempt to draw users into their networks.

Last cycle, we saw Dogecoin reach $88 billion in market cap and Shiba Inu tip the $40 billion mark, but this was a time with potentially less fragmentation between tokens, giving these two the king's share of attention. It’ll be very interesting to see if memecoins will manage to reach similar valuations this cycle, and if so, a platform like Base might just be the place to make it happen.

Disclaimer: Excluding the author of this article, a handful of the blocmates team hold some of the tokens mentioned in this article.