Franklin Templeton establishes foundation for significant involvement in SocialFi operations

Trillion-dollar asset manager Franklin Templeton predicts that the rise of Social Finance (SocialFi) apps heralds the arrival of the “Base Season,” with Base emerging as the leading Ethereum layer 2 platform in the vertical.
According to Franklin Templeton’s May report, Base is positioning itself as a frontrunner in the Ethereum L2 sector and is well-positioned to capture a significant portion of SocialFi activity.
Franklin Templeton’s data indicates that about 46% of SocialFi transactions occur on Base, which has been gaining market share against BNB Chain and Polygon in recent months.
The support from Coinbase has played a crucial role in Base’s success, enabling it to capture almost half of the SocialFi market share so far.
One notable SocialFi application built on Base is Friend.tech, which allows creators to connect and monetize their content through “key” shares or “tokenized attention.”
Franklin Templeton describes Base’s performance in the world of SocialFi as a “homerun” and expects it to continue being a key player in the vertical’s adoption and growth.
Apart from Base, other popular SocialFi blockchains and protocols include Theta Network, Decentralized Social, Fantasy.top, and Steem.
Franklin Templeton attributes Base’s increased network activity to the recent memecoin craze.
Base is currently the third largest Ethereum layer 2 network in terms of total value locked (TVL), with $5.4 billion, trailing Arbitrum One ($15.9 billion) and OP Mainnet ($6.90 billion), according to L2BEAT.
Base’s TVL has grown from $1 billion to $5.4 billion in less than three months, whereas Arbitrum One and OP Mainnet have seen a decline in their TVL over the past two months.
Coinbase launched Base in August last year and currently serves as the sole sequencer of the platform, giving the exchange full control. However, Coinbase plans to gradually decentralize Base in the future.
Base was built using Optimism’s OP stack and aims to provide a secure, cost-efficient, and developer-friendly environment for Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible applications.
In related news, a magazine report reveals that 1 in 6 new Base meme coins are scams, and 91% of them have vulnerabilities.