AL #90: Building a Rollup One Tweet at a Time: Based Culture
An analytical look at Base's intangible social media strategy.
This summer Base exploded from 325,000 to 1.2 million daily active users in just three months. Most users and capital actually stuck around even as the Onchain Summer campaign ended.
The prevailing hypothesis is that Base is winning by becoming a marketing arm of all their projects.
Naturally, we decided to review hundreds of tweets and extract their exact playbook to find out.
We've analyzed all of Base's Twitter posts and grants paid out during the Onchain Summer campaign to reveal what they emphasized in communications and funding.
Here are a few things that Base does differently.
1. Onchain activity above all
The majority of Base's communication tells people what they can do on Base.
The goal is to bring users to the apps and NFTs that are created on Base. This further highlights the commitment to bringing value to builders, but more importantly, fosters a culture of active users instead of passive liquidity provision and yield farming.
In a previous essay we covered how Base launched successfully and quickly gained initial traction.
This trajectory has been speeding up since. When we look at the raw data, Base's growth seems nothing short of phenomenal:
June 1st: ~325,000 daily active users (30-day average)
August 31st: ~764,000 daily active users (30-day average)
December 22nd: Peak at 2,750,000 daily active users (1,200,000 on 30-day average)
At the time of writing: 1,258,000 daily active users (30-day average)
The chart shows rapid growth that kicked off when Onchain Summer started. Since October, active users have slightly regressed but generally stabilized at a high level. This indicates that the growth during summer and autumn wasn't just a quick spike caused by Onchain Summer or the meme coin craze, but rather represents sustainable user adoption.
But how did Base manage to achieve sustainable growth, while many other campaigns only led to temporary spikes followed by drops back to previous TVL and DAU levels? What are they doing differently?
2. The Onchain Summer Campaign prioritized mints over DeFi
Base's campaigns, such as Onchain Summer, focus on building culture and stimulating onchain activity over using financial incentives to attract liquidity and traders.
Instead of farming an airdrop or chasing high APRs with token rewards, people were motivated to create a variety of NFTs and mint them to earn points. These points weren't rewarded with an airdrop but instead could be used to redeem swag and special NFT profile pictures.
TVL increase began after daily active users (DAU) had already peaked in and stabilized at a high level in September. This suggests that TVL grew organically in response to increased onchain activity. The pattern makes sense: more activity leads to increased trading and borrowing, which generates higher yields, ultimately making liquidity provision more attractive.
While most chains prioritize attracting liquidity first, Base reversed this approach by focusing on stimulating onchain activity instead. Based on the results, this counter-intuitive strategy has proven effective.
3. Base spotlight the community instead of themselves
Only 23.1% of all tweets announce Base’s own initiatives. All other tweets put their builders into the spotlight. For many other blockchains this type of tweet is the majority.
Here’s an example:
4. Base back their partners
17.9% of all tweets are direct partner announcements.
But even when announcing their own initiatives and events Base likes to put a partner into the spotlight.
Like this tweet in support of Circle's EURC launch.
5. Base supports non-devs
35% of all tweets are targeted at non-developer builders, mainly by highlighting specific Onchain Summer NFTs and motivating the community to mint them.
Not only do non-developer builders receive marketing support, they get financial incentives too.
Here is a breakdown of grants awarded based on the recipient:
Onchain Summer Buildathon grants don't highlight Base’s focus on culture, as most grants were awarded to developers. However, the fact that 11 grants in total were awarded to non-developer builders is already more than what we can usually see from grant programs, which tend to be only awarded to app developers.
6. Base is not stopping
Base's activity on X wasn't limited to a specific campaign during Onchain Summer, but represents a sustained social media strategy.
Analysis of recent X activity (1.12.24 - 15.12.24) reveals the following statistics.
Compared to Onchain Summer, we observe a greater focus on app and partner spotlights rather than NFT spotlights. But the overall picture remains consistent: Base maintains a laser focus on daily content that highlights builders on their chain while showing the community how to engage and participate in onchain activity.
Their 'Onchain Daily' tweet series exemplifies this approach. Each day features a highlighted app or NFT that the community can interact with.
Beyond these dedicated highlight tweets, Base's active community engagement is evident in their consistent reposting practice. They average three reposts daily, primarily sharing updates and launches from app developers in their ecosystem. This ensures the community stays informed about the latest developments on Base.
A Qualified Success
Base's Onchain Summer campaign hasn't just inflated numbers – it has created a vibrant ecosystem.
Base strategically focused on developing culture with the design of its Onchain Summer campaign and the communication that accompanied it.
This focus on community and culture has continued well beyond the campaign itself, with Base maintaining its successful community-driven marketing strategy and active communication approach.
As a result, Base has positioned itself as the go-to platform for Ethereum's creative and community-driven side, much like Solana did in the Layer-1 space.
In the end, Base's Onchain Summer serves as a prime example of effective user acquisition in crypto. By prioritizing culture over pure financial incentives and sustaining this approach beyond the initial campaign, Base has carved out a unique position in the Ethereum and Superchain ecosystems – one that may well stand the test of time.
 | A guest post by
|