Coinbase’s tokenized-stock rollout on Base has generated roughly $70 million to $100 million in daily trading volume in its first six weeks, according to Base creator Jesse Pollak, giving the Ethereum Layer 2 a potentially lucrative use case as smaller networks struggle to sustain themselves.
About 50 tokenized stocks are currently available on Base, Pollak said, and Coinbase expects to expand that figure to 250 by the end of the month. The early volume estimate places tokenized equities at the center of Base’s strategy for 2027, alongside stablecoin payments and onchain financing.
Pollak described tokenized equities and stablecoins denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar as the likely engines of a coming “tokenization supercycle.” The argument rests on two large pools of conventional financial activity: global stock trading and everyday payments made in local currencies.
Tokenized shares are blockchain-based representations designed to track the value of publicly traded equities. Their appeal for onchain markets lies in potentially combining familiar assets with round-the-clock settlement, programmable transactions, and integration with decentralized trading venues. Whether those advantages translate into durable demand will depend on liquidity, legal structure, market access, and the ability of platforms to provide reliable pricing and redemptions.
Base targets 250 tokenized stocks
The plan to expand from 50 to 250 tokenized equities within a month suggests Coinbase is seeking breadth as well as trading activity. A larger catalogue would give users access to more sectors and individual companies, while creating more opportunities for market makers and decentralized applications to build services around tokenized assets.
Pollak said tokenized equities are currently growing faster than non-dollar stablecoins. The comparison reflects the different stages of the two markets: tokenized stocks can draw interest from onchain traders looking for exposure to established equities, while local-currency stablecoins must first develop payment networks, merchant acceptance, regulatory clarity, and sufficient liquidity against other digital assets.
Base’s position within the Coinbase ecosystem gives it distribution that independent Layer 2 networks often lack. Coinbase can connect Base applications with an existing user base, wallet infrastructure, fiat access, and institutional relationships. That distribution advantage is becoming more visible as several consumer-focused networks reassess the economics of operating their own chains.
Local-currency stablecoins gain supply
Base currently supports 32 stablecoins across 21 currencies, Pollak said. They include tokens tied to the euro, Canadian dollar, Nigerian naira, and Indonesian rupiah. The network’s stablecoin offering is built around a practical tension in digital-asset markets: the dollar remains the dominant settlement currency, yet businesses and consumers often price goods, pay wages, and manage expenses in domestic currencies.
More than 99% of stablecoin supply remains pegged to the U.S. dollar, according to the data cited by Pollak. That dominance gives dollar stablecoins deep liquidity and makes them widely used in cryptocurrency markets, but it also leaves users in other currency zones exposed to exchange-rate conversions when they move between onchain assets and local spending.
Pollak said the circulating supply of fiat-backed stablecoins outside the dollar rose eightfold over the previous 12 months, from approximately $400 million in September 2025 to $3.3 billion last month. Yen- and sterling-linked tokens have increased their share among non-dollar stablecoins, according to the same data.
The sector remains small beside dollar stablecoins, but regional policy initiatives could create more room for growth. South Korea, Hong Kong, and Brazil have all been identified by Pollak as markets advancing local-currency stablecoin efforts. Their approaches differ, yet each reflects interest in retaining domestic-currency utility as payment activity moves onto blockchain rails.
Trading, payments and financing form 2027 plan
Base plans to concentrate its 2027 work on trading, payments, and financing, Pollak said. He framed the strategy as a shift away from selling generic blockspace — the raw transaction capacity of a blockchain — toward services designed for specific types of financial activity.
On trading, Base aims to let businesses route trades through a simpler interface or application programming interface, or API. The network also plans to improve infrastructure for decentralized exchanges, proprietary market makers, and central limit order books, known as CLOBs. A CLOB matches buy and sell orders at specified prices, a model familiar from conventional exchanges but more difficult to operate efficiently on public blockchains.
The payments agenda includes machine-to-machine transactions, an area where software agents, applications, or connected devices pay each other automatically for digital services. Pollak said Base is working with Cloudflare on capacity designed to handle as many as one million transactions per second. Such throughput would be far beyond current demand for tokenized stocks, but it would address the payment use cases Base hopes to attract.
Chain closures sharpen the economics debate
The strategy arrives as other Layer 2 projects retreat. On Oct. 2, Ethereum Layer 2 network Blast said it would wind down after its costs exceeded revenue and urged users to leave by Oct. 26. Users who do not withdraw by that date may face a more complex recovery process involving bridge contracts rather than the network’s standard withdrawal interface.
Days later, Abstract, the consumer-oriented chain backed by Pudgy Penguins parent company Igloo, said it would shut down on Dec. 15. Igloo said it had spent 18 months and lost “tens of millions of dollars” developing the network.
Those closures expose a hard commercial constraint for networks built without sustained fee revenue or a dependable user funnel. Running a chain involves infrastructure, security, engineering, liquidity incentives, developer support, and customer operations. A network can attract attention during launch periods without producing enough recurring activity to cover those costs.
Pollak said the shutdowns do not signal an end to Layer 2 experimentation. His view is that networks need differentiated products and effective distribution, while accepting that many attempts will fail. Base’s bet is increasingly clear: tokenized equities can generate trading activity, local-currency stablecoins can support payments, and tailored infrastructure can turn those flows into a more durable business than a general-purpose chain alone.
Explore how tokenized stocks reshape markets in our guide: learn more about tokenized equities’ impact today.
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