Market Cap Plunges 95% in 5 Minutes, Surges Past Previous High, Base Unveils $20M "User Acquisition Plan"

The Base official Twitter account posted a tweet at 3:13 AM today, with the content "Base is for everyone," along with an attached image where the word "everyone" is highlighted in blue. This emphasized the inclusivity and openness of the Base platform, subsequently causing a significant price fluctuation in the token.

Why the Major Drop?

According to community discussions and trading data, the BASE token's market cap reached a peak at 4:17, surpassing $17 million. However, just 75 minutes after the creation of the "Base is for everyone" token, at 4:31 AM, Base posted on the Zora platform promoting an event scheduled for next month in New York — which led to the creation of a new token called "Base @ FarCon 2025." Based on DEX Screener data, the new token reached a peak of nearly $1 million within the first minute of trading, then rapidly dropped by about 77%, eventually stabilizing around $230k. Following the release of "Base @ FarCon 2025," the market value of the "Base is for everyone" token plummeted sharply to $623k, a decline of over 95%, resulting in a steep red candle on the chart.

Despite clarifications from the Base team that they will never sell these tokens and that they are not the official network token of Base, Coinbase, or any other related product, stating, "The content we share is creative, and we will continue to bring culture to the chain," they could not escape the flood of user accusations.

Many users accused the Base team of a "rug pull," suspecting that the team dumped the tokens after the price surge, leading to a price collapse. Some directly questioned: "Wtf did yall just rug me?" Some lamented that they had planned to use BASE token profits to buy a Birkin bag but now can't even afford an H&M bag. Others mocked the founder's statement to appease the community's emotions, saying "Just coin it," with the sarcastic twist of "Just rug it"... Clearly, the community's emotions are highly charged following this unexpected and drastic drop.

KOL LaserCat publicly criticized the Zora platform, saying "Everything on the Zora platform can be tokenized," "The decision-making layer clearly lacks on-chain foundational knowledge," and "Trying to patch things up after the fact in the age of the blockchain," and suggested that crypto institutions "have at least 10% of the team made up of real on-chain residents, conduct basic scenario sandbox testing before major decisions, and stop operating on-chain communities with a Web2 mindset."

During the community's venting of dissatisfaction with the project team, an on-chain analyst identified the address responsible for this recent major sell-off. According to @dethective's analysis, this sell-off was triggered by an address that purchased tokens worth approximately 1.5 ETH a minute before the Base account posted an official tweet, followed by continuous selling. The address has already transferred some profits to the address with the domain name bandemic.base.eth, which is: 0x099246ca997acf47ada682c9c60f9ed0954ad960.

Is it a Last Gasp or a Hidden Gem?

Interestingly, "Base is for everyone" did not collapse after the major sell-off but has been slowly rising, reaching a market value of $22.83 million at noon on the 17th.

According to community discussions, users, after experiencing the early morning price crash and the team's confusing behavior, began to refocus on the original "Base is for everyone" token. User @0XaYUSh__ described the events: "Base is for everyone" reached a $16 million market value within an hour of launching -> the team deployed another contract causing a 94% drop -> the community regrouped and decided to support the original token -> another 20x increase. This description also highlights the community's collective action during the midday period to support the original token, causing the token to surpass its previous all-time high.

With the price rebound, community sentiment has also shifted from anger in the early morning to optimism now. For example, a user took a screenshot of the price trend and captioned it in a light-hearted tone, saying, "Why is everyone still mad when checking the price," implying that the price has recovered. Its comment section is also filled with optimistic expectations, with many people saying, "HODL on," "Time to buy more now," showing no trace of the anger from eight hours ago.

But is this rebound a fleeting moment, or does it truly signify that "Base is for everyone" is a potential gem that is forming a community consensus? According to the Zora platform, the "Base is for everyone" token is not the official token of Base or Coinbase but is content automatically tokenized by Zora, intended to serve as an art and cultural collectible rather than an investment tool. Base explicitly states that these tokens do not expect to bring profit or returns, Base will not sell its 10 million tokens held, and all fees will be used to support developers on Base. Base also declares on X: "These are not the official network tokens of Base, Coinbase, or any related product. The content we share is creative, and we will continue to bring culture to the chain." These signs indicate that the value of the "Base is for everyone" token does not rely on Base's project infrastructure or long-term development plan but is driven by community interest and speculative sentiment.

Lacking substantial use cases and official support, and being easily influenced by market sentiment, once the community hype subsides, the price of "Base is for everyone" is likely to drop again. The roller-coaster-like sharp drop of the Base token followed by a gradual recovery to a new high is more like another sign of the gradual warming of market sentiment, with more hot money flowing in, confidence rising, and the price managing a comeback after almost hitting zero. Rather than cursing or regretting, it is better to stay prepared for the next potential opportunity.