CryptoJess

Crypto Influencer | KOL~DYOR | Reviewer | Dm for Marketing

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

This is what is meant when people say how well can you lead

The global economy is not ready for base builders.

[jesse.base.eth @jessepollak]

lots of conversations about base over the last week. wanted to share my candid take after a week of listening and a lot of reflection over the last 6 months.

first off - in case it’s not obvious, the first quarter of 2026 was a punch in the face. I spent 2024 and 2025 making a two pronged bet to bring base to the world: (1) builders would unlock the next wave of crypto adoption; (2) adoption would be driven by new onchain-native social experiences - creators, content, messaging. imo we made the right bet on builders, but obviously the wrong bet on social. builders did drive the next wave of crypto adoption - prediction markets, perpetuals, stablecoins - but social was not at the center of it. in fact, the entire social side of the market that many of us had been building towards - farcaster, zora, miniapps, and yes, creator coins - disintegrated completely. I was wrong - whether it was timing wrong (is $ansem a creator coin?) or fully wrong, only time will tell, but regardless, i was definitively wrong.

the collateral damage was pretty bad! and this year has been an exercise in eating shit. we realized how our focus on social had meant that base had fallen behind in key areas that were now increasingly critical - we had perps (shoutout avantis!) and prediction markets (shoutout limitless!), but both were well behind scaled competitors. and we had a lot of room to improve in unlocking base as a platform for tokenization and payments that really worked for enterprises. people lost confidence, and CT spectators reminded me weekly of all of my mistakes as often as they could. it felt bad man, still feels bad.

but if there’s one thing i’ve learned from the last decade of building in this space, it’s that when things feel the worst, the best thing to do is just put your head down and build. so that’s what i’m doing. I refocused my time and attention back to the chain away from the app, started writing code again, shipped a bunch of stuff (azul, beryl, b20, privacy, ledgers) and questioned a bunch of my assumptions: does crypto need social to grow? does base need an app? can base be bigger than coinbase?

I thought for a long time that social was the only thing that could drive the sort of viral growth to get crypto to a billion people. unsurprisingly, I now believe that’s wrong. It’s clear that better money is more than enough - we are seeing this live with stablecoins, predictions, perpetuals, tokenization and i only expect it to accelerate. I am now focused on bringing a billion people onchain just by making global finance actually work.

on the app, my focus is on building base into the blockchain for global finance. to that end, i’ve handed the base app back to the coinbase mothership, where my now good friend @cobie will be taking it from here to make it the best damn app for onchain you’ve ever seen, including expanding beyond the base ecosystem in ways that tbh i won’t love as the leader of base.

it’s incredibly hard to grow a decentralized network inside of a big public corporation. and i feel like much of the discourse on CT over the last week is downstream of this. the following things can be true: (1) base (and i) love memes and (2) brian probably won’t ever bullpost memes on the tl (this activity is illegal once you’re over 40 years of age). it’s weird and we’re working through it as we continue to decentralize base, which has been our commitment from the beginning.

we’re going to build base into the blockchain for global finance and do everything we can to be the place that the world’s money settles over the next century. we will surely have formidable competitors (welcome robinhood and stripe!) and people may abandon our cause, but we welcome the competition and believe it’s our duty to win the respect and commitment of those who rally to our banner. 

in 2026, this concretely means three things: winning trading, payments, and agents.

[continued in the reply]

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@jessepollak It’s all just getting started and I respect you for acknowledging the shortcomings and what could be better

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@__iamcharis That’s right

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@nordicrypto_eth @TheBULLCATTTT Stay bullish on $BULLCAT NORDIC

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

Ryker just said buy $SPCX at $129

What do y’all think?

[Ryker 🇯🇵 @Ryker_Crypto]

Hey bro @blknoiz06 , I'm Barron Ryker , Son of Trymp

Please waiting for buy $SPCX at $129 then thank me later

I called $ZEC was the top at $680 and now #ZEC at $400

I called short $GOLD at $4545 and now #GOLD at $4000

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@Ryker_Crypto @blknoiz06 Look what ryker had don’t guys 🔥

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@ohheyitstmas I want Argentina though

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@0xJeribond Great fix tbh

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@Sophia_WebX Like minds Sophia

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@Hiswat_ Quite distinct
Never heard anything like oh

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@H3mmzy_web3 Great trip?

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@unkonfined Hello unkonfined

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@_Lexkhalifa Oh great

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@0xmelissa19 Are they happier or sad

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@PrinceIsraelsw1 Cool

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@oladotkum Definitely the first

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@yeminiz Call your baby girl?

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@ohheyitstmas Where is this Tmas?

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@hellerincrypto I am heller active

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

@bxdoteth Did you have a great day

[CryptoJess @CryptoJessx]

Gm everyone

Are you winning today?