Jesse Pollak of Coinbase has announced he is stepping back from his role in managing the Base app, recognizing that his approach to fostering an onchain social economy did not meet expectations for crypto adoption.

Pollak, the creator of Base, indicated that he had invested the past two years in the belief that social applications and creator coins would significantly drive growth within the crypto space. However, in a recent post on X, he pointed out that while innovations like stablecoins and prediction markets contributed to adoption, social applications "disintegrated completely."

"I was definitively wrong," Pollak stated, noting that Base's emphasis on social features hindered its competitiveness in areas such as trading, tokenization, and payment solutions.

As part of a strategic shift, Pollak mentioned that leadership of the Base app will transition back to Coinbase, with Jordan Fish, known as 'Cobie' on X, taking the helm. Pollak expressed confidence that Fish would enhance the app to make it "the best damn app for onchain," while Base itself will focus on trading, payments, and AI agents to establish itself as a foundational layer for global finance.

Fish, who founded Echo—a platform enabling startups to secure funding directly from their communities—was previously acquired by Coinbase for $375 million last year.

Pollak will now redirect his efforts towards developing the underlying blockchain, aspiring to position it as "the blockchain for global finance." He remarked, "On the app, my focus is on building Base into the blockchain for global finance. To that end, I've handed the Base app back to the Coinbase mothership, where my now good friend Cobie will be taking it from here."

This transition marks a broader trend in the crypto landscape, where consumer-centric social applications have struggled to gain mainstream appeal, while the focus has shifted towards stablecoins, tokenization, decentralized derivatives, and AI-driven technologies.

Read more: Coinbase’s Jesse Pollak says AI agents are the next big wave for crypto payments