Base's Hidden Growth Engine: The True Logic Behind the $JESSE Token

Deep Operations Amidst Controversy

The launch of $JESSE tokens has sparked considerable skepticism. Some criticize the timing—coinciding with David Phelps’ post complaining about Base’s excessive focus on creator tokens; others worry about fee issues—believing that $JESSE takes too high a cut from transactions; and some have identified arbitrage opportunities exploited by traders using the joint curve mechanism of Zora and Doppler. These complaints sound reasonable at first glance, but upon deeper analysis, the issues are not as severe as they appear.

Addressing the Concerns One by One

Regarding the timing issue: Jesse likely set the release date long ago—his birthday. This was not a hasty decision but a carefully planned one.

Regarding fee controversy: Through his birthday live stream, Jesse reinvested transaction fees into supporting other Base creators and publicly stated he does not plan to sell these tokens. If he had no genuine long-term intentions, why do this?

Regarding true motivation: What is Base’s biggest revenue source? Transaction fees, not on-chain application activity. Currently, the revenue from Meme token trading alone has surpassed the total of all other application types combined. The issuance of new tokens and the speculative trading volume they generate—this is the real revenue driver for the Rollup chain.

Base’s Current Situation

As a Rollup, Base is investing heavily. The core team, ecosystem funding, offline events, proprietary applications like Base App, and founder support—all these expenditures have reached unprecedented levels. But the problem is, these investments are not significantly reflected in Coinbase’s financial reports as contributing to Base’s revenue growth as a Rollup.

The Dual Flywheel of Creator Coins and Content Coins

Creator tokens and content tokens offer a clever solution. They are even more attractive than Meme tokens because:

Issuance Layer: Token issuance itself is a major battleground in Rollup competition, and Creator Coin and Content Coin open up a new track.

Trading Layer: They naturally stimulate trading and speculation activities.

Fee Conversion: Any topic that can attract attention can be converted into on-chain tokens, which in turn generate transaction fees. Unlike Meme tokens, they don’t even need real economic backing, community support, or long-term commitments.

How the Mechanism Works

The logic is straightforward: creator publishes content → automatically generates content tokens → creator receives 1% of the supply. Each content token can only be purchased with creator tokens. If you issue creator tokens, you hold 50% of the supply (gradually unlocked). This design naturally drives demand for content tokens, which in turn fuels demand for creator tokens.

This setup incentivizes the creation of high-quality content while allowing participants to benefit from holding creator tokens and earning transaction fees.

Hidden Issues and Limitations of the Mechanism

However, creators face a dilemma: unless they sell their creator tokens, they cannot directly profit from subscription payments. This means that even if subscriptions bring value to creators, most of the economic benefits do not flow to them—unless they choose to sell their tokens and exit.

The Other Side of Speculation

Content tokens essentially have the attributes of fan collectibles. As artists gain popularity, the rewards they offer become more valuable. But this also means content tokens are inherently speculative. Even if you don’t care about the artist or the reward content itself, you might buy purely for the potential appreciation in the future—similar to buying an idol’s first CD and reselling it at a higher price.

This design allows Base to expand its trading ecosystem while concentrating most of the profits into blockchain infrastructure and trading platforms.