Base has emerged as the fastest-growing Layer 2 ecosystem in crypto, and in 2025 it leads the L2 landscape in total value locked, user activity, and transaction throughput. It is rapidly establishing itself as the primary hub for DeFi, SocialFi, and memecoins, the areas driving real onchain adoption at scale.

The growth is clear in the numbers. Total value locked has surged from $3.9 billion to more than $8.4 billion within a year, driven largely by stablecoin deposits. Daily active addresses exceed one million, with over four million weekly active users. On January 1, 2025, Base processed 13.39 million transactions in a single day, a capacity unmatched by other L2s. 

This rapid expansion has shifted the challenge. It’s no longer a question of whether to engage with Base, but how. Moving assets across chains has historically been slow and fragmented with bridges, juggling gas, multiple transaction approvals, but Velora eliminates that friction. With intent-based routing and a unified execution layer, it turns multi-step workflows into a single transaction. Traders can swap USDC on Ethereum for ETH on Base in under two minutes, without ever touching a bridge or managing gas.

New to Velora? Read out step-by-step guide to making your first crosschain swap to Base and start exploring the best protocols built on Base. 

The DeFi Anchors on Base

The strength of any ecosystem rests on its core financial infrastructure. On Base, a handful of protocols dominate liquidity, lending, and yield, establishing the foundations for everything else built on the network. Velora makes these anchors accessible without the usual crosschain friction, turning what used to be multi-step workflows into single, intent-based transactions.

Aerodrome: The Liquidity Engine

Aerodrome is the native AMM and the primary liquidity venue on Base. With $1.2–1.3 billion in TVL, it accounts for nearly half of the chain’s locked value. Weekly trading volumes have doubled in recent months, and annualized activity is approaching $25 billion. Aerodrome clears the majority of swaps on Base, making it the central venue for routing trades. For users entering Base through Velora, Aerodrome is often the first stop in delivering optimized execution.

For traders, this often begins with a crosschain entry. A user swapping USDC on Ethereum for ETH on Base through Velora will likely have their trade executed through one of Aerodrome’s pools. Velora abstracts the bridging, gas, and routing, while Aerodrome provides the depth of liquidity. This combination turns Base into a playground for both retail and institutional flows.

Morpho: The Lending Leader

Morpho has emerged as the largest lending protocol on Base, with $2.5 billion in deposits as of August 2025. Coinbase’s BTC-backed lending integration alone has added roughly $1 billion to its growth. TVL on Base has expanded from just $60 million in mid-2024 to over $1.8 billion a year later, reflecting its rapid adoption. 

Morpho’s risk-isolated vaults and permissionless market design set it apart, while Coinbase-backed loans now account for over $500 million in active loans secured by $860 million in collateral. What makes Morpho stand out now is its direct integration with Velora. With Velora’s Market API, Morpho offers built-in token swaps inside its own interface, eliminating the need for external approvals, tab switching, or manual workflows. This unlocks a new level of capital efficiency for borrowers:

• Multiply (One-Click Position Looping): Users can instantly loop their borrow positions by swapping borrowed assets into collateral in a single transaction. Instead of juggling multiple steps, Morpho’s Bundler3 and Velora’s execution layer handle the workflow behind the scenes.

• Repay With Collateral: Borrowers can now close a loan using their existing collateral. Morpho automatically swaps a portion of the collateral into the borrowed asset, then repays the position in one step.

• Built-In Swap Widget: Powered by Velora’s aggregated liquidity, the Morpho app now includes a native swap feature. Users can trade any asset directly from the interface with best-price routing handled in the background.

Velora’s API connects Morpho to deep liquidity across Ethereum, Base, Polygon, and Unichain, ensuring reliable, low-friction swaps that power both borrowing strategies and direct trading.

With these integrations, Morpho has become more than just a lending leader on Base, it’s now a full borrowing and trading environment, where Velora provides the execution layer that keeps every action simple, capital-efficient, and bundled into one click.

Moonwell: Retail-Friendly Lending

Moonwell provides a user-first lending experience, appealing especially to retail participants. Its TVL on Base stands at around $188 million, with another ~$18 million on Optimism. Growth accelerated after the launch of Coinbase’s Base App, with TVL climbing 149% since April 2025. Features like OP-token rewards for USDC lending and automated compounding vaults through Mamo have made Moonwell a competitive and accessible option within the Base ecosystem.

Velora lowers the entry barrier further by removing the need for users to fund wallets with gas or manage bridges. Supplying assets to Moonwell can be expressed as a single intent, routed crosschain in minutes.

