A new trend known as ‘Content Coins’ has emerged in the crypto sector. This trend was kick started by ‘Base is for everyone’, a new token experiment pioneered by Jesse Pollak. Content coins are said to be ‘coined’ digital content driven by both virality and culture. In fact, the Base founder (Jesse Pollak) and supporters, content coins are a new form of digital content expression. 

However, just like any other new trend in the crypto sector, content coins have faced criticism from various experts. Some have even claimed that these coins are not any different from meme coins which are highly associated with rug-pulls. But, is this a new trend in the crypto sector or just meme coins branded differently? 

What Are Content Coins?

What began as just an experiment by Jesse Pollak has now turned into a fully fledged trend known as Content Coins. This new trend first emerged on April. 16, 2025 with the official account for Base posting an image captioned – Base is for everyone – on the Zora publishing platform. But this was not just a caption, within minutes it transformed into a crypto token. 

Base is for everyone. pic.twitter.com/gq3lLLuXO1

— Base (@base) April 16, 2025

With investors rushing to capitalize on the opportunity, a mint of 10,000,000 million tokens emerged. These tokens were available for everyone to buy, sell and even trade. And within no time, “Base is for everyone” token achieved $16 million in market capitalization. 

Seeing that the idea had garnered attention, Base transformed another post –  a conference poster (FarCon) – into a crypto token in just an hour. But, the second coin caused confusion which resulted in huge sell-off as investors were afraid of getting rug-pulled. This resulted in loss of over 90% of “Base is for everyone” value. 

But, in a twist of events, the pioneering content token rebounded and pumped to a new all-time high. This was fueled by viral visibility and speculation that is often associated with memecoins. But, what had started as an experiment has now grown into a new trend – Content token. 

“Not All Coins Are the Same,” Pollak’s Bold Statement

Following the backlash from what seemed like another meme coin rug-pull, the founder of Base came forward to defend his experiment. Pollak took to his X page to share a post that read; “not all coins are the same.” According to Pollak, his new idea which he termed as Content Coin “represents a single piece of media.” These tokens should thus be valued as “no more, no less.”

Furthermore, Pollak shared the difference between a content coin and a meme coin. His comparison depicted that a content coin is characterized by one piece of content, singular value, no expectations, creators can develop as many and the big ones turn into memes. 

On the other hand, meme coins are characterized by aggregation of content, aggregated value, high expectations, creators “should” create one and the big ones turn into projects. 

Content Coins Face Criticism Despite Pollak’s Clarifications

According to Pollak, content coins are a way for normalizing onchain engagement for users. These coins are not meant to mimic traditional forms of tokens but rather leverage trends in the market. Pollak further highlighted that creators can benefit through trading fees. Supporters on the other hand can benefit by collecting these tokens and trading them. 

“We started coining base’s content because we believe that unlocking coins to be used for more use cases is a key next unlock for the onchain economy and a powerful tool for helping creators earn from their creativity,” Pollak shared on X on April,19. 2025. 

hey everybody – know it's been a busy week on the timeline and i wanted to just close out the week with a few notes:

1. we started coining @base's content because we believe that unlocking coins to be used for more use cases is a key next unlock for the onchain economy and a…

— jesse.base.eth (@jessepollak) April 19, 2025

However, content coins have faced immense criticism. Notably, the founder of Somnia Network Paul Thomas, has expressed his skepticism against content coins. “I’ve gone to both sides of Base’s new content coins. Thinking they were just memecoins and an interesting consumer primitive,” Thomas wrote on X. 

Furthermore, the founder of Somnia expressed that the idea is probably a bad one. He further emphasized “content coins are rebranded memecoins…Props to Base for experimenting.”

Base is for everyone Reigns the Content Coins Sector

Currently, Base is for everyone has a total market cap of $9.3 million as per data on Dexscreener. The coin’s market cap has dipped by 17.82% over the last 24 hours. 

The data also shows that Base is for everyone has a total of 22,282 holders and has recorded 10,082 transactions over the last 24 hours. The daily trading volume sits at $4.6M depicting the attraction the coin has gained. 

However, despite the hype across content coins, Base is the first one to reach over $100k in market capitalization. All other content coins have not managed to reach this threshold – not even the Base FarCon token – which was launched just an hour after the initial coin pumped massively. Nonetheless, if the idea picks up pace, Base could outperform Solana and other chains.