Robinhood building its own Ethereum Layer 2 expansion reminds me of the various exchanges building their own blockchains over the years.
Some of the more well-known ones include Binance's BSC, Coinbase's BASE, Uniswap's Unichain, OK's X1, Kraken's Ink, HashKey's HashKey Chain...
These chains are all EVM chains, except for BSC, which is an independent Layer 1 blockchain, while the others are Layer 2 expansions based on Ethereum.
If we also consider other Layer 2 expansions that have no exchange background, there are even more, with notable ones being Optimism and Arbitrum.
Although there are many chains, the vast majority of them have not formed an impressive ecosystem so far.
Among all these Layer 2 expansion chains, according to data from l2beat (https://l2beat.com/scaling/activity), Arbitrum ranks first in terms of secured value, while BASE ranks second; however, in terms of activity, BASE is the most popular, followed by Arbitrum in second place.
In these two metrics, both of them are far ahead of other Layer 2 expansions; in terms of activity, BASE is almost leading all other Layer 2 expansions by a large margin.
So what application has led to BASE's higher activity despite its lower capital accumulation compared to Arbitrum?
I couldn't find relevant data online, but in my observation, the AI + Crypto ecosystem within BASE is likely to account for a significant proportion.
I often wonder why such a potentially innovative ecosystem like AI + Crypto is happening on BASE, a chain that neither launched a token nor was early.
What is special about BASE? Or what shortcomings do other chains have?
When Optimism and Arbitrum were competing fiercely, I was less optimistic about Optimism and more optimistic about Arbitrum.
The reason is that I think the traces of artificial sculpting in Optimism are too heavy. This team prefers to take the upper route and particularly values cooperation with well-known projects; in the past, to bring Uniswap into its ecosystem, they even offered some extra favorable conditions. This kind of development approach is unlikely to attract 'wild,' native projects, whereas often disruptive applications grow out of these 'wild,' native projects.
So it's easy for me to understand why AI + Crypto has not appeared on OP.
In contrast, Arbitrum takes an open and cooperative attitude towards all projects and does not particularly favor well-known projects, which is why I am more optimistic about it. However, over the years, it seems that only the DeFi ecosystem is thriving on Arbitrum, with no other newer applications and models.
Some say that the prosperity and activity of the BASE ecosystem are mainly because Coinbase is directing its ecosystem to BASE and has compliance advantages.
I also have doubts about this statement.
If we talk about directing traffic, Binance's BSC is undoubtedly much stronger than Coinbase. Binance not only directs traffic but also uses its strong financial and channel advantages to support various projects it favors, and Binance has indeed supported some AI projects.
However, so far it seems that there has not been a large-scale AI + Crypto ecosystem formed on it.
Take Creator.bid as an example. It was born on BSC, but later the development and growth of the ecosystem moved to BASE.
However, I see compliance as less of an advantage. Because many applications, when they first appear, may carry disruptive elements, which are more likely to be non-compliant. Therefore, finding a more suitable development ecosystem for a potentially non-compliant project, I think the best platform in the world is the Ethereum mainnet, or second-best is Binance's BSC, rather than BASE.
Another interesting point is that Virtual, the largest AI + Crypto platform on BASE, seems to be consistently avoided by Coinbase. A notable point is that Virtual has not yet launched on Coinbase's trading platform. Many users are quite puzzled by this move from Coinbase, and some even directly confronted the co-founder on Twitter.
So it seems that other chains are more likely than BASE to develop the AI + Crypto ecosystem.
If we compare BASE and Arbitrum, I feel that BASE is more laid-back and has a more geeky atmosphere.
If we compare BASE and BSC, I feel that BASE is less commercialized, not as strong.
Perhaps this hands-off approach instead provides the most comfortable and pleasant external environment for ecosystem development.
