Robinhood building its own Ethereum layer 2 expansion reminds me of the various exchanges building blockchains over the years.
Notable ones here 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; apart from BSC, which is an independent layer 1 blockchain, the others are based on Ethereum's layer 2 scaling.
If we also consider other layer 2 expansions without any exchange background, there are even more, with notable ones being Optimism and Arbitrum.
Despite the many chains, the vast majority of them have not formed an impressive ecosystem so far.
Among all these layer 2 chains, according to l2beat (https://l2beat.com/scaling/activity), in terms of secured value, Arbitrum ranks first, and BASE ranks second; but in terms of activity, BASE has the highest popularity, followed by Arbitrum.
In these two metrics, both are significantly ahead of other layer 2 expansions; in terms of activity, BASE is almost far ahead of all other layer 2 expansions.
So what application led to BASE being more active than Arbitrum despite having less capital accumulation?
I can't find relevant data online, but in my observation, the AI + Crypto ecosystem in BASE is likely to account for a significant proportion.
I often think about this situation: Why is the innovative ecosystem of AI + Crypto, which has the most potential and hope in this round of market, happening on BASE, a chain that neither launched tokens nor was early?
What is special about BASE? Or what shortcomings do other chains have?
When Optimism and Arbitrum were fiercely competing, I was not optimistic about Optimism and favored Arbitrum more.
The reason is that I think the traces of artificial carving in Optimism are too heavy. This team likes to take the upper route and particularly values cooperation with well-known projects; back then, they even offered some extra favorable conditions to bring Uniswap into their ecosystem. This development approach is hard to attract 'wild' and native projects, whereas often disruptive applications emerge from these 'wild' and native projects.
So it's easy for me to understand why AI + Crypto didn't appear on OP.
In contrast, Arbitrum maintains 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 prosperity on Arbitrum has only been seen in the DeFi ecosystem, with no other newer applications and models.
Some say the prosperity and activity of the BASE ecosystem is mainly because Coinbase has directed its own ecosystem to BASE, and it has compliance advantages.
I also have doubts about this statement.
If we compare the flow of users, Binance's BSC is probably much stronger than Coinbase. Binance not only drives traffic; it is also using its strong financial and channel advantages to support various projects it believes in, and Binance has indeed supported some AI projects.
However, up to now, it seems that there has not been a large-scale AI + Crypto ecosystem formed on it.
Take Creator.bid for example. It was originally born on BSC, but later the development and expansion of the ecosystem moved to BASE.
In my view, compliance does not seem to be an advantage. Because many applications may carry disruptive elements when they first appear, and these disruptive elements are more likely to be non-compliant. Therefore, I think the best platform in the world for a potentially non-compliant project to find a more suitable development ecosystem is Ethereum mainnet, or secondarily Binance's BSC, rather than BASE.
Another interesting point is that Virtual, the largest AI + Crypto platform on BASE, seems to always be avoided by Coinbase. A noticeable point is that Virtual has yet to be launched on Coinbase's trading platform. Many users are quite puzzled by Coinbase's move, even directly expressing their anger on the co-founder’s Twitter.
So how can I see that other chains are more likely than BASE to develop the AI + Crypto ecosystem?
If we want to compare the differences between BASE and Arbitrum, I feel that BASE is more laid-back and has more of a geek atmosphere.
If we want to compare the differences between BASE and BSC, I feel that BASE's commercialization flavor is not as strong.
Perhaps this hands-off approach actually provides the most comfortable and pleasant external environment for ecosystem development.
