Jesse Pollak • Lightning Talks • Based Memes

hi everyone uh I gave a talk yesterday at the variant 420 meme hackathon memes hackathon and I didn't record it then but I wanted to just record a version of it today so that folks can see the kind of and hear the overview of this deck um so hey everyone super excited to be here I'm Jesse I'm talking about based memes um and how they fit into the larger onchain economy that we're building so I'm just going to talk through this at a high level first off I'll start with kind of what is the base on chain economy how do we think about it um then I'm going to kind of dig into like how do bass memes fit in what's their role uh and then we won't have Q&A but if you want to ask me a question feel free to do that you can just drop it on Twitter warcast or wherever you prefer so the first thing I always like starting with is kind of what are we building at a high level with bass uh and that really starts with the vision which is that we want to bring the entire world on chain and the way we're going to do that our mission and the the reason why we're going to do that is because we want to build a global onchain economy that increases Innovation creativity and freedom and so by bringing all of the builders a million Builders and a billion users into that onchain economy we're going to make a massive positive impact through those increases Innovation creativity and freedom that everyone's going to get from being a part of that kind of uh Global connected economy that they don't have today so just to kind of help ground what that actually means I'm going to talk through a little bit of what is an economy how do we think about it what are the component parts and then how can we actually compare that to other economies that have existed in our society today and kind of how Bas Compares and contrasts to them so uh first thing and let me just move myself here so uh bases in economy it's comprised of three components the the first component is the platform it's kind of what sits at the bottom of the economy uh it's we create block space and then other people build things in that block space on chain uh so this is really a developer platform uh we're we're offering evm block space we're giving people a bunch of great tools to make it really easy for them to build uh onchain applications that everyone can use the the next layer of the economy uh is an ecosystem of apps uh these are the apps that all those people build on the platform uh and people both businesses and consumers kind of come together and they use those onchain apps to achieve their goals you know whether that's creating or or running a business or you know selling something or trading or borrowing um or or sending money you know they're using all of these apps that people are building on the developer platform uh to accomplish what they're trying to in their day-to-day life and then the third part of the economy uh is the market uh and and this is a mix of both Financial non-financial liquidity kind of everyone using those apps and bringing value into the base economy um and so this can be things like uh people trading uh could be borrow and lending uh could also be bringing kind of uh liquidity like their creativity into the market and those things are going to kind of trade they're going to have a value as well um there's going to be more um kind of activity in this this economy if more people are bringing all kinds of uh kind of output whether it's Financial or non-financial into uh this economy and building a really really rich market and so those are really the three parts of the base economy that we think about the platform uh the ecosystem and then the the market and one of the really uh kind of good ways I think about thinking about this is comparing and contrasting That Base economy and those three components with other economies that we've uh actually seen built in the world to date so one that I like to kind of compare to is the web 2 you know Apple economy um so again here you have a platform this is the iOS Developer platform you have an ecosystem these are all the iOS apps and the app store and then you have a market um this is all of the value and all the revenue uh and kind of monetary flows kind of flowing through those apps now there's some pretty big differences with the the kind of apple platform first off on the platform side it's exclusive to Apple so if you build an IOS app you can't take that somewhere else you can only Deploy on Apple's platform and then it's also fully locked down so every app that is being published has to go through Apple's review process um that can be pretty laborious and uh you know sometimes they they make decisions like being really restrictive on crypto which is kind of stifling Innovation I think today in the Apple economy uh in the ecosystem um again there's kind of some access concerns here if you don't have an iPhone you cannot use the Apple ecosystem of iOS apps um you're just out of luck um and then finally on that market um you know Apple act acts as a single kind of actor who gets to control it all uh today you know they're taking something like 30% of all of the value flowing through it uh and businesses don't actually have much of a kind of reprieve or an ability to to do anything about that you know there's stuff that's kind of working through antitrust in the the EU in the United States but it's very slow um and and for the most part this Market is kind of controlled by one Corporation so um some real drawbacks obviously of that market although it's also obviously been a hugely valuable um thing for kind of growing the overall uh online economy so that's one economy that we can compare the base economy to another one uh is you can kind of compare it to a country so the United States for instance you know the platform is kind of the platform of governance and infrastructure that lets people uh build in the United States um the ecosystem is kind of all of those businesses that people build in the United States that uh other you know citizens and and residents use to come together and achieve their goals and then finally the market is the United States you know kind of capital markets with the dollar um and again there's drawbacks to to this economy um the platform it's mostly only accessible to to uh uh US citizens so if you're born outside the US you're a non-resident you're going to have a hard time starting a business in the United States actually leveraging that platform to build something again the ecosystem um similarly if you're not a United State citizen or a resident or have lived there for a long time you're going to have a hard time using that ecosystem vaps for instance if you move to United States you won't have credit that will restrict you from participating in huge kind of swaths of the financial system um the financial ecosystem of products in in uh the United States and then finally that market um you know again here the United States government controls the market I think there's a lot of great things that the United States government has done to facilitate a healthy Market um but there's also uh things where where I think it's you know not going the right way for instance with crypto I don't think that we're seeing effective policies that are driving really good outcomes for kind of stimulating a healthy Market um and so we can then compare kind of that uh you know Web Two market and economy that uh kind of Country economy to the base economy um an open neutral global economy and I think what we see is that there's a lot of advantages to this new economy that we're building on the platform side um it's an open standard it's evm so if you if you decide that you want to go somewhere else you can go somewhere else you can take your code you can deploy it on another chain um it's Global it's accessible to everyone if you have an internet connection you can build on base um at the