Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says Base App’s SocialFi features ‘didn’t quite work’

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated in a recent podcast that the SocialFi features tested within the Base App last year "didn’t quite work," leading the app to pivot back towards being a self-custodial, trading-focused version of the Coinbase app. The Base App, relaunched in July 2025, had initially aimed to be an "everything app" combining onchain social media, messaging, and gaming with trading, heavily promoting features like Creator Coins where users could buy tokens associated with posts or creators. Armstrong acknowledged that while some posts briefly held value, the tokenomics were not figured out, and the experiment was polarizing. Subsequently, Coinbase scaled back these elements, with the head of Base, Jesse Pollak, noting the app was overly focused on social features. This shift followed the removal of the Farcaster-powered social feed and the general struggle of creator coins to maintain value. Despite the setback, Armstrong expressed belief that SocialFi will eventually succeed once tokenomics are perfected, and he remains supportive of internal experimental funding initiatives.

(Source：The Block)