Can Base Maintain Its L2 Crown? 2025 Performance Breakdown and the Creator Economy Gambit

Base’s commanding position in the Layer 2 ecosystem has shifted from emerging advantage to established dominance. The numbers tell a compelling story: as of 2025, Base captures 62% of total L2 revenue with $75.4 million year-to-date, up from just 5% ($2.5 million) in December 2023. This represents roughly 30x growth in annual revenue generation—a scale that has fundamentally reshaped competitive dynamics within the Ethereum L2 landscape.

The Revenue Narrative: What Sets Base Apart

The trajectory from $2.5 million (December 2023) to $14.7 million (December 2024) to the current $75.4 million demonstrates accelerating momentum. Within the same period, Base’s share of L2 revenue expanded from a minor participant to market controller, now commanding nearly two-thirds of ecosystem earnings.

More telling than raw figures is the why behind this performance. While other L2 solutions compete primarily on technical merits or incentive structures, Base operates from a structural advantage: direct access to Coinbase’s 9.3 million monthly active trading users. This distribution channel functions as a moat that protocols like Arbitrum One, Optimism, and others cannot easily replicate.

The DeFi Total Value Locked (TVL) metrics further illustrate this dominance. Base surpassed Arbitrum One in January 2025 and now holds $4.63 billion in DeFi TVL—representing 46% of the entire L2 sector. Unlike many L2s that watched TVL concentration disperse across multiple protocols, Base’s share actually expanded throughout 2025, climbing from 33% at year-start to current levels.

Application Ecosystem: Depth Over Dependency

A critical question about any L2 platform is whether growth depends on a single killer app or whether genuine ecosystem diversity exists. Base’s $369.9 million in cumulative application revenue provides the answer: ecosystem resilience is emerging.

Aerodrome, the leading DEX, contributed $160.5 million (43% of application revenue)—substantial but not monopolistic. Parallel success stories validate this thesis. Virtuals, an AI agent launch platform, generated $43.2 million (12% of application revenue), while Football.Fun, a newly deployed sports prediction app, already produced $4.7 million in revenue. This portfolio approach suggests applications addressing real user needs rather than pure speculation.

The Coinbase-Morpho partnership exemplifies how Base’s distribution advantage translates into concrete user value. This lending protocol allows Coinbase users to deposit crypto collateral and borrow USDC without leaving the familiar interface—technical execution occurs on-chain via Base. The adoption speaks volumes: users have borrowed $866.3 million through this mechanism, accounting for 90% of Morpho’s Base network activity. Morpho’s TVL on Base expanded by 1,906% within the year, surging from $48.2 million to $966.4 million.

What this reveals is that on-chain activity becomes an organic byproduct of mainstream financial product usage, not a specialized pursuit requiring incentive farming or airdrop hunting.

User Behavior Inflection: Trading Patterns Shifting

Despite TVL growth and revenue stability, user activity metrics reveal nuance. USDC has emerged as the most-used application on Base, with 83,400 daily filtered users (unique addresses conducting at least two transactions daily) in November—up 233% year-on-year from 25,100.

Simultaneously, retail DEX engagement has contracted. Uniswap and Aerodrome experienced 74% and 49% declines in daily filtered user counts, respectively. Yet DEX trading volume hit record highs in 2025. This apparent contradiction resolves simply: trading concentration is shifting toward larger capital participants and institutional operators, while retail fragmentation is declining.

Beyond L2: The Creator Economy Bet

Base’s strategic inflection point for 2026 targets territory beyond traditional L2 metrics. The creator economy represents an estimated $500 billion total addressable market—an order of magnitude larger than DeFi TAM alone.

The primary vehicle is Base App, a “super app” launched in beta July 2024, integrating asset custody, trading, social feeds, direct messaging, and mini-app discovery. Technical foundations include:

• Social layer: Farcaster and Zora-based information feeds
• Messaging: XMTP protocol enabling user-to-user and AI agent interactions (including Bankr integration)
• Application layer: Embedded mini-app marketplace

Growth metrics during closed beta demonstrate traction: 148,400 total accounts created, with November registrations accelerating 93% month-over-month. Weekly active users (6,300) and monthly active users (10,500) both increased significantly in November, suggesting preparation for public launch before year-end.

Tokenization Mechanics: Zora Protocol Integration

The economic core of Base App centers on creator monetization. Content published defaults to tokenized format (opt-out available), transforming posts into tradable markets. Creators earn 1% of transaction fees generated by their content. Planned features include direct creator token issuance within the app.

Year-to-date, creators have earned $6.1 million through Zora tokenization, averaging $1.1 million monthly since July launch. Total tokens created exceed 6.52 million, yet here the analysis becomes critical: approximately 6.45 million tokens (99%) never achieved five trades, while only 17,800 tokens (0.3%) remained actively traded beyond 48 hours post-issuance.

Interpreting this data requires context. The majority of internet content possesses negligible economic value—this is not unique to blockchain. The question becomes whether Base can increase the percentage of tokens sustaining activity beyond 48 hours through improved content discovery, distribution infrastructure, and user tools.

Pessimists interpret the 17,800 figure as evidence the model fails. Optimists note that current creator economy penetration remains near zero, with substantial expansion potential if Base resolves discovery and functional bottlenecks. The healthier interpretation suggests Base should prioritize mechanisms that extend token trading duration into the active phase.

The Token Wild Card

In September 2025, Base confirmed exploration of native token issuance, with specifics regarding distribution, utility, and launch timing remaining unannounced.

Critically, Base does not require tokens to compete for DeFi liquidity—its Coinbase distribution channel already solved user acquisition. This positioning enables a differentiated token strategy: incentivize creator participation, reward user engagement and content generation, and encourage social activity rather than short-term trading speculation.

Few L2s possess the luxury of deploying tokens for engagement rather than liquidity wars.

2026 Outlook: Moat Expansion Strategy

Base has transitioned beyond the “acquire users” and “establish core infrastructure” phases that preoccupy most L2s. Instead, it pursues a two-front strategy:

1. Consolidate existing dominance: Maintain revenue leadership, DeFi TVL depth, and application ecosystem breadth
2. Expand the playing field: Penetrate creator economy through Base App, monetization infrastructure, and tokenization mechanisms

Success depends on improving content discovery and creator token retention rates. The $500 billion creator economy represents achievable TAM if Base can convert current near-zero penetration into meaningful adoption.

Unlike competitors dependent on DeFi metrics or trading volume (easily disrupted by incentive shifts), a stickier social and creator moat would prove more durable. That structural advantage—combined with Coinbase’s user base—positions Base as the most defensible L2 option emerging from 2025.