Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong simply helped deliver viral grassroots journalist Nick Shirley onto the Coinbase-led Ethereum Layer 2 base.
Final week, Shirley uncovered a multi-million greenback daycare rip-off in a video that went viral, garnering over 100 million impressions.
Shirley created and launched a verified creator coin on Base, named $thenickshirley, on December twenty eighth, and Armstrong shared the brand new launch on X, saying, “Right here we go, an excellent case examine of how content material might be higher monetized on Base in comparison with different platforms. Different platforms coming quickly.”
Shirley herself additionally responded to Armstrong, calling Bass and Zola “wonderful”.
Given the surprising activation and subsequent publicity sparked by Armstrong’s submit, $thenickshirley grew explosively from launch, rapidly growing its market cap to $9 million, which is exceptional in right now’s poor on-chain panorama.
Nevertheless, right now’s market circumstances have caught up with $thenickshirley holders, with the token down 66% from yesterday’s highs and a market cap of $3 million. Whereas it’s regular for small-cap on-chain tokens to expertise intense volatility, particularly when Sniper holds a big provide, the token’s efficiency exhibits how little demand there might be for on-chain buying and selling in December 2025.
$thenickshirley Chart – DexScreener
Regardless of the token’s underwhelming second day available on the market, $thenickshirley at the moment boasts the very best on-chain buying and selling quantity of any non-ETH and CBTC token on Base, with $7.9 million in buying and selling quantity, outpacing main Base tokens similar to AERO and ZORA.
Shirley turned a mainstream media sensation final week after documenting and videotaping an ongoing investigation into a baby care fraud scheme in Minnesota. Shirley’s content material has been a sizzling matter throughout all mainstream information retailers since his launch, together with his prime video on X receiving over 118 million impressions in simply three days.
