Base built the bridge to Solana on December 4, and within hours Solana’s most vocal builders accused Jesse Pollack of carrying out a vampire attack disguised as interoperability.
The bridge uses Chainlink CCIP and Coinbase infrastructure to allow users to move assets between Base and Solana, and provides early integration with Zora, Aerodrome, Virtuals, Flaunch, and Relay. These are all applications built on top of Base.
Mr. Pollack framed it as two-way pragmatism. Base spent nine months building connective tissue, as the Base app required access to SOL and SPL tokens, and the Solana app required access to Base liquidity.
Vibhu Norby, founder of Solana creator platform DRiP, took a different view. He posted a video of Aerodrome co-founder Alexander Cutler saying at Basecamp in September that Base would “turn Solana upside down” and become the world’s largest chain.
Norby read:
“They’re not partners. If they had their way, Solana wouldn’t exist.”
Mr. Pollack responded that Base merely built a bridge to Solana because “Solana assets have a right to access the Base economy, and Base assets should have access to Solana.”
Norby fired back, claiming that Base did not set up the launch of Solana-based applications and did not work with the Solana Foundation’s marketing or operations teams.
The thread escalated further when Akshay BD, an executive from Solana’s super team, told Pollack:
“Calling it two-way isn’t. It’s a bridge between two economies that has net export-import outcomes based on how it’s deployed. I don’t care that you’re competitive…I care that you’re dishonest.”
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko also weighed in and offered some of the sharpest criticism.
“If you move your Base app to Solana, it will run on Solana and the transactions will be linearized by the Solana staking block producer. That should be good for Solana developers, otherwise the adjustment is bullshit.”
This discussion highlights the misalignment of incentives between what “interoperability” means for Ethereum’s Layer 2 and what “interoperability” means for alternative Layer 1 blockchains.
Base believes this bridge will unlock shared liquidity and cross-chain UX without relying on third-party infrastructure.
Pollack said the base announced the bridge in September, began talks with Yakovenko and others in May, and has consistently insisted it would be bidirectional.
He argues that Base and Solana developers will benefit from access to both economies.
On the contrary, Solana has been vocal in claiming that the method Base used to launch the bridge, integrating only Base-integrated apps, not coordinating Solana-native partners, and omitting support from the Solana Foundation, reveals its true strategy: siphoning Solana capital into the Base ecosystem while marketing it as mutual infrastructure.
asymmetry
Although the bridge is code-wise bidirectional, it has no economic gravity, Yakovenko said.
If the bridge simply lets the Base app import Solana assets and keeps all execution and fee income on Base, it extracts value from Solana without giving anything back. That’s the vampire attack theory.
Pollack’s counterargument is that interoperability is not zero-sum. He argues that Base and Solana can compete and cooperate at the same time, and that both developers want access to each other’s economies.
He noted that Base tried to involve participants in the Solana ecosystem during the nine-month build process, but “people weren’t really interested.” However, meme projects like Trencher and Chillhouse have collaborated.
Norby and Akshay dispute this framing, arguing that removing repositories without coordination with launch partners or collaboration with the Solana Foundation is not true collaboration, but tactical extraction disguised as open source infrastructure.
The friction is that Base and Solana occupy different positions in the liquidity hierarchy.
Base is layer 2 of Ethereum. This means it inherits Ethereum’s security, payments, and reliability, but competes with mainnet for activity. Ethereum’s layer 2 blockchain will need to justify its existence by offering a better UX, lower fees, or a differentiated ecosystem.
Solana, on the other hand, is a standalone layer 1 with its own set of validators, token economics, and security model.
When Solana assets flow into Base through a bridge, Solana loses transaction fees, MEV, and staking demand unless those assets eventually return or a reciprocal flow is generated.
Base captures activity and economic rents. Yakovenko’s point is that true interactivity means moving the execution of Base apps to Solana, not just importing Solana tokens into Base-based contracts.
who gets what
Based on discussions, voices from Solana’s upper echelons suggest that Bass has ready access to Solana’s cultural and financial momentum. Solana has been the epicenter of meme coin mania, NFT speculation, and retail onboarding over the past year.
By integrating SOL and SPL tokens into Base apps like Aerodrome and Zora, Base will be able to tap into that energy without waiting for organic growth.
Base also benefits from positioning itself as a “neutral” interoperability layer connecting all ecosystems, which strengthens its narrative as the default hub for cross-chain DeFi.
Solana gains optionality, but not guaranteed value gain. If the bridge causes Base developers to experiment with running Solana, or if Solana apps start using Base liquidity pools for bridged assets, the relationship becomes reciprocal.
However, if the bridge primarily acts as a one-way funnel that pulls Solana’s assets into Base’s economy, Solana loses.
The risk is that Solana becomes a feeder chain for Base DeFi rather than a destination.
Norby’s accusations reflect that fear. If Base’s launch strategy was to integrate apps that extract value from Solana without reciprocating, this bridge becomes a competitive weapon rather than a collaboration.
Furthermore, Yakovenko argues that Base cannot be honest about its competition with Ethereum, so it frames itself as working with the broader ecosystem when in fact it is siphoning off activity.
The same logic applies to Solana. Base can’t honestly compete with Solana, so it frames the bridge as neutral infrastructure.
what happens next
The bridge is in service and economic gravity will determine the outcome. The bridge becomes truly bidirectional when a Base app starts routing execution to Solana, or when a Solana-native project starts an integration that pulls Base liquidity into Solana-based contracts.
If the flow remains unidirectional, with Solana’s assets going to Base and the proceeds staying in Ethereum layer 2, the theory of a vampire attack holds true.
Pollack’s argument that Base and Solana “win together” depends on whether Base treats Solana as a peer or a provider of assets and liquidity.
The difference is whether Base sells its own developers to build on Solana or sells Solana users to deploy their assets to Base.
Yakovenko made the test clear. Compete honestly and this bridge will be beneficial to the industry. It’s alignment theater, pretending to cooperate but competing.
The next six months will reveal which stories are true.
