BaseCamp 2025 — The Base Network State

All right. Hi, I'm I'm Zen. I lead global growth at BAS and I'm here to talk about the builder network and how I think it could become the base network state. But first, why are we here? Well, we're here to build base.

And we're building base because we want to build a better financial system because we're not satisfied with the current one. It's unfair. It's inefficient and it works for some people but not everyone. And so we're building something better and we're building an open stack for the global economy. And it consists of the base chain, a the leading Ethereum layer 2 uh enabling fast, cheap and secure transactions at scale.

the base app which is an onchain everything app which brings together a social network with app discovery and chat payments and trading all in one place and base build which is a suite of tooling for developers enabling them to go from idea to app to business. And my personal mission at base is to grow and cultivate the builder network. And the builder network is a community of people who are supporting and building these onchain apps and startups. And the network is decentralized. Anyone from anywhere can contribute, but it's also organized with a leadership structure so we can scale and get stuff done.

And as you can see, we have leaders and active communities all around the room and all around this map. In fact, if you're on this map, can you stand up? Here we go. In the room right here, we have many country leads and community leaders from around the world. Thank you.

[Applause] And the builder network consists of many different types of builders. There are founders, creators, and traders. And each builder is both contributing value to the network and receiving value from the network. Founders build apps which provide utility to users and importantly create fee revenue for the network and founders build on base because they get users and by serving these users they can build a profitable business. So founders build apps and earn profits.

Creators contribute to base by providing distribution to both apps and startups and tokens. And in return, creators earn fees, earn income, and they earn more than they can on web two platforms. And they get to keep their audience and own their content fully. So creators provide distribution and earn income. And then traders, traders contribute to the network by providing capital which obviously funds creators and founders.

And in return, traders get upside and sustained upside comes from long-term quality in the founders and the creators on base. And so importantly, each member of this network needs the other one. And together they form a powerful growth engine which propels forward this onchain economy we're building. The base economy now has 12 billion in assets on the platform, 4 billion in stable coins, 3 billion in transactions uh since the start of base and thousands of apps on the platform. So it's clear that we now have the ability to supercharge networks.

So the question is where does this take us? It's my conviction that onchain networks like Base are in the early stages of becoming network states. What's a network state? Well, the definition of a network state, a network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, a archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories around the world, a virtual capital and an onchain census that proves a large enough population income and real estate footprint to achieve a measure of diplomatic recognition. So that is a a long sentence um by Mr.

Bali and um side note I helped design the front cover of the book u and contributed a little bit to the book and the logistics um I I play a very small part in the network state and I think it'd be interesting to look at this with respect to base. So let's look at each of these items the definition of a network state and apply it to base and see what we get. A social network in fact hands up if you think this applies to base. A social network. Hands up.

Right. Exactly. If you open the base app, you can see it's a social network. We are a social network right here. So clearly we fit that definition.

A moral innovation. Do we have a distinct and defined set of core values for base? Hands up. Indeed, we do. We have many distinct core values.

These include open beats closed. Uh global is the default and ownership unlocks creativity. Next up, a sense of national consciousness. Do we have a sense of national consciousness? Do we feel together and part of something bigger than ourselves?

Yes, we do. Of course, we do. We feel part of this group because we are. We are a real community. We're in this room right now and we're at base camp together.

We absolutely have a sense of national consciousness. A recognized founder. Do we have a recognized founder? I believe we do. And his name is Jesse Pollock.

supported by great leaders around the community. Do we have a capacity for collective action? Can we do stuff? Hands up. Indeed, we can.

We can absolutely build stuff. In fact, that's the main thing we do. We absolutely have the capacity for collective action. Do we have a in-person level of civility? What do you think?

Hands up if we have an inperson level of civility. Who thinks we don't? Exactly. Okay. So yeah, we're very civil, very respectful.

I think BA is in fact one of the the most civil networks I think in crypto. U full of really good people here for the right reasons. An integrated cryptocurrency. Well, of course, uh we're working on that. Um and uh yeah, lots to explore with the the network token.

So we'll give that one a a tick. A consensual government limited by social smart contract. We're not quite there yet. Uh we do have smart contracts. We've got lots of work to do.

Uh but we're moving in the right direction, especially with uh with stage one decentralization, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories. Well, they're not quite crowdfunded yet, but as you saw with the map earlier, we have boots on the ground and real physical communities in countries all around the world, like for probably over 25 now, maybe even 30. So, we're nearly there. a virtual capital. Well, we have the base app.

