Beyond Trading and Memes: 5 Base Projects Exploring New On-Chain Use Cases

Author: ollieblocmates, blocmates

Compiled by: TechFlow

TechFlow Introduction: The popular consensus is that crypto has shrunk to four winning categories—perpetual contracts, memecoin launchpads, stablecoin issuers, and trading apps. As a technology optimist, blocmates tours major networks to find use cases that still have life beyond speculative dominance. This stop is Base: a network with over $5 billion in TVL, processing about 12 million transactions daily and settling about 90% of x402 transactions, is nurturing a batch of products not yet in the spotlight—Hydrex, a MetaDEX aggregating liquidity; SwapRoyale, a fantasy trading competition app; BlockRun, a permissionless AI gateway; PixieChess, a real-money chess game with collectible NFT pieces; and Tokensto, which turns idle AI tokens into cash. The author believes the surface area of interesting on-chain activity is still wider than current consensus admits.

The popular consensus is that crypto has shrunk to four winning categories—perpetual contracts, memecoin launchpads, stablecoin issuers, and trading apps.

From a revenue perspective, there is some truth to this.

However, as technology optimists, we believe there are more viable use cases for crypto beyond speculative dominance.

To prove our point, we are touring major networks to see what interesting things are brewing in their ecosystems.

Today's stop is Base—the native network of the Base App.

Despite being in the midst of controversy over the gap between network direction and actual actions, a look at the charts shows a healthy network with TVL exceeding $5 billion.

Chart: Source: DeFiLlama

It is worth noting that this metric is significantly skewed. Morpho alone accounts for over 80% of the network's locked value, totaling more than $3 billion.

As of mid-August 2026, the network processes about 12 million transactions daily (among the highest transaction volumes of tracked chains), with about 283,000 daily active addresses.

Base also settles about 90% of x402 transactions (an emerging standard for micropayments between agents) and leads in on-chain spot trading volume for major L1 assets such as BTC, ETH, and SOL.

Over the past year, its share of global DEX trading volume rose from 8.8% to 12.1% (a 38% increase), with total trading volume up 38% year-over-year.

Additionally, some refreshing products have emerged on the network, some of which have not yet entered the spotlight. We list a few worth watching.

Hydrex

Let's start with Hydrex. This is a Base-native MetaDEX/automated market maker that aggregates native pools with external liquidity sources within the Base ecosystem, routing trades through Uniswap, Morpho, and others to provide optimal prices.

Hydrex runs a modified ve(3,3)-style incentive engine, where weekly community governance directs HYDX emissions and protocol revenue to the most productive liquidity and trading volume.

Locked token account holders can capture 100% of fees generated by Hydrex LP through weekly distributions, plus partner incentives, forming a tight flywheel that rewards long-term commitment.

Hydrex has some very cool features, such as single-signature token swaps and liquidity provision, automated liquidity managers, and backing HYDX emissions with real reserve contributions.

SwapRoyale

Yes, we do agree that perpetual contracts are one of crypto's "Four Horsemen," but have you tried the DraftKings version?

SwapRoyale brings something particularly attractive to the concept of trading, and it is indeed one of the most interesting projects currently being built on the Base network.

Chart: Source: SwapRoyale

SwapRoyale is a fantasy trading competition app currently in iOS public beta. Users pay a fixed entry fee to receive a $100,000 virtual portfolio and participate in real-time trading competitions.

At a time when consumer apps are finally starting to win the market (fomo is the most obvious recent proof), SwapRoyale is one of the purest expressions of this thesis: take something people already love (trading), wrap it in a competitive, skill-based format, and make the UX smooth.

Here's how it works:

• Users sign up with email
• Wallet is automatically created
• Fund via Coinbase, Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, debit card, or any crypto wallet
• Zero platform fees for deposits and withdrawals
• Users can view and join competitions: available assets, prize pools, payout structures, duration, maximum number of trades, and minimum participants

There are three competition formats:

• Guaranteed Prize Pool (GPP)—high volatility, big prizes
• Double/Triple Up—low volatility, stability play
• Free competitions to practice the format risk-free

SwapRoyale currently has over 300 daily players, has paid out over $100,000 in prizes, and has over 1,500 paying players.

