No.220
Based BASED
Hyperliquid's super-app token
🎭 a one-stall merchant familiar: trades anything, takes a Visa, perched on Hyperliquid's back
💬 “I don't run my own chain, and I'm fine with that. I ride on Hyperliquid and run the shop floor: trade your perps here, bet on a market there, tap my card at the cafe on the way out. Stay loyal and I'll slip you the cashback.”
- What: a Web3 'super app' for trading, prediction markets, payments and AI tools, all behind one account.
- Where: built on top of Hyperliquid, a Layer-1 chain. BASED has no blockchain of its own.
- Token: supply fixed at 1 billion BASED. Holding or staking it unlocks fee discounts and Visa card cashback up to 8%.
- Young: app launched mid-2025, token went live at its TGE on March 30, 2026.
📖 The Story
Most crypto users keep a drawer full of apps: one to trade, one to bet, one to pay, one to chat with an AI. Based started from a simple complaint about that drawer.
Co-founded by Edison (CEO) and a partner known as Zac, with a team based in Singapore, the app went live around mid-2025. Its pitch is short enough to fit on a sign: trade everything, spend everywhere. Inside one account you can trade crypto perpetuals, stocks and commodities, place bets on prediction markets, and then tap a Visa card to buy a coffee with the same balance.
February 2026. Investors took the idea seriously. Based raised an $11.5 million Series A led by Pantera Capital, joined by Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute Ventures and Karatage. Around the same announcement the team reported its own numbers: more than 100,000 registered users, roughly 30,000 active each month, and about $40 billion in cumulative trading volume across five regions. Those are the project's own figures, not independently audited, so read them as the team's scoreboard.
March 30, 2026. The BASED token went live at its Token Generation Event. There was no scramble to claim it: tokens landed automatically in each user's Hyperliquid wallet. The shop, which had been running for months on app credits and points, finally had a coin of its own.
📊 Stats
These are our editorial ratings for quick orientation, not market data.
🧩 How it works
Here is the part beginners trip on: Based is not its own blockchain. It is an app, and an app needs a chain to live on. Based lives on Hyperliquid, a fast Layer-1 built for trading. So BASED has no mining and no proof-of-stake of its own, it leans on Hyperliquid for all of that. The BASED token is the membership card: staking or holding it can unlock trading-fee discounts, card cashback of up to 8%, higher spending limits, and premium features.
🌗 Light & Shadow
- One account does the work of several apps: trading, prediction markets, payments and AI tools in a single place
- The Visa card and cashback make it one of the rare tokens with an everyday, real-world spending use
- Supply is capped at 1 billion, so the token cannot be quietly printed into oblivion
- A named Series A from Pantera and others gives the team real runway, not just a whitepaper
- It owns no chain. If Hyperliquid stumbles, Based has nowhere else to stand (a familiar is only as safe as the back it rides on)
- Very young: the app is from mid-2025 and the token only launched in March 2026, so there is little long-term track record
- Headline metrics like the user counts and the $40B volume are self-reported by the project, not independently audited
- Bundling trading, betting and a spending card raises real DeFi and regulatory questions in many regions
🧬 Evolution lineage
Based is not a fork of another coin. It is an application token that lives on top of Hyperliquid, the way a dApp's token depends on its host chain. (It is also unrelated to older meme tokens that happened to share the 'BASED' name.)
🧭 Meet other friends
❓ FAQ
- What is Based?
- A Web3 'super app' that puts trading, prediction markets, payments and AI tools behind one account. It runs on the Hyperliquid blockchain, and BASED is the token that unlocks its perks. The app launched around mid-2025.
- Does Based have its own blockchain?
- No. Based is an app built on top of Hyperliquid, a Layer-1 chain. So BASED has no mining or proof-of-stake of its own, it borrows Hyperliquid's. Think of it as an app and its token, not a base-layer coin.
- How many BASED tokens are there?
- The total supply is fixed at 1,000,000,000 (1 billion) BASED, and that number never grows. The token launched at its TGE on March 30, 2026, and was delivered straight to users' Hyperliquid wallets with no manual claim.
- What does holding BASED actually do?
- Holding or staking BASED can unlock trading-fee discounts, Visa card cashback of up to 8%, higher spending limits, and access to premium features. It is a loyalty and utility token, not a promise of profit. (Information only, not investment advice.)
⚠️ Not investment advice. All figures are for information only.