Pendle: Yield Trading Innovation

Pendle adds a new layer of sophistication to Base’s DeFi stack by tokenizing future yield. Its global TVL recently hit a record $8.27 billion, with a growing share on Base. More than 60% of this TVL is tied to Ethena’s USDe stablecoin, underlining the central role of stablecoin liquidity in yield strategies. Pendle’s expansion across chains ensures its instruments are accessible to advanced users everywhere, but its growth on Base highlights the network’s position as a yield-trading hub.

A recent integration with Velora has unlocked even more flexibility. Users can now atomically roll over their Pendle Ethena sUSDe positions on Aave in a single click. Instead of managing expiries or rebalancing manually, Velora routes the transaction so borrowers can continuously extend positions while accessing the best available APYs. No more expirations, no extra steps, just streamlined yield management powered by Velora’s execution layer.

By combining tokenized yield strategies with Velora’s intent-based infrastructure, Pendle positions itself as not just a yield protocol but a programmable yield marketplace where users can express complex strategies without friction.

Together, Aerodrome, Morpho, Moonwell, and Pendle capture liquidity, enable leverage, and generate yield–the three pillars of any successful DeFi hub. On Base, they form the financial backbone that supports SocialFi, memecoins, and the broader adoption wave now underway. Velora ensures these anchors are not only powerful but accessible, making Base’s financial infrastructure usable for anyone, regardless of where they start.

SocialFi: Farcaster and Zora

What makes Base distinct from other L2s is the convergence of DeFi with cultural and social layers. Farcaster provides a decentralized social graph, while Zora has exploded as the creator-coin platform of choice.

Daily creator-coin launches on Zora rose from around 4,000 to over 15,000 after Base App integration. Trading volume followed, surging past $6 million a day, and the ZORA token itself rallied more than 400% in a single week. In total, creator coins on Zora have generated nearly $500 million in volume from millions of traders.

This content-to-token flywheel positions Base as the leading SocialFi network. For creators, it offers distribution and monetization. For traders, it introduces new liquid markets tied directly to social attention. Velora sits at the intersection, giving users intent-based access to these tokens with the same routing intelligence it applies to swaps and lending.

Base App deepens this integration further, embedding social layers through Farcaster (social networking) and XMTP (messaging), enabling users to post, chat, or engage without switching apps.

Memecoins: Culture Meets Liquidity

No discussion of Base in 2025 is complete without memecoins. With a combined market cap around $1.6 billion and daily trading volumes nearing $170 million, meme assets are a defining feature of the chain.

BRETT, TOSHI, and DEGEN dominate the landscape, but new tokens emerge daily, amplified by Base’s low fees and high throughput. Memecoins on Base are not an isolated sideshow; they are liquidity magnets and entry points for new users.

Velora’s role here is critical. For many, chasing a memecoin is the first reason to explore Base. Velora’s crosschain swap engine makes that entry instant. A trader can move USDC or ETH from another chain into a Base memecoin position in under two minutes, without touching a bridge or worrying about gas. MEV-resistant execution ensures protection from the predatory strategies common in volatile memecoin markets, while optimal routing secures the best price.

Coinbase’s Base App: Mainstream Access

Coinbase’s rebrand of Wallet into the Base App in mid-2025 marked a turning point. The app integrates DeFi access, social features through Farcaster, and apps like Zora into one unified onchain experience. It also introduces Flashblocks, reducing block confirmation times to 200ms, and Base Pay, which extends USDC payments to commerce.

Most importantly, Coinbase has confirmed direct integration of Base DEXs into its main app. This brings decentralized liquidity to millions of Coinbase users and cements Base as the default onchain environment for retail adoption.

As this integration matures, Base protocols will see inflows from a much larger user base than any other L2 can currently access. Velora complements this by serving those who want crosschain access. Coinbase opens the door for mainstream users; Velora ensures that power users, traders, and liquidity seekers can arrive with speed and precision.

Velora: The Gateway to Base

Base now leads all Layer 2s in TVL, daily active users, and transactions. Its TVL has doubled over the past year to more than $8 billion. Daily active users exceed one million, and monthly transactions surpass 50 million.

Arbitrum and Optimism remain leading networks, but Base has surpassed them in core metrics. The difference lies in distribution and culture. Coinbase provides the fiat rails and mainstream brand. Zora and the memecoin ecosystem provide cultural gravity. DeFi anchors like Morpho and Pendle provide depth and liquidity.

No other L2 combines these forces at this scale. And no other L2 offers the same alignment between infrastructure, liquidity, and culture, all accessible with intent-based simplicity through Velora. Its crosschain trading protocol abstracts bridging, routing, and liquidity sourcing, delivering the best execution across the fast-moving memecoin and creator coin markets on Base.

Where Base is the hub, Velora is the gateway. Together, they represent the most advanced expression of DeFi, SocialFi, and cultural liquidity available today.

Ready to experience it yourself? Start trading crosschain with Velora today at app.velora.xyz.