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Base hands consumer app back to Coinbase and puts Cobie in charge

Base’s executive reshuffle follows a stated shift away from onchain social after it “disintegrated completely,” and Pollak set 2026 priorities for trading, payments, and agents.

Reported · Written up by our desk · Market Structure

Decrypt reports that Jesse Pollak, the Coinbase executive who had been running the Base blockchain, handed the consumer Base app back to Coinbase and gave it to trader Cobie.

In the announcement, Pollak said his 2024 to 2025 strategy relied on two bets, builders driving adoption and growth coming from onchain social, but he acknowledged the social bet was wrong.

Pollak pointed to onchain social products including Farcaster, Zora, miniapps, and creator coins, saying that area “disintegrated completely,” leaving Base trailing rivals in areas such as perps, prediction markets, tokenization, and payments.

He also said his focus now is building Base into “the blockchain for global finance,” with trading, payments, and agents listed as the three priorities for 2026, while Cobie will oversee trading products across Coinbase’s apps.

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