Coinbase pivots Base layer‑2 from content coins to trading and AI

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong publicly acknowledged that the Base network’s experiment with content‑coins failed, saying “They didn’t work… We messed up, time to turn the page.”

The company announced that Base will now concentrate its engineering resources on on‑chain trading infrastructure, payments and AI agents, abandoning projects such as Zora’s tokenised social posts and other creator‑coin initiatives.

The strategic shift follows a decline in Base’s total value locked—from about $5.3 billion in January to $3.9 billion in mid‑February before a modest rebound—and comes as Coinbase reported a 31 % drop in quarterly revenue and a 37 % fall in spot‑trading volume.