3 Projects That Are Definitely Not a Scam on Base

Introduction

In a bid to create a safer ecosystem for crypto participants to transact, Coinbase released its Ethereum layer 2 Base network built on the Optimism stack in August. Millions of dollars worth of Ethereum and stablecoins have been bridged over to Base. Traders are looking to take advantage of the many opportunities that come with being as early to the network.

However with an ecosystem this novel and a level of fomo not often seen in the industry of late, with great opportunity comes great risk at the hands of scammers. For example, when the Base mainnet went live there was barely any liquidity on the chain and an official bridge did not yet exist. Despite these conditions, a memecoin called BALD (a reference to Coinbase’s CEO Brian Armstrong) arose, reaching a multimillion dollar market cap.

Brian Armstrong, the bald CEO of Coinbase. Source: WSJ

When BALD token holders were the most euphoric, however, the team removed a large portion of the token’s liquidity amounting to what was effectively a rug pull. Since the BALD event there have been a number of other scams and rug pulls on the Base network.

But there are some highly promising protocols on Base that are not a scam. Here are three that have the potential to take the new blockchain to the moon.

Aerodrome (AERO)

Aerodrome is a DEX built natively on Base which has quickly risen in its short lifespan to be the largest protocol on the network. According to data from DefiLlama, Aerodrome has $142M of the total $370M TVL on Base as of September 11, 2023. In its first day of launch alone, Aerodrome brought over $150M of liquidity to the Base ecosystem which almost doubled the TVL of the network.

Aerodrome is developed by the Velodrome team which occupies the top DEX spot on Optimism, and is an almost exact recreation of it Optimism DEX. The governance model in combination with a hefty set of liquidity incentives proved to be successful for Velodrome on Optimism and has thus far been extremely successful for Aerodrome on Base. With a clean track record, a known team and an established model Aerodrome is a great protocol for traders, yield farmers and investors.

Aerodrome Liquidity Pools. Source: Aerodrome

To take advantage of the aforementioned liquidity incentives, simply navigate to the Liquidity tab on the Aerodrome website. In return for liquidity provision, investors are rewarded with a pro-rata share of trading fees within that token pair. In addition, liquidity providers get a share of any “bribes” placed on the pair typically by the dev team behind the token. It’s important to understand the risks of liquidity provision (including but not limited to impermanent loss) before aping in, however savvy crypto users will have tons of opportunity to make money on the platform.

It should also be noted that as the platform was recently released, the emissions rate of Aero’s protocol token is very high which has resulted in an asymmetrically high level of sell pressure. It is important to consider factors such as this before buying in.

Beefy (BIFI)

Beefy is a multichain yield aggregator deployed on 22 different blockchains at time of writing. Beefy was founded in 2020 by a small team of four developers with its first yield farming vaults launching in October, 2020 on BNB chain, the first yield optimizer on the network. The protocol quickly gained support, growing to $800M TVL in its first year of operation alone. Since then, the team has gone on to integrate hundreds of different protocols to maximize yield for its vast user base, and increase liquidity for projects they partner with.

At its core, Beefy works by automatically compounding any rewards generated by yield bearing tokens back into the principal token. Compounding yields will generate higher returns over time relative to simple staking where only the original amount is generating yield. In exchange for their service Beefy takes a performance fee which is deducted from the generated yield only, not your principal amount.

Source: Beefy

Beefy has a history of partnering with early stage projects on new chains after a thorough due diligence has been performed, and Base network is no different. To utilize one of the Base vaults, navigate to the Vaults tab on the Beefy dApp and filter by Base network. From there you can sort the options by a variety of factors including relative safety and expected daily yield. For our example, we’ll take a look at the top vault on Base by APY: the ALB-USDbC liquidity pair, which is a combination of AlienBase’s (ALB) DEX token as well as the Base version of USDC.

Source: Beefy

By depositing your LP tokens onto Beefy rather than just holding them in a wallet, you turn a liquidity pair earning a 462.5% APR into a pair earning 10,037% APY, which is a measurement of compounded interest rather than linear interest. It is important to understand this yield percentage is in terms of the quantity of ALB-USDbC LP tokens rather than being dollar denominated. These rates are also dynamic and subject to change based on trading volume and protocol subsidies, so understanding the risks involved is paramount prior to utilizing the platform. Happy farming!

Friend.Tech

A project that has been making waves across the entire crypto community is Friend.Tech, the “marketplace for your friends”. The blockchain-based social media platform was founded by crypto twitter legend 0xRacer and leverages low fees and fast transactions on Base to make a low-friction experience for its users. In a nutshell, Friend.Tech allows users to buy and sell tokenized shares of other users, called keys. Owning someone’s key puts someone into a group chat with all the other key owners which has attracted special attention from large influencers who can effectively utilize their following to make money and connect with their followers in a more exclusive, personal manner.

The Friend.Tech shares timeline. Source: Medium

While Friend.Tech had a slow start in terms of users, a few days after launch it was disclosed that crypto VC giant Paradigm had invested in the protocol. Instantly platform volume and TVL surged as traders speculated on an airdrop considering Paradigm backed projects have a history of very significant airdrop quantities (for example Blur). While the token will not be out for months, users of the platform are now able to gain points which will eventually count towards a share of the airdrop. Because of this mechanics (similar to the Blur model), liquidity should remain sticky barring unforeseen circumstances.

For people looking for an experience a little different than most things you can find on the blockchain, Friend.Tech is a cool place to start. Requiring an initial funding amount of only 0.01 ETH it’s easy to spin up an account and get chatting. Plus, it might just be worth it when the airdrop arrives.

Conclusion

Given the massive influx of liquidity and the fact it is still in its infancy, the Base chain is a land of both opportunity and risk. Anyone looking to check it out should be aware of the many scams, and always research before putting money into any crypto protocol.

Veteran traders may find it reminiscent of the early days of BSC, Binance’s network, and if it does indeed follow the same path then the Base ecosystem is in for quite a ride.