Coinbase Chief Government Officer Brian Armstrong simply helped onboard viral grassroots journalist Nick Shirley to Coinbase-led Ethereum Layer 2 Base.
Final week, Shirley uncovered a multimillion-dollar daycare fraud in movies which have gone viral, amassing greater than 100 million impressions.
Shirley created and launched his verified creator coin on Base on Dec. 28, dubbed $thenickshirley, and Armstrong shared the brand new launch on X, saying, “Let’s go – good case examine in how content material monetizes higher on Base vs different platforms. Extra examples coming quickly.”
Shirley himself responded to Armstrong, calling Base and Zora “epic.”
Contemplating the shock activation and subsequent publicity created by Armstrong’s publish, $thenickshirley exploded off its launch, instantly rallying to as excessive as $9 million in market capitalization, which is notable in at the moment’s poor onchain situations.
Nevertheless, the state of the market caught up with $thenickshirley holders at the moment, and the token is down 66% from yesterday’s prime to a $3 million market capitalization. Whereas intense volatility is regular on small-cap onchain tokens, particularly when snipers maintain important quantities of provide, the token’s efficiency is indicative of how little demand there may be for onchain buying and selling in December 2025.
$thenickshirley Chart – DexScreener
Regardless of the token’s underwhelming second day in the marketplace, $thenickshirley boasts the very best onchain quantity for any token aside from ETH and CBTC on Base at the moment, with $7.9 million in buying and selling quantity, surpassing main Base tokens resembling AERO and ZORA.
Shirley has grow to be a mainstream media sensation during the last week, after documenting and videotaping his ongoing investigation right into a Daycare Fraud scheme in Minnesota. Shirley’s content material has been a significant speaking level on each mainstream information outlet since he launched it, and his prime video on X has garnered greater than 118 million impressions in simply three days.
