Base's Trencher grants offer meme leaders up to $5,000
What's the deal? BaseDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the Coinbase-backed blockchain, has launched the Trencher Grant Program, offering up to $5,000 in community funding to meme-community leaders and event organizers. The program was unveiled at the Base Meme Summit on October 22, alongside a GMGN Global Championship Base track. The grant size is small, and the overall fund size is undisclosed.
Why now? Base says its total value locked has surpassed Solana, making it the second-largest crypto ecosystem. Chief executive Jesse Pollak used the summit to map out the next phase, naming tokenized stocks, Chinese community expansion, and reduced reliance on Coinbase listings as priorities.
What's the endgame? The Trencher program is an ecosystem-building play aimed at growing Base's community rather than funding products. It follows the August Builder Grant, which also offers up to $5,000 but targets live products with technical, product, and go-to-market support.
What could go wrong? Pollak has warned that some projects treat Coinbase listings as the ultimate benchmark, a dependency he wants to reduce. Veteran communities raised a harder question at the summit: what happens after the hype fades, when products and brands still need to move forward.
The signal: For a network already powering more than $25 million in daily meme-token volume, small grants are less about capital and more about retention. Base is betting that nurturing community leaders — not just developers — keeps its ecosystem alive once speculative attention rotates elsewhere.
Read more: coinfomania.com
Image credit: Nat W
