Original Title: Base Stole 3 Years of My Life
Original Author: @weretuna
Translated by: Peggy, BlockBeats
Editor's Note: Base once attracted countless developers with the slogan "Build on Base. We will support you." However, there is often a layer of silence between promises and reality.
The author of this article, @weretuna, is a co-founder of @pndmdotorg, a studio focused on creating viral Ponzi-style blockchain games on Solana. This article recounts their three-year journey from investment and waiting to disappointment, and then to a rapid increase in growth after migrating to Solana: what determines the success or failure of an ecosystem is never the slogans, but who is willing to provide real resources and attention to applications. For all builders still "waiting for support," this is a reality check.
The following is the original text:
"Build on Base. We will support you."
That was their promise. We believed it for three whole years. During these three years, we launched over 10 products: games, AI agents, prediction markets, zkTLS-related products. We invested almost our entire lives into developing on Base.
What did we get in return?
Nothing. Not a single retweet. Not a single reply. Not even a group chat.
Last year, we created @infecteddotfun—the most viral and widely discussed game on Base. We grew a brand new account to 50,000 followers in just one month. It went viral across all platforms, and everyone couldn't stop discussing it.
But Base didn't even retweet our launch post.
At that moment, I finally understood: where the problem lay.
And the problem was serious.
Why We Believed
When I first discovered Base, it was almost an "undeniable" choice. At that time, the fragmentation of L2 was a complete mess. It was already difficult enough to create a product, and choosing which chain to build on was even harder.
Then Base launched—backed by Coinbase, equipped with "social network technology." Jesse and the team pushed the "app-first" narrative very aggressively. For the first time in a long while, I felt like someone finally cared about applications, rather than just focusing on infrastructure.
It looked like a truly "builder-first" chain. They said they cared about developers. They said they would help you with marketing. They said they were different.
Looking back, it was just better marketing. We fell for it.
Slow Awakening
As time went on, my faith in Base began to waver.
The real first crack was when they started heavily promoting Farcaster and Zora—not because these products were necessarily the best, but because they had invested in these companies. At that moment, I realized how this game was really played.
The crypto industry loves to pretend that blockchains are "permissionless and open": anyone can come and build, and the best products will win. Because there are so few applications that truly achieve product-market fit, I always thought this space encouraged experimentation and diversity.
But the reality is: either you create what they like, or you belong to that circle. Everyone else is just there to bring attention and liquidity to the chain as "background noise."
Yet on X, they still say, "Come build on Base, we will help you go viral."
And we believed it. We spent 3 years developing. We launched over 10 applications. We staked our lives on it.
But they never replied to us on X. No response on Discord. No response on Telegram. We couldn't even get into a single group chat.
Support? Zero.
I think the reason is simple: what we created was not what they liked.
Doing It Ourselves
So we decided to stop waiting. Fine, we would go viral on our own.
We spent months brainstorming and finally created @infecteddotfun—a game that "spreads virally on the blockchain."
It exploded.
A brand new account, reaching 50,000 followers in a month. It became one of the most viral games on Base.
Only at this point did the Base team finally start to respond to us. They said, "We will support your launch." They said, "Leave it to us." They said, "Just wait a bit longer."
So we waited.
The launch day arrived. Guess what? Still, nothing.
No tweets. No retweets. No support whatsoever.
Imagine this: you spend 5 months creating a product, finally generating the heat that gets them to promise "support," and then at the critical moment, that support suddenly disappears.
I went to ask for reasons, and the responses were vague, politically charged, and completely nonsensical.
Watch What They Do, Not What They Say
The worst part is not what happened to us.
The worst part is that this happened to everyone. But no one dares to speak up. Because once you are on Base, you become a "hostage." You don't want to ruin the relationship, just in case you need them one day. So you stay silent.
And Base continues to pretend they are supporting developers.
If you only want to support a select few chosen projects, that's fine. Just say so. Don't pick "favorites" while cosplaying as a chain that "supports all builders." What they say and what they do are completely different things.
So we left.
Everything Changed After Leaving
We migrated to Solana.
Six months later, we created @addicteddotfun, the biggest crypto game of 2025. $4 million in revenue in 48 hours.
We didn't suddenly become smarter. We just left a chain that treated developers like NPCs. Our next game, @jaileddotfun, will also launch on Solana. From now on, all our games will be built on Solana.
We will never build another product on Base or Ethereum again.
Conclusion
I used to think that the competition between Ethereum and Solana was a good thing. Developers should build wherever they want. But after wasting 3 years of my life, I believe this is actually a negative return for the industry.
Too many excellent builders are still trapped in ecosystems like Base. I'm not surprised: many people will experience a sudden 10x or even 100x growth just by moving to Solana, just like us.
Developers should go where the users are. And right now, both users and liquidity are on Solana. This is not a "chain maximalist" stance; it's results-oriented—based on our own data and the experiences of our friends.
I have wasted enough time on Base.
So you don't have to waste any more.
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