This had to be one of the craziest weekends in crypto, and I’m not even talking about all of the Vyper code exploits, the potential for a CRV detonator to set off a chain-reaction nuclear disaster throughout DeFi, or long overdue lawsuits against big-name scammers whose heart definitely has no PULSE and whose name rhymes with Bitchard Tart.

Nope, I’m talking about the blind hand of one of the sketchiest fuckers in crypto allegedly getting straight Based, and not in a good way, leaving utter awe and carnage, and a big headache for Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, in his wake.

gm gm SBF, glad you could make it.

Not.

Who’s on Base?

This weekend, everyone was on Base. For the pure among us, Base is a Layer 2 built by Coinbase on top of the OP Stack. One of CT’s favorite sons, Jesse Pollak, who by all accounts seems to be a great guy, is charged with its deployment and growth, but man, this has not been his weekend.

Base Mainnet went live last week, but in a ‘you gotta really wanna get there’ there sort of way. There are no bridges with regular front ends, so you have to send ETH to a contract address. No big deal, and it keeps a lot of folks away, thankfully, as it turns out.  But for those who have made the trip over the bridge to the Land of Based, what they found was a shitcoin circus not even an unwashed Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus could have imagined, a garment district with more looms than people, more rugs than cents. Especially today.

Losing Hair on Base

Crypto Twitter err Crypto X lit up this weekend with news that a new meme coin on Base called BALD was mooning hard. Influencoooors were in full shill mode, The apes were swinging from the vines, shouting into the jungle canopy that the next great memecoin was upon us, stories of life-changing money made overnight proliferated, and the market cap grew like a Rogaine-fueled bender, going from zero to $30 million in a day.

But….

If you’ve been around long enough, you’ve seen this before, even if it plays out a little differently each time. Suffice to say, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

And 24 hours later, damn, I hate being right:

SBF Out on Bail, Back at the Loom?

$30 million in liquidity, gone like that. Who would have the sociopathic gull, or the resources, to do such a thing. According to Crypto X, it’s the fault of wunderkind-come-poster-child for all that is wrong in the world, Sam Bankman-Fried and his Alameda textile factory that has weaved more rugs than a Turkish Sultan’s Rapunzel.

This thread is super meaty 🔼, but if you like your meals easily digestible, Ryan Sean Adams serves up a little morsel:

Yeet Leet!

The fun didn’t stop with BALD this weekend. Another tasty treat called TOSHI had a 3M% run-up for a brief period of time, before folks realized it was a honeypot hiding the busiest bees ready to sting anyone to reap the rich amber harvest. But that’s hardly news, because yesterday:

In more normal language, somebody stole 325 ETH from the liquidity pools on the largest DEX on Base, LeetSweep, and it’s probably never coming back. Oh Zach:

So not only did BALD, which largely traded on Leet, get rugged for $30 million, but Leet itself got the full treatment, vaporizing millions of paper gains and billions of neurons

The Apes Are Ded, but Easter Is Here!

A picture paints a thousand ded degens:

Sure, the apes got mauled and lay dying on the OPerating table, but frens, this is the ecosystem which game us regenerative cryptoeconomics, so of course it should also give us:

Degenerative cryptoeconomics

I’m not going to Google that because I want to think I made that up, but here’s the definition: humans are fucking greedy stupid people and I love being human let’s try this again!

Resurrections come in many forms, and perhaps SBF has been brought back from ded, but not as an evolved life form, but as the most based degen to ever scam us. Or maybe it’s just an ex Alameda employee or shadowy super coder messing with us because they ran out of Adderall. Either way, degen life isn’t for most, and it’s definitely not for me (usually), but it sure is fun to put one egg in one basket and see if you’re going to get an omelet, souffle, or just a bunch of yoke on your face.

So far for me, mostly yoke but I’m a tough bloke who just needs a smoke before I go take a toke on this crazy pipe called crypto.

Be well frens, and stay SAFU.

Hiro Kennelly is a writer, editor, and coordinator at BanklessDAO, an Associate at Bankless Consulting, and is still a DAOpunk.