Curve is a decentralized exchange for stablecoins that uses an automated market maker (AMM) to manage liquidity.

Launched in January 2020, Curve is now synonymous with the decentralized finance (DeFi) phenomenon, and has seen significant growth in the second half of 2020.

In August, Curve launched a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), with CRV as its in-house token. The DAO uses Ethereum-based creation tool Aragon to connect multiple smart contracts used for users’ deposited liquidity. Issues such as governance, however, differ from Aragon in their weighting and other respects.

Base is an Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) blockchain officially released on August 9, 2023 by US-headquartered crypto exchange Coinbase. Base garnered attention in the crypto community because it’s the first blockchain launched by a publicly traded company.

Base was developed in partnership with Ethereum L2 blockchain Optimism on the OP Stack, a standardized and open-source development stack that powers Optimism. Base allows developers to build decentralized apps (DApps) with access to Coinbase’s ecosystem of 110 million verified users and more than $80 billion assets.

Base’s vision is to create a so-called Superchain powered by Optimism supported by a community of developers. Base has publicly announced that it doesn’t currently plan to issue a new network token for Base, therefore users should be extremely cautious about scammers that offer fake Base tokens.