Coinbase is ‘destroying’ retail crypto: Framework Ventures cofounder

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At least one VC thinks Coinbase’s “Just Coin It” strategy is a bad, bad idea.

This week, Coinbase exec Jesse Pollak called BaseDrop, which is powered by rapper Waka Flocka Flame’s memecoin, “the new creator economy.” He described BaseDrop as an “onchain record label, where value for songs accrues back to $FLOCKA.”

Framework Ventures cofounder Vance Spencer hit back with a takedown, arguing that Coinbase’s “content coin” push is “destroying broad swaths of the [crypto] industry.”

The idea that everything should have a token harms retail because said retail buyers are losing money on lowcaps and memes and will be alienated from crypto as a result, he argued. 

Spencer also took aim at Coinbase’s decisions around its wallet, likening it to Farcaster and saying it’s “not what anyone wants or needs.” 

Coinbase recently overhauled its wallet to include a slew of social media-like features in a move that turns it into more of a consumer superapp than a crypto wallet. The overhauled version remains in beta, and hasn’t been fully released yet.

My question is: Are we sure “retail” is actually who is buying these? More likely yes, in the case of celebrity-backed coins. But I suspect there’s also a lot of crypto-native degens and builders participating in the “Just Coin It” trend.

Coinbase’s head of Base and Coinbase Wallet responded, unsurprisingly, by rejecting Spencer’s argument and calling what’s happening innovative for crypto.

“Tokenizing content is a powerful way of letting the market value content and then drive value back to creators and consumers,” Pollak said. 

“I think it’s cool that a large, well-known artist is literally pushing the boundaries of what can be done onchain with value accrual,” he added.

While some might be more open to taking Ls on content coins than others, Waka Flocka specifically has been accused of promoting questionable tokens, including his Solana memecoin, in the past:

When the rapper was asked last year if his FLOCKA coin on Solana had a fair launch in light of ZachXBT’s findings that 40% of its supply was sniped beforehand, Flame claimed there had been an “Operation Take Down Flocka” against him. 

Pollak said he’s also spoken with the rapper and believes Flame, whose real name is Juaquin James Malphurs, was “convinced” to launch a coin by a team that then “rugged him.” 

“Do I wish he had been able to see through the scammers in the first place and not made the mistake? Absolutely,” Pollak said.

“But do I think we should blackball an earnest, talented creator and musician who someone else scammed […] and who, rather than giving up, doubled down on figuring out how to use onchain to do good in our space? Absolutely not.”

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