Base app shifts to Cobie as Jesse Pollak refocuses the chain

Coinbase’s Base project is changing who runs its consumer app, a signal that the company is putting less weight on crypto social products and more on trading and financial uses. For everyday investors, the move points to where Coinbase may focus its crypto product energy next: payments, trading tools and blockchain-based markets.

Jesse Pollak, the Coinbase executive who has led the Base blockchain, said he is stepping back from the consumer Base app and returning it to Coinbase. The app will be led by Cobie, the crypto trader who joined Coinbase after the company acquired Echo, his onchain fundraising platform, according to Decrypt’s Morning Minute.

Base is Coinbase’s blockchain network. “Onchain” means transactions or activity that happen directly on a blockchain, rather than only inside a company’s private database.

Pollak says the social bet missed

In his announcement, Pollak said Base’s 2024 and 2025 plan leaned on two ideas: that software builders would bring users to the network, and that onchain social activity would drive growth. He said he still believes in the builder strategy, but said the social thesis did not work.

Pollak pointed to the social projects he had backed, including Farcaster, Zora, miniapps and creator coins. He said that corner of the market had “disintegrated completely,” according to Decrypt’s Morning Minute.

He also said Base had fallen behind competitors in several areas: perps, prediction markets, tokenization and payments. Perps, short for perpetual futures, are crypto derivatives that let traders bet on price moves without an expiration date. Tokenization refers to putting assets or financial claims onto a blockchain.

Pollak ended the post with an apology for his push around content coins, writing: “hopefully we can shut up about content coins now. i was wrong and i’m sorry.” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong made a similar point earlier in the week, saying Base “messed up” on content coins, according to Decrypt’s Morning Minute.

Base turns toward finance

Pollak said his next focus is the Base chain itself. He wants Base to become “the blockchain for global finance,” and said crypto, stablecoins, perps, prediction markets and tokenization could help bring a billion people onchain.

He named three priorities for Base in 2026: trading, payments and agents. In crypto, agents usually refers to software systems that can take actions for users, though Pollak’s comments cited only the category rather than specific products.

Cobie’s job will cover trading products across the Coinbase app, Coinbase Pro and Base app, according to Decrypt’s Morning Minute. That puts him in a competitive field that includes centralized exchanges such as Kraken, memecoin apps including Pump Fun and Fomo, Robinhood’s expanding onchain efforts and Kalshi’s push from prediction markets into perps.

The leadership shift landed during a softer day for major crypto assets. Decrypt’s Morning Minute said Bitcoin was down about 1% near $64,200, while Ethereum was around $1,885. Bitcoin exchange-traded funds saw $107 million of net inflows on Wednesday, while Ethereum ETFs took in $54 million, according to Coinglass data cited by the newsletter.

This story draws on original reporting from Decrypt.