Tso Thoughts | May 2026, The Blockchain for Global Finance
Welcome to the Tso Thoughts newsletter! Every month, I curate my best thoughts, ideas, and observations on crypto and the industry at large.
Where the World Transacts Onchain
The Canadian dollar is now onchain
CADD by @TetraDigitalGrp is the first regulated CAD stablecoin on @base – giving institutions a fast, programmable payment rail
The global payment system is being rebuilt, one currency at a time
Another stablecoin joined Base last week
CADD - the first regulated Canadian dollar stablecoin
The world is moving onchain
Asset issuance is the game
@base is playing to win it
The best teams building next gen products around onchain assets are all on @base
Base rails keep reaching more users, agents, markets, enterprises, and institutions
Base is the blockchain for global finance
Built by @coinbase, trusted by leading institutions, and open to all
Looking for a place for everything Base?
Our site has it all
Where the world transacts onchain
@base is #1 across the metrics that matter most
Base allows you to:
- Power your platform with embedded trading and asset tokenization
- Enable global, low-fee payments for your business with instant settlement
- Monetize your services, fund agent wallets, and set spend guardrails
Base is the platform for financial transactions at scale:
- Instant, low-cost, 24/7
- Always-on liquid markets
- Secure and trusted
- A bridge, not an island
Sub-second transactions for fractions of a cent
Always on, always fast, from anywhere in the world
That’s how money moves on @base
How money should move, is how it does on Base
While Wall Street was closed yesterday, @base stayed open for business
Onchain never sleeps
Very excited about this integration!
Every time someone pays with crypto on a @meshpay-powered checkout, @base will be the settlement network
We're expanding our integration with @base.
Base has one of the largest consumer ecosystems in crypto. Now enterprises using Mesh can give their users the kind of seamless experience they expect from any modern payments product — moving value to and from Base without the manual
Every asset class is going to be tokenized on @base
Tokenization is hard to get right but is the best path to fulfill the full potential of crypto. We're finally seeing things happen that we could have only dreamed about a few years ago.
The blockchain for global finance
That’s what we’re building at @base
Our mission is to build the blockchain for global finance
To do that, we must upgrade the @base chain for markets, payments, and agents
Then we let builders do what they do best: build new apps, assets, and markets
Consumers pay in USDC on @base
Merchants settle in USD via @Checkout
Stablecoins, meet checkout.
@Checkout is rolling out stablecoin acceptance to all eligible enterprises in their network of 1,000+ merchants.
→ USDC + USDT
→ USD settlement
→ No crypto integration required
→ Live across nearly 50 countries
All powered by Coinbase Payments.
One of the largest payment networks on earth, @Mastercard, is rolling out 24/7 global stablecoin settlement on @base
3.7 billion cards, 210+ countries, now always-on for cross-border payments, liquidity management, and treasury
The future of finance runs on Base
Mastercard is going onchain with Base
With their expanded settlement capabilities now including stablecoins at a global scale
The future of payments is onchain
Excited to see @Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin on @base
Institutional-grade stablecoins just went multichain.
@Ripple's RLUSD is now live across ecosystems via Wormhole's Native Token Transfers (NTT) — the standard trusted by 100+ assets across 40+ chains.
Compliant. Native. Multichain.
Modern Treasury Base
Businesses on @ModernTreasury can now send and receive USDC payments on @base while continuing to manage compliance, accounts, ledgering, and payments alongside traditional financial systems
Base is for enterprises
Move money, reconcile, and manage compliance all in one system
Starting today, @ModernTreasury supports USDC on Base, allowing teams to connect their financial operations with onchain payments
The Home of Onchain Trading and DeFi
The ultimate DEX aggregator on @base is here and it’s already outperforming the benchmark
Trade with the best quotes on every chain using our meta DEX aggregator: swap.o1.exchange
ONCHAIN EVERYTHING EXCHANGE.
PropAMMs are coming to @base
Excited for @baibai_cx’s launch!
The @DefinitiveFi team rebuilt their entire mobile experience from the ground up to make it way more retail-friendly
Every order type, every chain, fully abstracted UX, fiat on-ramp, and a lot more
Trading on @base just got a whole lot easier
The new Definitive Mobile App is LIVE.
Access pre-IPO markets 24/7.
Trade BTC, ETH, SOL with 0 fees.
Swap any token to any token.
Every asset. Every chain. One app.
Base has the highest net capital inflow of any blockchain
Follow the liquidity, follow where activity is going
It's @base szn.
