Jesse Pollak Drives Growth of Coinbase's Base Layer-2 Network
Jesse Pollak has been credited with the significant growth of Base, Coinbase's layer-2 network. Having joined Coinbase in 2017 and launching Base in 2023, Pollak has overseen Base's rapid development and expansion. Base, incubated by Coinbase, is designed to reduce on-chain costs and support new decentralized applications (DApps).
By January 2025, Base reached $15 billion in total value locked (TVL), ranking among the largest layer-2 networks, with Arbitrum being the only L2 larger. The network's growth has been driven by its low transaction costs, which are well under a cent, and the expanding decentralized finance (DeFi), social applications, and memecoin ecosystems on Base.
Among notable projects on Base, Aerodrome Finance, a decentralized exchange, surpassed $1 billion in TVL in January 2025. Additionally, Zora launched its token in April 2025, highlighting Base's emerging on-chain creator-economy trend.
Despite the growth, Pollak faced backlash following the November launch of the JESSE memecoin due to concerns about bot-driven supply and liquidity siphoning away from other Base projects. Looking ahead, Pollak has signaled potential plans for a native token on Base, generating anticipation among Base users.