We're building our virtual capital. The virtual capital is going to be our town hall and the the network gathering place uh where we come together um in uh in virtual land but also physically. So, yes, I believe we're building a virtual capital. And finally, an onchain census that proves a large enough population income and real estate footprint to obtain a measure of diplomatic recognition. What do you think?

Are we are we a decentralized country yet? Hands up. Fair enough. Okay. A bit a bit of work to do.

We're nearly there. Um we do have millions of users on the base app. So a very high population u and and many in our community. We have a huge income. Uh apps have earned over a billion dollars on base uh since the start.

Over a billion dollars in fee revenue. not it not including base chains revenue and I think that can fund a pretty significant real estate footprint when the time comes. So there you have it. Base is on its way to becoming a a network state. And I think that's radical.

I think it's pretty cool. Uh but I think it's cool because it's practical as well. You can see how it's possible. And yeah, we're not there yet, but a few years ago, governments thought crypto was a joke and now they're adding it to their national reserves. And and why is this important?

Well, to me, it's important because we can see the system is broken and and that's why I'm here. And it's probably why many of you are in this room as well. You can see there's a problem. And when you see this, there's many directions you can take. You can ignore it and and do nothing, which many people do.

You can gamble it away uh bet everything in some memecoin and um you might want to protest and take to the streets and some people will do that and some people will try and tear it all down as well. But the future belongs to the builders. It's the people who took the long and hard path to build something better. And that's why we're here. And that's why all of us are here in this room and that's what we're building at Bass.

So in conclusion, I think Bass is on the way to becoming a network state. And I believe Bass is more than crypto. Um and I believe that together we can start to believe in a better future because we have the tools to go and build it. uh we're now going to hand it over to uh Samya uh who leads base in India to see how this build a network and this future network state looks like in practice on the ground. So thank you.

My name is Swami Sakenna and uh I spend most of my days just obsessing over how to bring India on chain and that is a huge component of this larger builder network that we're building to build it regionally locally across geographies and my focus has been India. I've spent the past year doing this and lots of learnings which I'm going to talk about the current state of the network in India. Yeah. So some context on India before we talk about like where we are. India is one of the largest demographies and you've got a billion plus people here.

You've got a fifth of the world's developers right here in India. So if we want to think about like basis dream of bringing the world on chain the way I see it we could do it right here in India. And I think the way we've been going forward, we've made some strides. I'm actually going to show you how we have done it through one of our programs.

Deep in the coastal Indian forest, 30 fellows have gathered to achieve an impossible task.

You're going to go from an idea to shipping it to launching it and to getting users in the next 10 days.

Is that possible?

Easy peasy. [Music] Our [Music] approach is simple. Bring like really smart people in the room and then get the out of the room. [Music] There are 10. We'll have 10 apps.

All of them are going to be trending. [Music] Post launching we already have 50 users who have already minted the

more than ever.

So that's a pulse on what it truly looks like in India in just a year. So the way we've built it is that we've got a bunch of builders in India. We have close to now 2,000 plus builders. We've got lots of creators and those creators are building distribution. They're creating content in these programs which is letting these builders finding users.

Now you have a builder that has built out an app that has traction. So it's much much easier for this user to get capital. And finally, we've got like we're building a lot of content out that is leading to like long-term distribution for the products that we're building at the fellowship. On the fellowship, we saw 10 plus apps got shipped. One of the Okay, like how many Indians here?

All right, you know FBI and you've seen like the work that we've been doing with base in India and lot of it is just creating programs and structures which are very curated for builders to come together and find capital and users. Now meet Shitage. Shitage is here. All right, that's Shitage. So Shitage joined the fellowship and built out play shade.

Now this he built out during the fellowship. In 72 hours he had like a thousand plus users. He made $15,000 in trading fees up till now. And the support he got from like global teams like B3 and Clanker is mad. So much reach and attention on social media.

Real money. And this is not money that we are giving it to them. It's coming from trading fees. So I think we've like led to new models of building. Finally I want to talk about like Legos that are building out this creator network and the network state in India.

So we've got onchain ballers which is a 10 million plus impression community in India. FBI talent that allows people to like get access across roles in the base ecosystem. You've got onchain rookies, a community of traders and investors and a dar room which is like a beta testing group and we are doing 10 plus live streams on base cafe. So lots of like legos that we've built to help builders get distribution and yeah lots of Indian founders here. I want like all the Indian founders here to stand up.

All right. And he that's the noise team. That's scribbled, flash tools, blitz, bitmort, spread. So in terms of how we have done, we now have 180 plus projects on base all from India. 2,000 devs, traders, all this large community and we just getting started.

I want to take a moment to like read this. The world's largest democracy is taking its first steps on chain and those steps will open the doors for billions more to join the new internet value that's happening here. Thank you.