Base will be the home of onchain trading and DeFi
Base on the up
Base has deep liquidity and high-quality assets around the clock
More coming soon
The sole reason why volume are sticky on @base in a bear market is because of major assets on Ethereum.
Once we have tokenized equities onchain, we shall at least 10x that volume easily.
Base is the home of onchain trading and DeFi
Base is #1 by 24H DEX volume
The @base effect
To accommodate increasing demand, the supply cap for @coinbase cbETH has been raised on Aave's @base market.
Pump(.)fun now live on @base
The pump fun app just got BIGGER!
Introducing frictionless multichain trading: trade Ethereum, Base, BNB, and more on the pump fun app now
One wallet, one currency, more chains. Join now
Revenue share and acquisition upside from AI startups with real revenue
Now accessible onchain via @JoinPond on @base
Introducing Pond Markets.
Back startup with stablecoins for equity.
Startups share upside with backers through:
- Revenue sharing
- Future acquisitions
You are not just using AI.
You now own it.
Explore the first round of a $9.5k revenue startup:
Base is the best chain for trading, payments, and agents
still have a lot of work to do, but exciting to see base's progress and current adoption in core onchain categories:
Trading: #1 in BTC & ETH spot volume
USD Payments: #1 in monthly USDC transfer volume
Non-USD Payments: #1 in non-USD stablecoin transfer volume
Agentic Payments:
Launch your asset on @base and reach millions of users through @coinbase and the broader Base ecosystem
base is now also #1 in dex volume
if you are looking to bridge or issue new high quality assets reach out
Crypto derivatives account for 80% of global crypto trading volume and are a trillion dollar market that US users have had no regulated way to access
Today that changes
@coinbase is now the first regulated FCM to connect US users to global crypto options and perps liquidity
We're bringing global crypto derivatives to the U.S.
Coinbase is the first regulated company to bring global crypto options & perpetual futures to the States, thanks to @CFTC.
→ Tap the deepest crypto options & perps liquidity
→ Access >$31B BTC options OI via Deribit
→
Moby is a new all-in-one investing app on @base by @mattdorta
@mobyagent analyzes thousands of top-performing wallets in real time to surface what smart money is trading and help you decide faster and invest with conviction
Try Moby today and start winning
This week’s spotlight is @mobyagent by @mattdorta
Moby is an investing wallet that helps you spot opportunities with smart-money signals, alerts, and AI insights
It brings discovery, validation, and trading into one clean interface so you can move with more clarity
Ethena and @base are joining forces to grow onchain finance
Ethena and @coinbase have partnered to grow onchain finance and savings products for their 100m+ userbase, with the first growth initiative launching next week.
Alongside this partnership Coinbase Ventures have also made their first investment into Ethena on the open market.
It’s @o1_exchange season
"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others." -Jonathan Swift
We hope you can see it with us.
Onchain Everything Exchange.
Financial Infrastructure for AI Agents
Base has been pretty consistent with being ahead of the curve on crypto x AI
Base has been pretty consistent with being ahead of the curve on crypto x AI
Base is quickly establishing itself as the onchain home for crypto x AI innovation
Interesting
The AI character economy starts now on @base
Proud to support @Gon0x_, @0xNaxo, and @0xJuan__ as they build toward a shared universe where users, creators, and agents interact
Millions spend hours with AI characters.
But characters forget, creators don't earn, and the best experiences sit behind paywalls.
We raised $1.5M to build the character economy with @lattice_fund, @cbventures' Base Ecosystem Fund, @JME_Ventures; bootstrapped by @worldcoinfnd.
AI agents are now financing drug discovery experiments end-to-end with @BioProtocol and x402 on @base
Say hello to @peptai_, a fleet of autonomous AI agents for peptide drug discovery, now live on @base
Each agent targets a single receptor, runs the full nine-gate pipeline 24/7, and pays for its own wet-lab experiments via x402.
x402 and @USDC on @base are the standard for agentic commerce
Over $50M has now been spent on services by agents using x402
More than 85% of it happened on Base
The agentic economy is here
Agentic(.)market takes it to the next level with an agent-to-agent marketplace on @base
The agentic economy isn't the future
It's already happening now
AI on @base
was anybody else aware that the @baseapp trenches look like this rn???
Search is a core primitive for agents that need to read the web and keep their context up to date
@tavilyai is now live on x402, letting AI agents pay for fresh web search at runtime using only a wallet on @base
The next billion agents will pay for services fully autonomously
We're excited to announce our partnership with @coinbase to bring Tavily to x402, the open protocol for internet-native agentic payments.
