Base’s social bet left it trailing in prediction markets and perps: Pollak
Jesse Pollak said he is stepping back from leading the Base App after admitting Base made a “wrong bet” on social products. He said creator, content, and messaging apps failed to drive adoption, and Base fell behind in key trading categories such as prediction markets and perpetual futures. Leadership of the Base App will return to Coinbase under Jordan Fish (“Cobie”), while Pollak focuses on the Base blockchain. The shift marks a reversal from Base’s earlier strategy centered on social apps like Farcaster, Zora, and miniapps. Base now sees financial applications as the priority, especially trading, payments, stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, and AI agents. This follows Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s comment that content coins “didn’t work.” Base has already ended its Creator Rewards program and Farcaster-powered social feed, and has been building infrastructure such as B20, Base MCP, and AI-agent tooling.
