stable coins

Story: Base Processes 187.8 Million Payments as Rivalry with Robinhood Chain Intensifies

By Pankaj K

1 / 15

Jesse Pollak Admits Missteps, Base Bets on x402. Jesse Pollak, co-founder of Base, did not hold back.

2 / 15

Visa, Azul Upgrade, and Institutional Advantage. Base is also integrated into Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot.

3 / 15

Base has processed 187.8 million agentic payments. This figure is presented in response to Robinhood Chain, which surpassed it in daily active users on July 21.

4 / 15

Coinbase's Layer 2 network is under real pressure since Robinhood Chain crossed the 230,000 daily active user mark — and that, just four weeks after its launch. Four weeks.

5 / 15

But here's the thing: more than 80% of Robinhood Chain's volumes come from memecoin trading.

6 / 15

Jesse Pollak, co-founder of Base, did not hold back. He clearly stated that the focus on onchain social products did not succeed as hoped.

7 / 15

So Base is pivoting, or at least highlighting what it already has. Its x402 payment protocol reduces transaction fees to almost nothing.

8 / 15

And Base isn't stopping there with payments. It holds about $3.9 billion in stablecoins, mostly in USDC, placing it on par with Arbitrum in this regard.

9 / 15

Related topic: Coinbase posts a $359M loss and misses the $1.29B revenue mark in Q2

10 / 15

Base is also integrated into Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot. Such collaboration isn't signed in four weeks — it takes months of due diligence, testing, and negotiations.

11 / 15

The "Azul" upgrade, completed in May, reduced the withdrawal finality time to about one day.

12 / 15

The question that remains unclear is whether Base can win back daily active users from Robinhood Chain.

13 / 15

It's not yet clear if one of these models will outpace the other in the short term. The adoption of stablecoins and onchain payments is growing rapidly in general — there's…

14 / 15

Related reading: Circle obtains a trust charter from NYDFS as USDC integrates into regulated finance

15 / 15

Base has three years of experience, $3.9 billion in stablecoins, Shopify, JPMorgan, Visa, and 5,000 merchants on x402. Robinhood Chain has 230,000 daily active users and $877.

The Currency Analytics

Want the full story?