With x402, agents can discover and use Tavily web search at runtime without an API key. Agents use a @Base wallet to pay per-request and get
The agentic economy runs on @base
Meet @FranklinRun_
Your AI agent that can pay and get paid with @USDC on @base, powered by @BlockRunAI
Don't fight AI. Own it.
Use @FranklinRun_ to create value — an AI agent with its own wallet, pay-as-you-go.
Bought you by @BlockRunAI
Private inference from @AskVenice, combined with @virtuals_io agent infrastructure across payments, commerce, funding rails, and launch infrastructure
AI agent building on @base is now more accessible than ever
Virtuals Protocol is integrating @AskVenice to power AI agent building with private, uncensored inference, available to anyone, anywhere on @base.
Venice brings best-in-class privacy-first inference. Virtuals EconomyOS brings the full agent infrastructure stack: wallets,
Ship a strategy, skill, policy, or tool on @AIWayfinder
Earn PROMPT every time it installs
Paths: the plugin marketplace for onchain agents
Install or publish skills, scripts, and trading strategies to extend your agent’s capabilities
Use them in our new trading UX, or in your preferred coding agent
Secured by Builder + Staker collateral
Built on @base
New Ways to Trade Your Takes
When can I long the trend @noise_xyz-maxxing?
Find out what's moving the world
@noise_xyz is the open market for everything that trends
Brands, ideas, artists, you name it
Built on Base
Noise is a new form of media by @lucacs and @gabri3l where what spreads is decided by an open market, not an algorithm
@noise_xyz creates real-time markets for ideas, brands, and trends, and their value is driven by mindshare
A new way to understand relevance is here on @base
This week’s spotlight is @noise_xyz by @lucacs and @gabri3l
Noise is a trading platform for relevance, where people can go long or short on trends, brands, and ideas
It blends real-time social signals with market activity to reveal what the internet is paying attention to
Predict with friends on iMessage
Built using sdk(.)markets on @base
your group chat has opinions. now it has markets.
predict with friends
on iMessage
PRED is a sports prediction exchange by @AMahensaria, @nikarpit, and @piyushmahen
Live sports move at incredible speed and prediction markets are not optimized for this
@predofficial is a platform on @base fast enough, with enough liquidity, to match the speed of sport itself
This week’s spotlight is @predofficial by @nikarpit
Pred is a sports prediction exchange where users trade on outcomes with fast execution and low spreads
It’s built for discovery first, letting people find markets, make calls, and trade like assets
Great analysis by the @longshotxyz team
Don’t just predict the market
Create a market on @base with @trylimitless
User-Generated Markets are LIVE on Limitless
We’re fundamentally reshaping how users interact with prediction markets:
1. Pick an asset
2. Choose an outcome
3. Launch a market
Every creator earns a fee share from its trading activity
Create yours → limitless.is/ugm
Every local @base region now has its own league on @sportfun
Join the Summer of Football
Summer of Football is almost here on @base
Build your squad, join your local league, and compete for a share of the grand prize. Your skill will make a difference.
Join now
PRED is officially out of beta, right in time for the World Cup
Open for all on @base for true sports fans
After $5Mn+ in private beta volume...
PRED, the sports-native prediction market backed by @Accel and @cbventures is now "Open for All".
$200K in prizes for FIFA World Cup. Get in now & start trading.
More details soon
Backing Ambitious Founders
Trading, payments, and builders are the backbone of @base’s onchain economy
“ @base is awesome because it feels like an organic family of builders, of different entrepreneurs
Definitely have given us tremendous feedback on how to shape product and to position ourselves
A whole ton of opportunities for us to meet users where they are”
Meet @retrimentum from @upshot_cards
From selling World of Warcraft Gold, to building prediction markets on Base in the form of digital trading cards
This is his story ↓
1,100+ applicants
12 teams made the cut
Meet the @base batches 003 cohort
Meet the founders building the most innovative startups on Base
12 teams, all presenting at Demo Day on May 19th
The Base Batches 003 cohort ↓
Incubate winners
Accelerate them
That’s @base batches
Base wins because:
- Our best marketers are users and founders
- Our best bd are ecosystem teams and leaders
Build something people want to be a part of
“We’ve been with @base since day one, and we were the first investment out of BEF
In an area such as DeFi and perps, where it’s very competitive, we made a bet that Base would unlock distribution to bring new traders onto our platform
It’s done exactly that”
Meet @raymdong from @avantisfi
From a love of building that started with Legos, to building Avantis - the universal leverage layer on Base
This is his story
Build, launch, and grow on @base
A peek behind the curtain at Demo Day
Base is for builders
A few early stage founders at Demo Day
YC startups can now receive gas, grants, and guidance to build amazing products on @base
Announcing YC Crypto deals
We're now providing crypto deals to support fintech builders funded by YC: support on tools like wallets, onramps, audits, blockchains, onchain data.
