How BasePaint Became a Standout App on Base
Base is currently the second-most teeming Layer 2 (L2) network behind only Arbitrum in activity and scope.
A big reason for this success is the high number of unique apps in Base’s ecosystem, i.e. projects that aren’t available on any other chain.
That said, in Base’s app scene one project stands out as a particular bright spot to me, and that’s BasePaint.
BasePaint is a collaborative “everydays” app where people come together to create daily pixel art canvases, and it’s an interesting time to take its pulse as the platform just celebrated its first birthday.
And yes, it’s been a great first year!
The project brought a compelling new twist to collaborative pixel canvases by ensuring contributing artists earn ETH from daily open-edition NFT mints, but also it’s just good fun.
BasePaint’s unique mix of recreation, creativity, and utility is precisely why it’s become an early bright spot on Base, and the app’s stats bear that out: the platform has seen +188,000 canvases minted across +23,000 unique addresses, and with +489 ETH generated via mints for +3,100 artists.
Along the way, the project has gained some big fans, like Brian Armstrong and Snowfro, and its team has collaborated with top projects like the Ethereum Foundation, Lens, and Nouns. Its art has also been seen in a growing number of venues, from magazines to Times Square.
On the point of art, it’s the lifeblood that BasePaint revolves around, and the app’s community has collaborated on some iconic pieces over the past year. For example, the classic Day #25 canvas, Pokemon: Red vs. Blue, resulted from splitting painters into two different teams and color palettes.
Another classic came via the Day #99 canvas, which is one of the pieces made by the community when the Nouns sponsored three days of BasePaint collaborations as a result of the DAO’s first cross-layer (L1 to L2) proposal, Prop 431.
A more recent excellent showing was the Day #345 canvas, Farewell to Squiggles, an homage to Snowfro—who joined in on the painting of the piece—and his minting of the final Chromie Squiggle on Art Blocks.
These are just a few of the pieces that have been painted on BasePaint over the last year, but they’re great examples of the charming works the BasePaint community has been churning out day in and day out so far.
This charm and the collaborative possibilities at hand is why BasePaint is up there among the top apps I recommend to newcomers looking to explore the Base ecosystem. It’s fun, it’s light, and it uses crypto rails in a smart way to offer a good experience to creators and collectors.
All that said, if you’re interested in diving deeper into BasePaint during its second year, collecting new canvases or prior pieces that you like is a good start. If painting is more your thing, you’ll first need to acquire a BasePaint Brush NFT to gain contributor access.
The most straightforward way for newcomers to begin here is by minting a trial brush on BasePaint. Trial brushes start with daily allotments of 99 pixels, and they expire over time. If you paint earnestly and politely and coordinate in the site's chat, you might earn a free permanent upgrade to a full BasePaint brush!
Ultimately, for “crypto apps” to become just “apps” and part of our everyday lives, we need innovative experiments to pave the way forward, and BasePaint has been doing that around onchain collaboration. It’s worth applause—and a try—accordingly.