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"The trenches" is the term for high-risk investments (some say gambling) in new memecoins. It's easy to buy memecoins on exchanges such as Coinbase. But by the time coins are listed, they already made 1000x gains. Catching these memecoins early is the goal of trench warriors. In this guide, you'll learn everything you need to join memecoin trenches on Base, the chain by Coinbase.
Base is an Ethereum Layer-2 chain by Coinbase.
Without going into tech details, Base is a cheaper version of Ethereum. Trading on mainnet Ethereum can be costly, ranging from $5 to $100s during busy periods. It's also slow, a transaction can take from 10 seconds to up to 30 minutes.
On Base, trading is cheap and fast. It's even cheaper than Solana. And Base is more reliable.
Most importantly, Base has the support of Coinbase, the world's leading crypto exchange. This means that coins that start on Base have higher chances of getting listed, potentially giving you that sweet 1000x gains.
One example is DEGEN. It was airdropped for free on Base to active users of Farcaster. Since then it did a spectacular run from 0 to $300M market cap, down -80%, then up and won a listing on Coinbase.
DEGEN is likely only the fist of Base memecoins to go to Coinbbase.
Now let's see how to actually get started.
In memecoin trenches you operate onchain.
This means coins are traded directly on the blockchain, not on a centralized exchange like Coinbase. To trade, you need 2 things: a wallet and a decentralized exchange.
You have lots of options for wallets. But you need a self-custodial wallet, not an exchange account.
In this guide, I'll show Zerion Wallet, which I use:
Great portfolio tracking, including your P&L if you buy Premium
Detailed transaction history
Fast mobile browser that lets you trade on the go on any DEX
Zerion has a mobile app and a desktop version. Get both so you can trade on the go. Use my link to install it so I might get some points.
After installing, here is what you need to do:
Create a wallet
Save your seed phrase
Get some ETH on Base network. The cheapest way is to buy on Coinbase/other exchange and withdraw.
If you have questions, check Zerion's help.
But if you need a lot of handholding with this, sorry the trenches are likely not for you. You need to be able to think fast and figure shit out.
New memecoins are traded on decentralized exchanges (DEXes).
Unlike on Coinbase and other regular exchanges, on DEXes any random shit can is available for trading.
On Base, the main exchange is Uniswap. But when you trade on their website, they charge you additional fees.
Instead, go with a DEX aggregator: Matcha.xyz
They give you a good price and low or zero fees.
To trade in Zerion on mobile, open Matcha in Zerion's built-in browser and connect wallet.
Ok, now we get to the most interesting. How to find new hot memecoins?
There are 3 main ways of finding new coins:
Launchpads where they are created
Coin price trackers
Following other traders
The best memecoins are launched on launchpads, giving everyone a chance to buy early and cheaply.
The process to create a coin is:
Someone comes up with a funny picture, name, and ticker
Others buy it at increasing price (bonding curve) up to a certain market cap. Trading is done only between people on the platform.
Once this market cap is reached, the memecoin "graduates" and a liquidity pool is created on a DEX. At this point, anybody in the world (including bots) can trade
You can try to buy coins in bonding curves or buy graduated on DEXes. The earlier you are, the bigger potential profit you can make. If you enter a new coin at a $100k market cap, and it goes to $10m, you make a 100x return.
But being early is also very risky.
A new memecoin can go to zero if everybody sells and no new buyers come in. Most coins die, never reaching $1m MC.
On Solana, the best-known launchpad is pump.fun. However, Base doesn't yet have a dominant launchpad, all of them are small:
At some point, coins get listed on price tracking sites.
Some memecoins are launched by 'cabals' (insiders) and unlike launchpad coins, cabal memecoins reach coin tracking sites fast.
It's the best tracking site, it's price feed use many wallets and apps. Getting a listing on Coingecko (CG) is kinda complicated and they don't automatically list everything.
You can find trending coins — those are usually, larger market caps >$30m. But they are still early.
Coingecko also has GeckoTerminal, which is aimed at trench warriors. For example, there you can find new liquidity pools on Base.
That's another major site, owned by Binance. I don't use it but the idea is the same: you can check out trending coins. They also have a useful list of trending DEX pools.
This is where trenchers spend most of their waking hours.