More integrations are being added to enhance player experience, covering rewards, engagement, and ease of use.

These integrations will bring a full 76-badge system (with interactive 3D collectibles, a revamped streak mechanism, and richer sharing), weekly Megapot draws (free entry tickets, real-time prize pool tracking, prizes backed by real tickets), and partner rewards redeemable through Trove, Moonshot, and Beezie.

It is also adding Blink instant deposits, a more refined onboarding experience, and a comprehensive UX overhaul across the app: new navigation system, unified leaderboards, smoother gestures, haptic feedback, sound effects, animations, and a redesigned sharing flow.

This product has already shown strong product-market fit and is definitely worth keeping an eye on as it progresses.

BlockRun

The on-chain agent economy is being built on Base, and this is far more than a slogan.

We have witnessed the most innovative on-chain AI launching on Base, with x402 being one of the key innovations.

BlockRun adds to these exciting projects as the routing and payment layer for the agent economy.

BlockRun is a permissionless AI gateway that allows autonomous systems to discover, pay for, and execute services without API keys, subscriptions, or credit cards.

Through BlockRun, agents can fund a non-custodial wallet with USDC on Base, call any endpoint, and have payments embedded directly into HTTP requests via the x402 protocol, settling in a single round trip.

Through BlockRun, users can enjoy true metered intelligence, paying only for what they actually use.

Payments settle instantly in USDC, and agents operate at internet speed, unencumbered by the friction of traditional API billing.

PixieChess

We also discovered a magical real-money chess game built on Base: every piece is a collectible NFT with unique abilities that rewrite classic rules.

It's called PixieChess. Players assemble their board from their own collection, then either climb the ladder or burn pieces to enter high-stakes tournaments and matches.

PixieChess is built so that all value stays within the system. Every sale funds the treasury, which in turn funds prizes, allowing winners to take home real ETH.

PixieChess is based on classic chess: White moves first, players alternate turns, moving one piece at a time. Castling, en passant, and pawn promotion follow standard rules (unless a piece's special ability overrides them).

The goal is to checkmate the opponent's king. However, stalemate, mutual agreement, the 50-move rule (no captures or pawn moves), threefold repetition, or insufficient material all result in a draw.

Each player has a chess clock that only runs on their turn. Running out of time usually means a loss (unless the opponent has insufficient material to checkmate, in which case it's a draw).

I'm not much of a chess player, but this is really cool and has the potential to break out of the CT (Crypto Twitter) echo chamber.

Tokensto

Almost everyone familiar with AI has experienced this "moment of clarity": paying electricity-bill-like money for an AI product you thought was really great, only to end up with a pile of unused tokens.

Or maybe it's not just disappointment—maybe you've accumulated a large amount of tokens, only to see a competitor's viral launch video, and the competitor happens to be 10 times better than the one you subscribed to.

Tokensto solves this problem: it lets users turn idle AI tokens into cash. It's a fairly simple and straightforward product built on the Base network.

Users paste a provider key (OpenRouter, Venice, or any OpenAI-compatible URL), it gets listed; if the price is competitive enough, it gets bought, and the proceeds go directly to the user's wallet.

The technology is powered by Surplus (an open inference market), Usdctofiat automatically prices each listing at the top of the order book, and users can withdraw funds directly to off-chain banking apps via Peer (a permissionless on/off-ramp protocol).

The data shows users are buying in, and it's only a matter of time before it explodes.

Thoughts

Our visit to Base revealed a MetaDEX designed for tighter incentive alignment, a skill-based fantasy trading app that turns market intuition into competition, an agent payment layer that removes the friction of traditional API billing, a magical chess game that rewrites rules with collectible pieces while keeping value circulating within the system, and a platform that can sell idle AI tokens for cash.

Not all of these experiments will become category-defining successes, but they show that builders on Base are still willing to explore consumer experiences, the agent economy, and novel game mechanics, rather than simply chasing the next speculative flywheel.

This means that the surface area of interesting on-chain activity is still wider than current consensus admits.

As trading volume quietly flows in and the "pivot to crypto" rhetoric grows louder, we believe more projects will surface. We can only hope that this time is different, and that more than just a few apps truly break out of the CT echo chamber.

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