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FinanceCoinbase exec Jesse Pollak hands Base app control to trader Cobie, admits social strategy was wrong
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Coinbase executive Jesse Pollak has handed control of the Base consumer app to prominent trader Cobie, admitting his 2024-2025 strategy focused on onchain social was wrong. Pollak said the social ecosystem including Farcaster, Zora, and creator coins has 'disintegrated completely,' leaving Base trailing rivals in perps, prediction markets, tokenization, and payments. He apologized for content coins, echoing Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong's earlier comments. Pollak now aims to build Base into 'the blockchain for global finance' with priorities on trading, payments, and agents for 2026. Cobie, who joined Coinbase after it acquired his platform Echo, will oversee trading products at Coinbase including CB app, Pro, and Baseapp. The article also covers broader crypto market movements with BTC at $64.2k and ETH at $1,885, ETF inflows, an $18M DeFi exploit on Ostium, and other industry developments including Stripe's $53 billion bid for PayPal and regulatory changes in South Korea and Japan.
Source report
Author: Tyler Warner Reading Time: 4 minutes
Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Check out our new daily news show covering all top stories in 5 minutes, available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
GM!
Today's Top News
- Crypto majors fall after early-week rally; BTC at $64.2k, ETH steady at $1,885
- ETFs see more inflows: $108M for BTC and $54M for ETH
- Jesse Pollak hands Base App over to Cobie, says he was wrong about content coins
- Ostium exploited for $18M in DeFi's latest attack
- Trump expected to meet with Senator today to discuss Clarity Act ethics provisions
🔵 Base Hands Its App to Cobie as Jesse Pollak Admits "I Was Wrong" on Social
Jesse Pollak, the Coinbase executive who has been running the Base blockchain, handed the consumer Base app back to Coinbase and gave it to the infamous trader Cobie. Cobie joined Coinbase after it acquired his onchain fundraising platform Echo, and Pollak says he is now focused on the Base chain itself rather than the app.
In his announcement post, Pollak said his 2024–2025 strategy rested on two bets:
- That builders would drive adoption
- That growth would come from onchain social
While he stands by the first, he flatly admitted the second was wrong. The social corner he championed—Farcaster, Zora, miniapps, and creator coins—has, in his words, "disintegrated completely," leaving Base trailing rivals in perps, prediction markets, tokenization, and payments. He closed with a public apology: "Hopefully we can shut up about content coins now. I was wrong and I'm sorry." That apology echoes Brian Armstrong's comments from earlier this week, when he said Base "messed up" on content coins.
Base Creator Jesse Pollak Steps Back From App Leadership After Admitting Social Bet 'Was Wrong'
Pollak now wants to build Base into "the blockchain for global finance," arguing that the combination of crypto, stablecoins, perps, prediction markets, and tokenization can bring a billion people onchain. He set trading, payments, and agents as Base's three priorities for 2026.
As for Cobie, he will be responsible for trading products at Coinbase (CB app / Pro / Baseapp). He faces competition on multiple fronts:
- CEXs like Kraken, which are hungry for growth ahead of a potential IPO
- Memecoin apps like Pump Fun and Fomo, which have hundreds of thousands of users
- Robinhood itself, which offers competing products and made a major splash onchain this past week
- Kalshi, which is growing its prediction market into the perps space
He faces an uphill battle, to say the least. But if anyone in crypto is capable, Cobie might be the single best bet.
Story continues below.
🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets
- Crypto majors are mostly red in a midweek pullback:
- BTC: -1% at $64.2k
- ETH: +1% at $1,885
- SOL: -2% at $76
- HYPE: -3% at $65.85
- Top movers: ONDO (+16%), NIGHT (+4%), UNI (+4%)
- Oil: flat at $80
- Gold: flat at $4,035
- Stock futures are mixed: DOW +0.2%, Nasdaq -0.7%
- Stripe bid $53 billion to acquire PayPal alongside Advent—a deal that would merge Stripe's Bridge and Tempo stablecoin rails with PayPal's PYUSD
- Strategy's CEO said the company feels "very secure" until Bitcoin hits $8,000–$10,000
- Trump is expected to attend a White House meeting later today to hash out the CLARITY Act's contested ethics section
- Cantor Fitzgerald and Securitize are collaborating on blockchain-based IPOs, pushing tokenization from secondary trading into primary issuance
- South Korea will modify a 76-year-old law to classify crypto as national assets—a foundational step toward integrating it into the financial system
- Japan reclassified crypto as a financial asset, paving the way for a flat 20% capital-gains rate
- Chamath published a 73-page report on crypto privacy, evaluating the models of Monero and ZCash among others
Corporate Treasuries & ETFs
- The Bitcoin ETFs continue to see inflows, with $108M for BTC and $54M for ETH.
Source
Yahoo FinanceWestern
Part of this Story
Base Hands Its App Over to Cobie as Jesse Pollak Admits Social Bet Was Wrong