Original Title: “Base App Fully Launched, How’s the Experience?”
Original Author: KarenZ, Foresight News
On December 18th, Base App, launched by Coinbase, officially concluded its beta testing phase and became fully available to users in over 140 countries and regions worldwide. This marks a crucial step for Coinbase in building an on-chain ecosystem gateway and realizing its vision of Web3 mass adoption.
Evolving from the early purely functional “Coinbase Wallet” to the current “Base App,” this product is attempting to define a new form of on-chain “super app”—deeply integrating social interaction, trading, payments, and complex on-chain interactions.
Its core vision, as stated by Base lead Jesse Pollak, is: “Making on-chain interaction as simple as being online.”
Base App’s All-in-One Landscape
Base App is no longer limited to traditional asset management but is a comprehensive platform integrating social features, payments, and chat.
Base App has the following four core features:
· Social and Creator Economy Closed Loop: Integrates Farcaster and Zora protocols. Each post shared by users can be transformed into tradable digital assets via Zora, enabling true “post-to-earn.” Additionally, social feeds directly integrate curated trading activities, making “on-chain discovery” intuitive and social.
· On-Chain Functions and Payment Experience: Supports buying and selling cryptocurrencies, exploring built-in Mini apps (such as trading platforms, prediction markets, lending platforms, games, content tipping platforms), and supports free and instant USDC transfers via NFC, with the ability to earn yields by holding USDC.
· Ecosystem-Connected Mini Apps: Similar to WeChat Mini Programs, Base App includes built-in mini applications covering DeFi, prediction markets, gaming, and more. Smart Wallet and Fast Payments: Users automatically receive a Base account (a multi-chain smart wallet identity) and Base Pay (a fast payment method based on USDC) upon registration.
· Private Messaging and AI Collaboration: The chat function is based on the XMTP encryption protocol, ensuring privacy and security. Users can not only send and receive USDC directly in conversations or form communities of up to 250 people but can also invoke AI agents to assist with executing complex combination trades or portfolio management.
How’s the Experience? What Kind of App Is This?
In practical use, Base App’s UI design is minimalist, and interactions are relatively smooth.
“Seamless” Onboarding: Farewell to Seed Phrase Anxiety
For newcomers, the most convenient aspect is the elimination of seed phrases and the need to back up 12 words. Private key management is entirely handled by Passkeys, allowing users to create an on-chain account in seconds. This experience is almost indistinguishable from registering for a typical Web2 social account, significantly lowering the entry barrier for non-crypto users.
Seamless Integration of Social and Finance
In the main feed of the trading section, content posts by creators that have earnings enabled display a real-time market button below, allowing one-click navigation to the trading page.
The platform also highlights large-volume trades or concentrated buying activities by multiple users, facilitating copy trading. Additionally, there is a convenient “hidden action”—double-tapping on a post or creator token of interest triggers a quick purchase at a preset amount.
The discussion section focuses on pure content feeds without earnings enabled.
According to official descriptions, the feed algorithm personalizes recommendations based on user interactions (likes, comments, follows), interest test results, as well as content timeliness, relevance, and diversity. Users can also directly interact with shared links or Mini Apps within the feed.
Human-Centric On-Chain Identity
Opening Base App, you no longer see a cold string of 0x… code but Basenames. Base App deeply integrates with the on-chain identity system, making transfers as simple as sending a red envelope to a WeChat friend. Names are no longer just symbols but “digital IDs” that grant access across the entire ecosystem.
Trading: Gas Sponsorship
To deliver an optimal experience, Base App employs a “gas sponsorship” model in many scenarios, where network fees are covered by the platform. However, it’s important to note that this convenience isn’t entirely free: when performing token swaps or cross-chain operations within the app, a fee of approximately 1% still applies (on Base).
Rich Mini Apps
The “Search” section of Base App includes all integrated Mini Apps, covering applications across trading, gaming, creator platforms, DeFi platforms, prediction markets, music, and more. The Mini Apps homepage currently features curated selections like the derivatives protocol Avantis, Web3 football fantasy game Football.Fun, DeFi protocol Gauntlet, lending protocol Morpho, and Moonwell.
USDC Holding Yields Automatically Distributed Weekly
The Base App wallet page supports one-click activation of USDC yields, currently offering an APY of approximately 3.35% (adjusted by Coinbase), with rewards accumulating daily and distributed weekly (U.S. users need to link a Coinbase account).
What Challenges Exist?
As an emerging platform, Base App still faces some notable pain points or challenges in practical use:
· “Island Effect” of Social Features: For a product positioned as an “on-chain super app,” user scale is its lifeline. If Base App’s user base is insufficient, it could directly lead its core functions into a “negative cycle.” With low active users, content updates in the feed may slow, and retention rates could gradually decline.
· Feed Quality Needs Optimization: The current social feed algorithm is not transparent, and the content pool is filled with speculative content and noise, with relatively few high-quality, deep interactions.
· “Liquidity Trap” in On-Chain Trading: Its social trading section relies on displaying “concentrated buying by multiple users” to guide copy trading. If the user base is too small, such trend discovery loses statistical significance, and users might only see random actions by a few individuals.
· Boundaries of Security Defense: Convenience also brings risks. “Phishing links” disguised within polished social posts still exist. For new users accustomed to Web2 security protections, missteps could lead to authorization leaks, which remains a serious challenge in the on-chain world.
Of course, for Base App at its current stage, the biggest challenge isn’t a lack of powerful features but how to efficiently convert Coinbase’s hundreds of millions of users and maintain retention rates.
Summary
The full launch of Base App signifies that the Base ecosystem’s focus has shifted from “building infrastructure” to “competing for existing users” and “user onboarding.”
By integrating wallet, trading, social features, creator economy, payments, mini-program ecosystem, and yields into one, it has built a powerful on-chain traffic gateway. For developers, the Mini Apps framework provides a direct shortcut to reach Coinbase’s vast user base.
Although there is still a long way to go in content governance and user attraction, Base App undoubtedly presents a clear template: the future of Web3 should not be isolated wallets but a warm, interactive, and rewarding on-chain society.