Launch on @base
Scale with @coinbase
Builders in Southeast Asia, this is for you
@base’s first SEA accelerator in collaboration with @newcampushq is now live
Introducing Circuit Accelerator - @baseapac is supporting @newcampushq to launch a Southeast Asia-based accelerator program focused on getting funding for startups that are ready to take the next step in their growth phase.
Throughout the 1 month high-touch program, founders
Base Batches is our accelerator program that helps the top @base builders kickstart their businesses
1200 teams applied -> 12 teams accepted
Here are the 12 core teams and their pitches from Batch 003
Last week marked the conclusion of Base Batches 003
Some of the most innovative teams on Base presented to a room full of VCs, angels and partners during Demo Day
Part 1 of pitches from the startup track teams ↓
The next wave of entrepreneurs is building on @base
Part 2 of pitches from the startup track teams ↓
A new permanent home at @ns for @base builders in Asia
Base is for everyone
A new chapter for builders on @base in Asia
We’ve officially opened the Base Builder’s Loft at @ns
— with support from @balajis — bringing together builders, founders, investors, creators, and the onchain community shaping what’s next.
If you’re building on @base, the doors
“We love @base for a lot of reasons
The Base ecosystem is one of the very few places where pure meritocracy is rewarded, so all you need to do is stay focused on building the best product
The Base team has very elite backgrounds, private equity, VC, investment banking, a lot of
Meet @stambouli_o1 from @o1_exchange
From using Legos before he could speak, to building a non-custodial trading platform on Base, where you can run event strategies over any asset
This is his story
Base is where crypto’s most interesting products are built
Everything from stablecoins, prediction markets, perps, DeFi, to AI
Tweets of the Month
JUST IN: the @base ecosystem ships
Build on @base
Create on Base
Trade on Base
Grow on Base
_____ on Base
Real
If you’re building a great utility/tech/AI project, and even better a real-world company using blockchain rails.
you should build it on @base or you’re doing yourself a disservice.
@Base is the home for fundamentals.
No better chain to be a builder on, hands down.
Drake really got the @base intern tweeting at 1 am on a Thursday night
Baseman
3 Drake albums, NBA Finals, World Cup, x402, @base
It’s gonna be a great summer
BUILD ON
How the @base ecosystem is moving this week
Base is proudly built on Ethereum with the same focus on security powering @coinbase products
Another week, another W for the @base ecosystem
You can just build things on @base
now feels like the best time to build on @base.
you can just build things, while @bankrbot and @clanker_world handle the tokenized layer for you.
you do not need to worry about token price every day.
just keep shipping, keep creating value, and the upside can come from real
Being on @base feels like being a part of a championship team in the playoffs rn
Base summer isn’t slowing down
The energy on @base is electric and we haven’t even shipped half of what’s coming
It’s going to be a Base summer
Massive shoutout to all the teams shipping nonstop in the @base ecosystem
Proud to be building alongside y’all
Don’t be afraid of bear markets
The best successes come out of bear markets
If the American Dream is out of reach, the system is broken
It’s time to take control
Take control.
New assets. New ways to trade.
And 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦.
June 16. 3PM ET.
Consumer Apps / Experiences I Liked
Get rich playing @PixieChess or die having lots of fun tryin’
A look at upcoming @PixieChess tournaments!
Uptopia is powering the next generation of onchain gaming on @base
Seamless developer tools, AI-driven middleware, and an integrated ecosystem to launch, scale, and operate games from a single stack
@Uptopia_xyz is based
Combining gaming, apps and AI
@uptopia_xyz is building the GameAI Marketplace on Base
Our app of the week!
PokerFi
we tokenized the deck. poker is an option market now.
something nobody asked for. everyone's about to want.
graduated from @yzilabs EASY Residency S3.
pokerfi
So @itstuyo launched a card on @base where some of your purchases are just randomly free
This isn’t a time-limited promo, this is how Tuyo works
Cashback is dead
What if your next purchase was free?