ecosystem layer again uh if you have an internet connection you can use these apps uh you don't need to be a United States citizen you don't need to have an iPhone uh anyone anywhere is on a Level Playing Field participating in this economy and then finally the market is a free market um that we can gradually build decentralized governance into to kind of ensure that it's healthy that it operates well um and it it doesn't have those kind of same uh you know really really high uh kind of take rates that I think you're seeing in the more kind of corporate uh web 2 economies uh like with apple uh and so that opportunity the opportunity to build an open neutral global economy and one that we really think can increase Innovation creativity and freedom is is really what bass is all about um and as we think about how we're getting there um you know you can see our values on the left I'll dig into the stay based one in particular um but on the strategy side uh that's exactly how we think about as well we're going to build a really powerful developer platform um that makes it so anyone can build worldclass onchain products uh we're going to nurture that ecosystem of apps so everyone has a reason to be onchain uh we're going to foster a super super deep Capital Market so that base becomes the center of this kind of interconnected multi-chain onchain economy and then finally we're going to decentralize in scale to enable everyone to to come onchain uh and so those are kind of the things that the base team the base core team is working on dayto day that ladder up into our mission of building that global onchain economy that increases Innovation creativity and freedom and I think the the kind of crazy thing in in working on this and seeing this is that I I think we believe that if we're successful and we do this work we can build the largest economy that the world's ever seen um and bu bring something build something that really brings everyone in uh and and creates so much Economic Opportunity and freedom that hasn't existed thus far um but is really like right on the edge of being possible for for everyone in the world and so that's the kind of context of the economy now how do based memes fit in um you know uh there's been a lot of conversation about memes in the last few months uh there's been a ton of energy on Bas and so I want to kind of frame um how memes fit into this broader economy that we're building and I I I say the starting point for us is that we're seeing a super vibrant economy emerge on base of memes um you know you have hundreds of teams uh and hundreds of kind of subcultures that are evolving um that that have shown up that are uh building that are creating that are uh uh you know kind of bringing their culture and energy into this economy this ecosystem this this Capital Market um that that we're building on base and there's a lot of talk about um you know kind of the pros and cons of memes but one thing that I think has really stood out to us is that um we are seeing these memes today on board thousands and thousands of people into this new economy and this is the chart of just Dex users um per day you can see that uh you know it's more than Forex in the last while uh and I think every day uh from all the conversations that I'm having out in the ecosystem memes are one of the big drivers for actually bringing new people in and obviously speculation plays some role in this but I think the thing that has really made me optimistic and excited about what we're seeing in bass is that the the primary way that these memes are people are bring people in is through creativity um you know uh you have people creating new tutorials that's on top left uh with high they they built a incredible little funny tutorial show people how to set up their wallet um you people running contests um you know ski uh they ran a contest to Define what is based got a ton of good submissions you have Brands being built around hire doing incredible visuals uh shrines being created you know on the bottom left uh you know this people made a whole video where like 10 of them went up into the woods and built a shrine to the base God and and uh you know you have all these memes building together so you know this is a graphic that's someone on the weirdo team build showing all the memes working together um and in general I'd say the the the aim of these folks is to bring more people into their specific Meme and the way they're doing that is by activating their community and then uh trying and experimenting with a ton of different creative Pursuits that they believe could reach everyday people and what that's creating is kind of a Cambrian explosion of um onboarding experiments um where people are taking tons and tons of shots on goal to say how do we get our culture into the hands of more people uh and I've I've absolutely loved seeing that and I think the thing that we've built more conviction on uh is that in the years ahead we're actually going to see these memes um on board Millions more people um they're going to be one of the biggest drivers because they're doing that work kind of constantly to to onboard more and more folks and to do that in a really creative way and so the the last note that I'll leave everyone who watched in on this with is that if you're uh kind of Building on Base uh and you're building a meme uh my encouragement to you would be to keep building uh keep shipping really cool things keep being creative and then stay based and when we say stay based it really means five things it means first do the right thing um uh treat the people who are in your community well uh be ethical uh don't do things that are illegal or malicious do the right thing uh live by good healthy values the second is work hard um it's not going to be easy to bring the world on chain uh it's actually going to be really really hard we have to go from the you know low millions of people who are on chain today to billions of people and that's going to be a journey there's going to be ups and downs and so don't be afraid to kind of put your nose to the grindstone and and really push hard to get things done the third is be optimistic uh the future is bright and there's so much opportunity for what we can do if we believe in that future and we believe in each other and we believe in what we can accomplish by working together um which brings me to the fourth one which is putting the team over the individual and saying this is not just about me this is not just about my outcomes this is about all of us coming together because when we come together we can accomplish a lot more than we can accomplish by ourselves and then the final one I think this one really comes through with means is don't be afraid to push boundaries um and don't be afraid to push boundaries with creativity so that you're doing something no one else has done before um because when when we look look at what it's going to take to bring a billion people on chain it really is going to be that incredible creativity um that people all over the world come up with um where they're experimenting they're trying they're failing they're learning uh and they are um uh doing everything they possibly can to bring people on chain and so with that that's the talk happy Sunday I hope you enjoyed this uh if you watched it uh and stay based and and if you have questions um feel free to drop them on farcaster uh on Twitter reply to this video um and if you want to get building really encourage you to join SLB on foraster you can join our Discord at b.org Discord um and find some way to get started um you know one of the sayings in Bas land is uh build more talk less and and really what that's all about is it's about finding a small way to ship something cool impactful that will move your goals forward um uh and using that as an entry point to to get building a lot more so um happy Sunday I hope everyone has a great day and uh stay based thanks y'all