Jesse Pollak, the creator of Base, is facing increasing criticism after openly supporting a meme token believed to be linked to rapper Soulja Boy.
This incident reignites long-standing concerns about the involvement of celebrities in speculative cryptocurrency projects.
Base manager Jesse Pollak faced backlash when he introduced the meme token linked to Soulja Boy.
The spark of the discussion was ignited in mid-December with a series of posts made on X (Twitter). On December 13, Soulja Boy shared an image comparing the payment plans of content creators on major platforms and claimed that the profits of new applications are distributed more quickly.
The rapper wrote: 'Twitch pays once a month. TikTok pays once a week. Favorite pays every day. Choose your poison wisely.'
The following day, Jesse Pollak advanced this message by presenting Base as a new layer of earnings for creators, highlighting it as Coinbase's Ethereum Layer 2 network.
With this comment from Jesse Pollak, we see that he portrays on-chain tools as significantly more advantageous compared to traditional social platforms.
Then Pollak escalated the tension by directly responding to Soulja Boy. The crypto executive stated that he supported Soulja Boy on Base and was 'gaining instant profits', which he described as a behavior typical of the 'new internet'.
Pollak did not directly propose a token name in his posts, which is striking. Nevertheless, many users interpreted these discussions as an indirect endorsement of a meme token related to Soulja Boy and the rapper's presence in the cryptocurrency world in general.
ZachXBT Highlights Soulja Boy's Cryptocurrency History
This perception elicited a quick response from blockchain researcher ZachXBT. The seasoned detective questioned Pollak's engagement with Soulja Boy in such a manner.
ZachXBT posed the question: 'Why are you providing a platform for SouljaBoy to scam new people?'
ZachXBT referred to his research published in April 2023, which documented the rapper's malicious behaviors on platforms.
According to the research, Soulja Boy has participated in 73 different cryptocurrency promotions and 16 NFT launches so far. Allegedly, many of these projects ended in collapse, abandonment, or rug pull incidents.
The research repeatedly illustrates how the promoted tokens rapidly lose value after intense advertising and then the related promotional posts are deleted.
The researcher also pointed out the alleged regulatory and legal issues the rapper has faced in the past. These include allegations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) related to Tron campaigns and the SafeMoon case.
Beyond these, the research reveals that many NFT sales announced with Soulja Boy's future expectations were abandoned later, and some collections were removed from the cryptocurrency exchange due to intellectual property concerns.
According to critics, the issue is not limited to a single token. The interaction of figures like Pollak, who play a significant role in Base's public image, with such controversial figures can undermine trust in the overall ecosystem.
Base is positioned as a mainstream and regulation-compliant Layer 2 network supported by Coinbase. Therefore, the risk of reputational loss is a much more sensitive issue here.
This incident reignited a debate that is not foreign to the crypto world. When influential developers engage with projects of celebrities with troubled pasts, where does responsibility begin?
One user stated: 'Even if the intentions are slight, the trust risks grow rapidly when serious developers get close to those who are constantly promoting. It’s not the market tone, but the alignment that matters. When attention shifts from innovation to showiness, the signal weakens, and liquidity shifts according to perception.'
Advocates for open networks claim that in ecosystems that do not require permissions, anyone can launch projects and promote them on-chain.
However, for critics, such visibility from high-profile leaders can particularly signify an indirect endorsement for newcomers.
Reactions to Pollak demonstrate the increasing scrutiny of how major platforms balance transparency with careful examination. It also reveals how quickly past controversies resurface at the slightest sign of a trust crisis in the cryptocurrency market. The crypto world is in search of a new way to shape distributions influenced by content creator monetization models and meme culture.
