The Favoritism Dilemma Behind the Boom of Base Creator Coins

Base has gained significant on-chain activity through the promotion of Zora creator coins, but the resource allocation bias behind this is causing strong community resentment. After setting a record in August for daily token minting volumes exceeding Solana, Base faces growing criticism from builders and projects—accusing the ecosystem’s marketing and official support of being overly concentrated on Zora-related initiatives, while other contributors are marginalized. This apparent favoritism threatens the health of Base’s ecosystem.

The Monopoly Effect of the Zora Narrative

The concept of creator coins quickly gained popularity on Base, becoming a core focus on the chain. As an NFT marketplace platform, Zora has gradually become the center of this narrative, receiving key attention from both the official channels and the community. Supporters argue that this model provides new on-chain revenue streams for creators and adds cultural appeal to cryptocurrency.

However, this centralized promotional strategy introduces a significant problem: a severe skew in resources and attention. Established projects native to Base find that unless they are part of the Zora ecosystem narrative, they almost cannot receive official marketing support or social media exposure. This clear favoritism is intensifying conflicts within the community.

Builders’ Voices and Dilemmas

Jacek, responsible for the degen token ecosystem on Base, openly expressed his disappointment on X. He pointed out that Base’s official X account hardly pays attention to projects outside of Zora-related narratives, let alone retweet or acknowledge them. This is not an isolated phenomenon—many other project builders share similar feelings: if your project isn’t part of the “favored narrative,” it is effectively ignored.

Jacek further highlighted a compelling contrast: when degen tokens expand into the Solana ecosystem, they immediately receive public support from Solana’s official X account and Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz. This stark difference underscores the serious bias in official resource distribution on Base and has led project teams to reconsider the value of continuing investments there.

Deep Threats to Ecosystem Balance

Although Base still maintains over 10 million transactions daily, the deteriorating morale among builders is becoming an underlying crisis. When projects feel they are being treated differently by the official channels, they generally have only two options: stay and become marginalized, or shift to competing chains like Solana or Sui in search of a fairer environment.

The long-term consequences of this “favoritism” are significant. Base is trying to balance expanding user adoption with maintaining builder morale, but if resource skew continues, it risks a collective exodus of builders. As projects that have driven meaningful growth and liquidity leave for competitors one by one, Base will lose not just individual projects but the diversity and resilience of its entire ecosystem.

In the short term, Base’s performance metrics remain impressive, but the ecosystem’s culture and sentiment are quietly changing. If Base cannot address this obvious favoritism and establish a fairer, more transparent resource allocation mechanism, opportunities on competing chains will gradually become more attractive.