Base Protocol Leader: The goal of Base is to chain the world, and it holds over 100,000 ETH

The head of the Base protocol, jesse.base.eth, posted on X expressing further thoughts on the issue of "whether BASE sends all serializer fees to CEX for sale":

"1. Purity tests like 'do you hold all the ETH you earn' are a distraction and harmful to Ethereum. Overemphasis on this kind of moral signaling distracts us from our real work, which is building products that people love and creating sustainable economic systems that allow more people to do the same.

2. The goal of Base is to bring the world onto the chain. We believe that the best way to achieve this goal is by building a sustainable economic engine capable of funding this global growth. And we believe we need more businesses built on-chain who can do just that.

3. For us, this means finding ways to generate income and then reinvesting what we earn into growth - salaries, grants, acquisitions, infrastructure; allocating about 15% of our revenue through Optimism for public product funds; one-off things like sponsoring solady's audit; and much more besides. Our primary task is building excellent products and vibrant economies—we will put everything we can into achieving this goal. Spending money on growth is good—it should be celebrated!

4.At the same time, we also think holding ETH (we hold over 100k) has value in reinforcing its role as a store of value and sharing in potential upside created during our build process on Ethereum—but it’s a privilege earned through our ability to provide value.This isn't supposed to be some sort-of “solution” people should focus their attention towards but rather an end state for ETH as an asset—earned through utility & productivity.

5.We recognize that all these aren’t as transparent as they could possibly be—our quarterly reports are structured around US-listed companies.But with Base becoming increasingly decentralized as a global chain economy ,we’re working hard at moving more operational activities onto-chain (suppliers, contractors etc.) so they can be immediately visible rather than following the quarterly rhythm of the off-chain world."