@itstuyo is a money app on Base with a card where every swipe might cost you nothing
Buy now, pay maybe
Nook is a high-yield earnings app by @Joey_Isaacson that gives everyday people access to the same rates that were once reserved for institutions
@nook_platform does this by connecting you to money markets on @base in a simple and trusted way
Earn up to 7.6% APY and higher today
This week’s spotlight is @nook_platform by @Joey_Isaacson
Nook helps users put idle cash to work through a simple, mobile-first savings experience
It makes earning yield feel easier with a clean flow for depositing and growing balances
The European Final is here
Pick your side and back your club on @base
Chiliz - The Sports Blockchain
The Ultimate Showdown is happening on @Base.
$10,000 in @FanTokens ™ rewards are up for grabs on @AerodromeFi.
cbXRP on @base is now accepted collateral for the @Exa_App Credit Card, powered by @ExactlyProtocol
Spend against your position at 150M+ Visa merchants without touching your stack
New for XRP holders → Get liquidity without the exit.
Access the value of your XRP and keep your position with the Exa Credit Card.
Use XRP, BTC, ETH, USDC to access credit
Accepted at 150M Visa merchants
Choose your payment plan
Unlock instant credit on Uphold
Welcome to the @baseapp, @glider__
Glider is now live in the Base App
Your stocks, your crypto, your gold, all working together in one portfolio.
Available to anyone, anywhere.
Only the best @base traders win on @SwapRoyale, are you one of them?
Everyone starts with the same portfolio on SwapRoyale.
Same capital. Same data. Same clock.
When the only variable is the read, the leaderboard becomes the only honest measure of skill in trading.
SwapRoyale brings fantasy trading contests to @base
Pay a fixed entry fee, trade a virtual $100K portfolio at real-time prices, and compete on a level playing field
Top finishers win real cash prizes daily
Prove you're the best trader
@SwapRoyale has built skill-based fantasy trading on Base, where top performers win real prizes
Our latest app of the week!
Play @RemixGG_ games for a chance to win big on @base
It’s that simple
Season 1 on Remix is LIVE with $30,000 in prizes!
1. Earn sweepstakes tickets by playing games
2. Pick which sweepstakes you want to enter
3. Get a little lucky
We're giving away cash, PS5's, iPhones, and more over the next 6 weeks.
A loot box is already waiting for you, open
Get exposure to the NBA Finals, World Cup, and all major sports events through @playminiapp on @base
SPORTS CLUB* Beta is LIVE!
AI-First Daily Fantasy Sports on @Base.
Your AI Autobot can find a unique edge, create your lineup, and trade cards on the marketplace.
No sports knowledge required.
Grail is for everyone
We got gtokens, NFTs and real world collectibles
Grail.xyz is for everyone
or
Drop your pick in the comments
Who you got?
Infrastructure / Tooling Updates
Base is building the native infrastructure for the agentic economy
@base MCP allows you to connect your agent to your Base Account to swap, transfer, track, and use leading apps in the Base ecosystem
Introducing Base MCP
Your agent's new gateway to Base
→ Connect an agent to your Base Account
→ Enable it to swap, trade, and manage your portfolio
→ Use plugins from leading apps on Base
The next stage of the agentic onchain economy
Looking to be a part of @base MCP as a plugin?
Details below in the docs
Agents Base
A thread of projects supporting Base MCP on day one
Many more to come ↓
If agents are going private on @base they will use @Veildotcash
Agents have been able to transact privately on Base via our CLI for a few weeks now.....
But we've shipped "Veil MCP" to make it even easier to get your agents private with the new @base MCP.
Point your agent to our Github to get started:
The whole @base stack
Proofs, consensus, execution, builder, flashblocks, batcher...
Rebuilt for global finance
Base Azul is officially live on mainnet
This upgrade makes Base even faster and more secure
Making it ready to be the home of global finance
Private x402 payments for agents on @base
Powered by @Veildotcash MCP
Veil MCP 0.2.0 is live
Agents can now make private x402 payments on @base
Pay any x402 endpoint from the Veil shielded USDC pool, no wallet link exposed.
Runs alongside the @base MCP.
Install: npx -y @veil-cash/mcp
or point your agent at our github:
More projects supporting @base MCP coming your way
LFG
on track to officially announce the full stack for programmatic @BaselineMarkets token deployments next week
sdk, cli + skills for @base mcp, @aeonframework and @bankrbot to start
And that’s my monthly roundup! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and follow me to stay in the loop.
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Tso Thoughts | May 2026, The Blockchain for Global Finance
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