Unlike CG and CMC, DEXScreener (DS) lists anything and everything. They are also happy to take money from any scammers who run ads there.
DS list of trending Base coins is a great way to find new hot memecoins early. Keep in mind, that the trending list can also be manipulated.
The only thing that cannot be faked is real buying by real users — you watch them too.
Several apps give you the ability to follow others' wallet addresses and get alerts when they trade. Below are two apps I use.
That's your wallet. You can also follow any address. Just enter it in a search field and tap follow. You can look up that address's history and see what else they hold in their portfolio.
Similarly, you can follow addresses in Interface. You can also see Farcaster handles in holders and stalk them to see who they are.
You can also find lots of social media information on:
Telegram
Discord
BUT all these sites are infested with scammers of all sorts. Trust nobody.
Which gets us to the next point.
It's not easy to make 100x in memecoins... but it is very easy to lose 100%.
Basic rules:
never share your seed phrase or private key with anyone
don't connect to random new sites, including new untested launchpads
don't accept any help from anyone, they are 100% scammers
You will get scammed, so better accept that. This includes:
Buying a coin that looks good and goes -95% because insiders sell or withdraw liquidity (rug pull)
Buying a scam coin that is programmed to never be sold
Buying a scam coin that automatically leaves your wallet
Buying a fake scam version of a real memecoin
There are lots of attack vectors, this is a topic worthy of a separate post.
Slippage is the difference between the value of your ETH and the value of memecoins you're buying and selling.
Think of it like a spread. But it's much bigger and can be up to 50% (yes, that bad).
This is because most new memecoins are very illiquid. There is not a lot of buyers and sellers on both sides. Usually everybody wants to buy or sell. If you're with them, you pay the price in slippage.
High slippage means that making "quick profits" of 20-30% is a losing strategy. Slippage will eat that fast.
You take a risk of losing 95% on each trade. You need to swing for the fences and do 2-3x before selling anything.
This post covered the basics of operating in Base trenches.
You can only learn the rest of it by doing. You will likely lose money. But you can also make fast profits. That's adictive, be warned.
Now, welcome to the trenches.
Sign up to this new newsletter to get more posts like this.
"The trenches" is the term for high-risk investments (some say gambling) in new memecoins. It's easy to buy memecoins on exchanges such as Coinbase. But by the time coins are listed, they already made 1000x gains. Catching these memecoins early is the goal of trench warriors. In this guide, you'll learn everything you need to join memecoin trenches on Base, the chain by Coinbase.
Base is an Ethereum Layer-2 chain by Coinbase.
Without going into tech details, Base is a cheaper version of Ethereum. Trading on mainnet Ethereum can be costly, ranging from $5 to $100s during busy periods. It's also slow, a transaction can take from 10 seconds to up to 30 minutes.
On Base, trading is cheap and fast. It's even cheaper than Solana. And Base is more reliable.
Most importantly, Base has the support of Coinbase, the world's leading crypto exchange. This means that coins that start on Base have higher chances of getting listed, potentially giving you that sweet 1000x gains.
One example is DEGEN. It was airdropped for free on Base to active users of Farcaster. Since then it did a spectacular run from 0 to $300M market cap, down -80%, then up and won a listing on Coinbase.
DEGEN is likely only the fist of Base memecoins to go to Coinbbase.
Now let's see how to actually get started.
In memecoin trenches you operate onchain.
This means coins are traded directly on the blockchain, not on a centralized exchange like Coinbase. To trade, you need 2 things: a wallet and a decentralized exchange.
You have lots of options for wallets. But you need a self-custodial wallet, not an exchange account.
In this guide, I'll show Zerion Wallet, which I use:
Great portfolio tracking, including your P&L if you buy Premium
Detailed transaction history
Fast mobile browser that lets you trade on the go on any DEX
Zerion has a mobile app and a desktop version. Get both so you can trade on the go. Use my link to install it so I might get some points.
After installing, here is what you need to do:
Create a wallet
Save your seed phrase
Get some ETH on Base network. The cheapest way is to buy on Coinbase/other exchange and withdraw.
If you have questions, check Zerion's help.
But if you need a lot of handholding with this, sorry the trenches are likely not for you. You need to be able to think fast and figure shit out.
New memecoins are traded on decentralized exchanges (DEXes).
