The Escalation of a Competitive Stance
The rivalry between Base and Solana has entered a new phase with the introduction of the Base-Solana bridge. This latest development traces back to September 2025, when Alex Cutler, co-founder of Aerodrome, declared at Basecamp that Base would aim to “flip Solana.” This statement drew the attention of Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius Labs and a prominent defender of Solana.
Tensions have since escalated following Base's launch of the bridge to Solana on December 4. Prominent builders within the Solana ecosystem have accused Jesse Pollak of masking a "vampire attack" under the guise of interoperability.
Examining the 'Healthy Competition' Bridge
The newly launched bridge leverages Chainlink CCIP and Coinbase infrastructure, enabling users to transfer assets between Base and Solana. Its initial integrations include applications native to Base such as Zora, Aerodrome, Virtuals, Flaunch, and Relay.
While Jesse Pollak presented the move as a pragmatic, bidirectional initiative, Vibhu Norby, founder of the Solana creator platform DRiP, argued that it was anything but. Norby shared footage from Basecamp showing Aerodrome’s Alexander Cutler stating that Base would “flip Solana” and become the world's largest chain. Norby's commentary was direct: “These are not partners; if they had it their way, Solana would not exist.”
Jesse Pollak appeared to take issue with Norby's post, initiating a discourse on the true implications of the bridge for both networks. In his reply, Pollak stated that Base developed the bridge to Solana because “Solana assets deserve to have access to the Base economy and Base assets should have access to Solana.”
However, Norby countered with allegations that Base deliberately excluded Solana-based applications from the launch and did not engage with the Solana Foundation's marketing or operations teams. Akshay BD, a notable figure associated with Solana's Superteam, added his perspective, stating, “Calling it bidirectional doesn’t make it so. It’s a bridge between two economies that has net import/export result based on how you roll it out. I don’t mind that you’re competitive… I mind that you’re being dishonest.”
In response, Pollak acknowledged that the team could have “improved the way we communicated to the Solana Foundation, but the idea that there’s some conspiracy here is just ungrounded in reality.”
Skepticism from Solana's Co-Founder
The discussion thread had already gained significant attention and caught the eye of Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana. Yakovenko suggested, “Migrate Base apps to Solana so they execute on Solana and the transactions are linearized by Solana staked block producers. That would be good for Solana developers. Otherwise, it’s alignment bullshit.”
Throughout the debate, Pollak repeatedly emphasized that Base had announced the bridge in September and had begun discussions with Yakovenko and others in May. He reiterated that the bridge is bidirectional, intended to benefit developers on both Base and Solana by providing access to each other's economies.
Despite these assurances, prominent figures within the Solana community argue that the manner in which Base launched the bridge suggests its primary function is to divert Solana's capital into Base's ecosystem, while marketing it as reciprocal infrastructure.
If the bridge exclusively facilitates Base applications importing Solana assets, while retaining all execution and fee revenue on Base, it effectively extracts value from the SOL ecosystem without offering reciprocal benefits. This scenario aligns with the "vampire attack" thesis put forth by individuals like Yakovenko.
Pollak remains convinced that this is not the case, arguing in the thread that both chains can engage in competition and collaboration simultaneously. He stated that the bridge was developed in response to a desire from developers on both sides for access to each other's economies.
He also claimed that Base made attempts to engage Solana ecosystem participants during the nine months of bridge development. However, he noted that, with the exception of some meme projects like Trencher and Chillhouse that chose to collaborate, "folks weren’t really interested."
Norby and Akshay countered this by arguing that releasing a repository without coordinating launch partners or working with the Solana Foundation suggests a tactical extraction strategy disguised as open-source infrastructure.
Solana's Potential Gains from the Base Bridge
Prominent voices in the Solana community contend that through this bridge, Base gains immediate access to Solana's significant cultural and financial momentum. This is particularly noteworthy given Solana's recent prominence in meme coin trading, NFT speculation, and retail onboarding over the past year.
By integrating SOL and SPL tokens into Base applications, Base benefits from this energy and positions itself as a "neutral" interoperability layer connecting various ecosystems.
Advocates for Solana maintain that the network only gains optionality, not guaranteed value capture, from this arrangement. For the relationship to be truly reciprocal, the bridge must incentivize Base developers to experiment with execution on Solana or encourage Solana applications to utilize Base liquidity pools for bridged assets.
Should the bridge function primarily as a one-way conduit, channeling Solana assets into Base's economy, Solana risks becoming a feeder chain for Base's decentralized finance sector rather than a primary destination. In such a scenario, Solana would be the losing party.