Coinbase's Jesse Pollak Details Base Growth, AI Integration, and Perps Expansion
Base creator Jesse Pollak outlined the Layer 2 network's growth trajectory, highlighting its dominance in AI agent transactions, upcoming focus on perpetual futures, and long-term decentralization plans.
Coinbase's Layer 2 network Base continues to build momentum across decentralized finance, spot trading, and emerging AI applications. In a recent interview, Base creator Jesse Pollak noted that the network's total value locked (TVL) has increased by 35% this year, while spot trading for major assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum leads global on-chain volume. Pollak highlighted that Base now processes roughly 90% of agentic HTTP transactions under the X402 standard, enabling autonomous AI agents to buy data, compute inference, and pay for services on-chain.
Looking ahead to the second half of the year, Pollak stated that scaling perpetual futures venues is a top priority to complement Base's existing spot and lending markets. He described the vision for Base as a programmable internet exchange supporting traditional real-world assets alongside creator tokens and attention-based markets. Highlighting successful ecosystem applications like Aerodrome and Venice—the latter operating at a reported $90 million annualized run rate through tokenized inference—Pollak emphasized that Base remains focused on supporting long-term builders over short-term speculative activity.
Regarding policy and infrastructure, Pollak expressed optimism about bipartisan progress on U.S. regulatory frameworks like the Clarity Act, noting that clear rules are vital to keeping engineering talent and capital focused on product development. Addressing long-standing questions around network governance, Pollak reiterated that Base is actively exploring a native token following its shift in approach last year, though no immediate updates are available as the team stays focused on global decentralization.