👀 Why I'm excited like a little kid

GM everyone. This is 2036, the crypto newsletter that pays you.

🚨 Yesterday’s email probably landed in your spam folder… so here it is again.

Here’s what we’re serving up today 🍲: something BIG dropped yesterday. It could be the next narrative. Or it could be much bigger than that.

Let’s dig in.

🥔 Today’s meat and potatoes

Get smarter on crypto in 2 minutes

Yesterday, Coinbase - the most reputable crypto exchange in the world - launched its own blockchain called Base.

[We quickly talked about Base last week, when a developer (maybe SBF) bridged funds over early, created a memecoin that skyrocketed +4,000,000% in 48 hours, and then collapsed the whole thing.]

So what is Base?

Base is a Layer 2 blockchain.

WTF is a layer 2? I’m glad you asked.

To understand Layer 2s, you have to know what a Layer 1 is.

Layer 1 blockchains are the foundations on which everything else is built. Bitcoin and Ethereum are both layer 1s.

They are ultra-secure but can be expensive and slow. That’s because the blockchain trilemma means they can’t be all three at the same time:

Layer 2s are blockchains built on top of Layer 1s that benefit from their security and decentralization but make them more scalable (faster and cheaper.)

That allows them to hit all three corners of the triangle. BOOM.

So Coinbase is launching a Layer 2 that is built on top of Ethereum.

“But there are lots of layer 2s - why is this special?”

Because it’s Coinbase.

Coinbase is one of the biggest players in town. They already have 100 million users.

And they want this new blockchain to onboard the next BILLION users.

Coinbase is onboarding some of the most legitimate NFT projects and - wait for it - COCA-COLA to bring attention and money to their chain (Coca-Cola will be putting works of Van Gogh on-chain).

Okay - so how do you profit from this?

Base has said they will not release a token. But Optimism said the same and then changed their minds, so who knows.

That means that for now, we can’t just buy a token as a proxy to invest in the Base ecosystem.

Instead, you can buy Coinbase stock ($COIN). All the profits from the chain will accrue to Coinbase (they made $700K in profit in one day - $85 million annualized - before the chain even launched).

But you can also make money while having fun. Coinbase is calling it on-chain summer, and here’s how to participate:

1/ Mint the Base Day 1 NFT (for just $1.44) here.

I did it - and here’s what the process looks like (I use Rabby now instead of Metamask):

a) click MINT. This will connect your wallet to the Base website [note: if Rabby is your default wallet, it will open even if you click on Metamask]

b) Next, click “Switch to Base” at the top of the page in the blue bar.

c) follow the steps on the screen and mint the NFT. This will automatically bridge your funds to the Base chain (which most other chains require you to do manually… well done, Coinbase).

2/ Bridge ETH to Base directly and monitor the new protocols and coins launched there.

The last time I was this excited about a new launch was when DeFi Kingdoms launched their own subnet on Avalanche. It was the best of times.

This is what Base feels like - a new frontier.

You can bridge your ETH over to Base using the official bridge.

Once you have some ETH on Base, you can have fun minting NFTs. Many of them are free, and you can find them here.

Here’s a list of the upcoming mints for this week:

3/ Take advantage of Base incentives

Base has announced a number of grants for builders, educators, creators, etc. You can find them here.

I expect we’ll see a lot more coming out of Base soon.

We’ll be monitoring the situation closely to bring you the best projects on Base.

In the meantime, have fun and try out the chain. The NFT mints are almost free, but you’ll learn A TON just from getting comfortable with bridging, minting, etc.

… and that’s what our bonus task will pay you to do today (details below👇)

🍨 Dessert

Stories to read if you have FOMO

1/ Coinbase’s Base opens to the public

📝 BONUS Task

Earn $15 for minting on Base

Wednesday’s task will run for another 12 hours. You can read about it here.

But today, we’re introducing another task: minting your first NFT on Base.

(The total cost is $1.44 + a transaction fee of $0.32.)

As always, we’ll tally all the participants in a Google sheet and mathematically choose a winner at random who’ll receive $15 in ETH.

We’ll announce the winners of Wednesday’s and today’s tasks in Monday’s email.

🖼️ Crypto meme of the day

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