In this week’s issue:

• Touch Grass: Super Apps and the Art of Making Crypto Invisible

• Hodl Me Tender: 🔥 Web3, Crypto + AI Jobs of the Week

Hodl Me Tender: 🔥 Web3 + AI Jobs of the Week

Looking for your next move in (or into) web3, crypto, or AI? Here are some fire openings for this week, all remote, all posted in the past four days:

• Binance needs a Customer Service Business Process Specialist

• SkyTrade is looking for a part-time PEN Tester

• OpenAI needs an Account Director to join their team 🔥

• aPriori needs Senior/Staff Backend Engineer

• Wayru is looking for a Content & Community Lead 🔥

• CowDAO is on the hunt for a Senior People Ops Specialist 

• The Tie wants to find a Director of Product Marketing 🔥💰

• Utila needs a Content & Brand Marketing Manager—is it you?

• Raiku is looking for a Social & Content Manager 🔥

• Want to be the Full Stack DeFi Web Developer at Re7 Cpaital ? Get it. 🔥💰

Want to see your company's job listed here? Reply to this email and lmk.

Here's what happened while none of us were paying attention: Coinbase rebranded their wallet into something called Base App—basically crypto's answer to WeChat—and Shopify quietly enabled USDC payments for tens of thousands of merchants.

Translation: everyone from your local ceramics shop on Etsy to your favorite Shopify-powered skincare brand can now accept the same stablecoin that crypto traders use to buy other cryptocurrencies. And tbh, that's pretty wild.

The super app nobody asked for (but might actually want)

Base App isn't just another crypto wallet with delusions of grandeur. It's social media (powered by Farcaster), trading, payments, mini-apps, and encrypted messaging all smashed into one interface. Think TikTok meets Venmo meets Robinhood, but everything runs on Ethereum's layer 2 (“solutions designed to enhance the scalability of the Ethereum network”).

The social piece is particularly interesting—every post gets tokenized through Zora, creators earn directly from tips and engagement (like Farcaster), and there are no follower minimums or brand deal requirements. It's like if Instagram paid you for posting your food photos and shaky family vacay footage instead of just stealing your data and selling it to advertisers.

I've been on the TBA (what the kids are calling The Base App) waitlist since it launched last week, mostly because I'm curious if they can actually pull off the "make crypto feel normal" thing without completely losing the plot.

Shopify gets surprisingly based

While Coinbase was busy building their everything app, Shopify was making an even bigger move: they partnered with Coinbase and Stripe to let merchants accept USDC payments with zero foreign transaction fees.

This isn't some crypto-native startup trying to disrupt commerce. This is the platform that powers millions of online stores suddenly making stablecoin payments as easy as accepting a credit card. No new gateways, no complex integrations, just tick a box and your customers can pay with USDC.

The really smart part? Merchants get paid in their local currency by default, so they don't have to think about crypto volatility. But if they want to keep the USDC (maybe they're bullish on the space or just tired of bank fees), they can.

Why this actually matters (beyond the hype)

Yes, I’m super new to crypto and web3, but I've also been tits deep in it since entering the scene last fall. Meaning, I’ve been watching crypto try to go mainstream for months now, and most attempts have felt a little forced. Like watching your dad try to use the new slang he just learned—technically correct but deeply uncomfortable for everyone involved.

But this Coinbase app and Shopify upgrade feel different. Instead of asking people to learn about blockchain technology and private keys and gas fees, Base App and Shopify are just... making things work better. You tap to pay with USDC. You post something and maybe earn a few dollars. Your art collectors can buy your work without thinking about wallet connections.

The normie-adoption magic truly does happen when the crypto disappears into the background—something I wrote about three weeks ago—and we're just using a better version of something we already understand.

The creator economy is lit (and the future)

Mirroring Farcaster, The Base App's approach to creator monetization is legit. On traditional social platforms, you need followers, brand deals, or platform-specific monetization programs that may or may not pay you.

On Base App, every post is potential income. People tip each other in real-time, creators own their audience relationships, and the platform pays weekly rewards for engagement. It's like if Patreon, Twitter, and Venmo had a baby and raised it on Farcaster.

I made $20 on Farcaster last week just for posting normally. Not life-changing money, but it's $20 more than Instagram has ever paid me for my devastating wit and impeccable curation. In fact, below are my earnings in two months of being active on Farcaster—I have a feeling things will look similar on Base App.

The boring revolution

So basically, crypto is starting to get boring enough to be useful to a broader audience? Kinda, yeah.

Again, the most successful crypto applications are the ones where you barely realize you're using crypto. Brave Browser pays you for viewing ads. Blackbird gives you restaurant perks. Now Base App lets you earn money for posting, and Shopify lets you buy ceramics, teeth whiteners, and hoodies with stablecoins.

No one's talking about revolutionizing finance or democratizing ownership—they're just fucking doing it. Like don’t talk about it be about it, right? Just build shit that works better than what we had before.

What could go wrong (don’t drink the Kool-Aid—sip it)

Of course, this could all fall apart spectacularly. Super apps have failed in the West before (remember when Facebook tried to make Messenger the everything app?). The creator economy could turn into the same engagement-farming nightmare as every other platform once it scales.

And—we're still early. Base App is in beta with a waitlist. The Shopify integration just launched, and will continue to roll out through the rest of the year. Most people still think crypto is just digital Monopoly money for libertarians and day traders.

But for the first time in my brief crypto journey, I'm seeing applications that feel genuinely useful rather than just intellectually interesting. Your dad might not understand how blockchain works, but he might use Base Pay to tip his favorite newsletter writer, or start paying for his monthly coffee subscription in USDC.

Which is perhaps exactly how it should be. And I’m a firm believer that “the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” applied to any context, is actually not one single moment, but many moments big and small that surmount something that seems like one moment. Failures and successes and setbacks and wins included. This is one of those big moments contributing to the moment that, really, we won’t fully realize we’re living until we’ve already been living it for some time.

Convoluted enough for you? You’re welcome.

PS: Subscribe now if you want in on this arithmetic. Miss the last issue? It’s right here. Also literally none of this is ever financial advice. I’m sharing what I learn through Babe, and perhaps you’ll learn from my mistakes. Hopefully, maybe, who knows, ily.