Base Rockets to $1.22 Billion Trading Volume, Sparking Meme Coin Frenzy

Base, incubated by Coinbase, witnessed an unprecedented trading frenzy on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), setting a record of $1.22 billion in daily trading volume on Saturday. Fueled by a meme coin craze, native tokens like DEGEN and BRETT have soared in value, attracting over 172,000 daily wallets interacting with DEXs. Despite a slight decline in volume during the week, Base continues to maintain elevated activity, surpassing its previous levels significantly.

Base Layer-2 Solution Surges with $1.22 Billion in Trading Volume, Triggering Surge in Meme Coin Activity

On Saturday, March 31, 2024, Base, the Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution incubated by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, set a record with $1.22 billion in trading volume across decentralized exchanges (DEXs). This surge in trading activity is attributed to a surge in demand for meme tokens, such as Base-native assets DEGEN and BRETT, which have each surpassed market capitalizations of $500 million.

According to public blockchain data collated by Dune Analytics, the platform recorded an unprecedented number of unique daily wallets interacting with a DEX on Saturday, reaching 172,000. This figure remained steady on Sunday, nearly matching the previous day's record.

Despite a slight decline in DEX volume on Base at the start of the new week, it remains significantly higher than previous months, with approximately $965 million in volume on Sunday and already $847 million as of Monday morning. Notably, Saturday's record volume remains the only day that Base DEX volume has exceeded the billion-dollar mark.

Uniswap, the cross-chain decentralized exchange, has accounted for a substantial portion of the trading volume on Base, generating $1.14 billion in volume on Saturday. Uniswap has consistently maintained a daily share of roughly 90% of Base DEX volume over the past several days.

Alex Svanevik, founder and CEO of crypto analytics platform Nansen, tweeted that the Base ecosystem has experienced a "parabolic" surge in overall transactions. Nansen's data indicates an all-time daily peak of 2.39 million transactions on Friday, the most recent weekday shown on their Base dashboard.

The increase in volume and active users suggests that Base could potentially become the go-to platform for meme tokens during this market cycle, at least within the Ethereum ecosystem. This trend is supported by the migration of other meme tokens to Base, such as HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu, which launched a Base version of its token last week. The token's price briefly spiked above $10 before retracing to parity with its Ethereum mainnet counterpart.

Some traders are calling for a "Base season," akin to the momentum experienced by layer-1 ecosystem Solana in the past. In recent months, Solana has been the primary platform for meme tokens, with projects such as Dogwifhat (WIF) reaching market capitalizations over $1 billion and several others having market capitalizations in the hundreds of millions.

It remains to be seen whether the crypto market will provide another opportunity for traders to rally around meme tokens on Base. Time will tell if the platform can sustain its momentum and establish itself as a major hub for meme token trading.