Unlike on Coinbase and other regular exchanges, on DEXes any random shit can is available for trading.
On Base, the main exchange is Uniswap. But when you trade on their website, they charge you additional fees.
Instead, go with a DEX aggregator: Matcha.xyz
They give you a good price and low or zero fees.
To trade in Zerion on mobile, open Matcha in Zerion's built-in browser and connect wallet.
Ok, now we get to the most interesting. How to find new hot memecoins?
There are 3 main ways of finding new coins:
Launchpads where they are created
Coin price trackers
Following other traders
The best memecoins are launched on launchpads, giving everyone a chance to buy early and cheaply.
The process to create a coin is:
Someone comes up with a funny picture, name, and ticker
Others buy it at increasing price (bonding curve) up to a certain market cap. Trading is done only between people on the platform.
Once this market cap is reached, the memecoin "graduates" and a liquidity pool is created on a DEX. At this point, anybody in the world (including bots) can trade
You can try to buy coins in bonding curves or buy graduated on DEXes. The earlier you are, the bigger potential profit you can make. If you enter a new coin at a $100k market cap, and it goes to $10m, you make a 100x return.
But being early is also very risky.
A new memecoin can go to zero if everybody sells and no new buyers come in. Most coins die, never reaching $1m MC.
On Solana, the best-known launchpad is pump.fun. However, Base doesn't yet have a dominant launchpad, all of them are small:
At some point, coins get listed on price tracking sites.
Some memecoins are launched by 'cabals' (insiders) and unlike launchpad coins, cabal memecoins reach coin tracking sites fast.
It's the best tracking site, it's price feed use many wallets and apps. Getting a listing on Coingecko (CG) is kinda complicated and they don't automatically list everything.
You can find trending coins — those are usually, larger market caps >$30m. But they are still early.
Coingecko also has GeckoTerminal, which is aimed at trench warriors. For example, there you can find new liquidity pools on Base.
That's another major site, owned by Binance. I don't use it but the idea is the same: you can check out trending coins. They also have a useful list of trending DEX pools.
This is where trenchers spend most of their waking hours.
Unlike CG and CMC, DEXScreener (DS) lists anything and everything. They are also happy to take money from any scammers who run ads there.
DS list of trending Base coins is a great way to find new hot memecoins early. Keep in mind, that the trending list can also be manipulated.
The only thing that cannot be faked is real buying by real users — you watch them too.
Several apps give you the ability to follow others' wallet addresses and get alerts when they trade. Below are two apps I use.
That's your wallet. You can also follow any address. Just enter it in a search field and tap follow. You can look up that address's history and see what else they hold in their portfolio.
Similarly, you can follow addresses in Interface. You can also see Farcaster handles in holders and stalk them to see who they are.
You can also find lots of social media information on:
Telegram
Discord
BUT all these sites are infested with scammers of all sorts. Trust nobody.
Which gets us to the next point.
It's not easy to make 100x in memecoins... but it is very easy to lose 100%.
Basic rules:
never share your seed phrase or private key with anyone
don't connect to random new sites, including new untested launchpads
don't accept any help from anyone, they are 100% scammers
You will get scammed, so better accept that. This includes:
Buying a coin that looks good and goes -95% because insiders sell or withdraw liquidity (rug pull)
Buying a scam coin that is programmed to never be sold
Buying a scam coin that automatically leaves your wallet
Buying a fake scam version of a real memecoin
There are lots of attack vectors, this is a topic worthy of a separate post.
Slippage is the difference between the value of your ETH and the value of memecoins you're buying and selling.
Think of it like a spread. But it's much bigger and can be up to 50% (yes, that bad).
This is because most new memecoins are very illiquid. There is not a lot of buyers and sellers on both sides. Usually everybody wants to buy or sell. If you're with them, you pay the price in slippage.
High slippage means that making "quick profits" of 20-30% is a losing strategy. Slippage will eat that fast.
You take a risk of losing 95% on each trade. You need to swing for the fences and do 2-3x before selling anything.
This post covered the basics of operating in Base trenches.
You can only learn the rest of it by doing. You will likely lose money. But you can also make fast profits. That's adictive, be warned.
Now, welcome to the trenches.
Sign up to this new newsletter to get more posts like this.
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