Franklin Templeton says “Base Season” is here

• Franklin Templeton is bullish on Base and Friend.tech is soaring.
• Meme coins and Social Finance (SocialFi) applications are driving growth for the Ethereum L2 network.

Franklin Templeton, a $1.46 trillion asset manager, is bullish on Ethereum layer 2 platform Base.

Base, which launched in February 2023, has seen its total value locked (TVL) surge in recent months. The L2’s incubated by Coinbase and built using the Optimism (OP) stack.

Franklin Templeton’s digital assets unit noted in its latest industry update that the “Base Season” is here, pointing to the platform’s rising activity levels amid surge in meme coins and SocialFi.

They wrote a bullish thesis about our landlord! https://t.co/oSpAli824h

— friend.tech (@friendtech) May 9, 2024

Base has also seen USDC supply on the L2 increase significantly, currently above $2.5 billion. The upsurge comes after Coinbase Wallet announced users on Base can access zero-fee USDC transfers.

SociaFi space on Base growing

Among top protocols in terms of activity is SocialFi platform Friend.tech, an increasingly popular application that creators can tap into to monetize content.

Base is well positioned to capture a chunk of the SocialFi market via such platforms, analysts at Franklin Templeton observed. This outlook is enhanced by the fact that more top cryptocurrency-based social applications are currently building on Base.

“Currently, Base has [approximately] 46% of all transactions related to SocialFi…With the support of the Coinbase Platform, Base has a strong combination of SocialFi applications and direct integration with Coinbase users, positioning itself well to capture a material share of SocialFi activity and remain a leader in the Ethereum L2 sector going forward,” analysts at Franklin Templeton wrote in the report.

As noted in a chart shared on X, Base’s growing presence sees it take a bigger share of the total social-related transactions compared to Polygon and BNB Chain.

Friend.tech gained notably after the news, with FRIEND trading to highs of $2.53 on Friday.

While the token’s value is down 27% from the all-time high of $3.26 reached on May 3, 2024, today’s gains have pushed it from lows of $1.80 seen on May 9.