In this article, we continue with our interview with Jesse Pollak, the creator of Base Blockchain. In part 1 of this series, Pollak discussed his leadership style and the events that led to the creation of Coinbase’s own blockchain.
In this interview, edited for clarity, Jesse Pollak discuss whether he sees Solana and other blockchains as competition and what he thinks of the AI trend:
Does Base See Other Blockchains as Competitors?
Nathaniel Cajuday, Junior Editor, BitPinas: During the recent Devcon, we wrote an article about your panel discussion with Vitalik Buterin, and one of the questions that was asked is about how Ethereum views other L1s, specifically Solana. Solana has a big presence here in the Philippines. Its communities have almost monthly meetups in different regions of the country. We’re also seeing other blockchains, through grants and community meetups, building their communities here.
What is your view on other L1s, and what do you think of their future, given the current trend inside Ethereum to start unifying layer two blockchains and have a more coherent Ethereum ecosystem?
Jesse Pollak, Creator, Base: The primary thing I think is that our competition is off-chain—it’s the existing legacy systems. What we are most focused on is building new products and new platforms that let people live better lives on-chain.
I see Solana and other L1s and L2s as collaborators in that vision. They’re helping us build that future. We’re all exploring different paths on how we get there, with different trade-offs and different technology decisions. The more divergent experiments we have, the faster we’ll learn and converge around the best ones to enable 10x better experiences than current Web2 offerings.
Base has established itself as a market leader in terms of growth and adoption. We’re excited to keep working with folks to build a better future and ensure we’re all working together to bring the world on-chain.
Will There Be a Crossover of AI and Crypto in Base Ecosystem?
Cajuday: So let’s go to other emerging trends in blockchain and technology. You spoke about AI agents utilizing crypto in financial platforms. Could you elaborate on specific use cases or projects that you envision combining blockchain and AI?
Pollak: TThe powerful thing about AI and blockchain is that they’re both impactful trends emerging at the same time and are very additive to each other.
One challenge with AI is proving authenticity—is this a human or a bot? Agents also need a way to transact with money, which is difficult with legacy systems. Crypto solves these problems.
Blockchain is a powerful tool for proving authenticity, and we’re already seeing use cases where people test authenticity by putting things on-chain. Crypto is also perfect for agents needing to interact with money because they can “speak code” and transact seamlessly.
I expect these trends will drive innovation, as we’ll extend human capacity with agents that now also have superpowers like handling money and proving authenticity.
Please also read:
This article is published on BitPinas: Interview Part 2: Collaboration Over Competition – Base’s Approach to Blockchains and AI
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