November 22, 2025 – In the wild world of crypto launches, few moments capture the thrill quite like watching a token skyrocket from zero to hero in seconds. Enter $JESSE, the experimental creator coin from Base’s own Jesse Pollak, which didn’t just debut – it exploded. Peaking at a blistering 15x gain in its first frantic hours, the token turned a handful of sharp-eyed traders into overnight millionaires. But while the headlines scream “pump,” the real story lies in the shadowy world of on-chain snipers who struck gold before most folks even hit refresh. This wasn’t luck; it was lightning-fast code meeting a perfect storm of hype.
The Hype Behind the Token: Jesse Pollak’s Bold Creator Experiment
Jesse Pollak isn’t your average crypto celeb – he’s the brain behind Base, Coinbase’s buzzing Layer-2 network that’s become a playground for memes, DeFi, and now, creator-driven tokens. On November 20, 2025, Pollak dropped $JESSE as a “fun experiment” to test the waters of on-chain ownership. Think of it as a digital autograph meets community fund: 50% of the 1 trillion total supply hit liquidity pools on day one, with trading fees funneled back to fuel more Base creators.
Why does this matter to everyday crypto fans? Creator coins like $JESSE flip the script on social media stardom. Instead of likes and shares vanishing into the ether, fans can own a slice of the action – sharing in the upside (or downside) of a creator’s journey. Pollak himself called it a “flywheel” for blending quick buzz with lasting value, drawing from trends in platforms like Zora where content turns into tradable assets. As Base’s TVL hovers between $10-16 billion in late 2025, per DeFiLlama data, this launch spotlights how Layer-2s are evolving beyond just cheap trades into hubs for cultural cash flows.
But here’s the catch: What starts as a noble idea often devolves into a frenzy. $JESSE’s debut? Pure chaos – the good, the bad, and the bot-dominated.
Flash in the Pan: How $JESSE Pumped 15x (and Then What?)
Launches like this are crypto’s version of Black Friday stampedes. At 1:00 PM UTC on November 21, 500 million $JESSE tokens splashed into Uniswap and Aerodrome pools, seeding $2 million in initial liquidity. Within minutes, the price rocketed from a whisper-thin $0.0001 to a peak of $0.0015 – that’s a 15x moonshot, pushing market cap past $7 million in the opening hour.
Traders piled in like it was free money: Volume hit $33.5 million by evening, with thousands of buys lighting up DEX screeners. On X, posts exploded with FOMO – one user quipped, “Jesse Pollak just tokenized his vibe, and we’re all buying in.” For a hot second, it felt like the dawn of “creator summer” on Base, where anyone with a following could spin content into coins.
Yet, reality bit back fast. By November 22, $JESSE had cooled to around $0.000177, a 40% dip from highs, settling at a $177,000 fully diluted value (FDV). Trading volume lingered at $69,000, a far cry from the frenzy. It’s classic meme math: Explosive entry, inevitable exhale. But amid the volatility, a darker tale unfolded – one where algorithms, not humans, called the shots.
The Anatomy of a 15x Surge: Retail Joy Meets Bot Warfare
Breaking it down simply: The pump fed on Pollak’s clout. As Base’s face, his X announcement drew 10,000+ engagements in minutes, sparking a retail rush. Early buyers saw 10-20x flips if they timed it right – imagine turning $100 into $1,500 over coffee. But for every winner, snags emerged: The Base app glitched under load, delaying updates by 17 minutes and locking out casual users from grabbing contract addresses.
This “scientist battlefield,” as one X thread dubbed it, highlighted the gap between dream and execution. While Pollak vowed never to sell his stash – positioning $JESSE as a “collectible” over investment – the surge proved creator coins can ignite real economic sparks, even if fleeting.
The Shadow Kings: Snipers Who Nabbed $1.3M in the Blink of an Eye
If the pump was fireworks, the snipers were the pros rigging the show. These aren’t shady backroom dealers – they’re coders deploying bots that sniff out launches like bloodhounds. During $JESSE’s rollout, two wallets pounced in the same on-chain block as deployment, scooping 26% of the supply (261.7 million tokens) for peanuts.
Meet the Millionaire Machines
- Wallet 1 (0x9f59…): Dropped 67 ETH (~$191,000) plus $44,000 in “priority fees” to the Base sequencer – basically, bribing the network for top billing. Snagged 76 million $JESSE, flipped them in 15 minutes for 303 ETH ($860,000+). Net haul: $707,700.
- Wallet 2: Mirrored the play, grabbing another chunk for a $619,600 payday. Total sniper windfall? Over $1.3 million, per Arkham Intelligence tracking.
How? Base’s shiny new “flashblocks” – 200-millisecond micro-bursts that let bots peek at pending transactions and front-run with high-fee bids. Designed to cut MEV (miner extractable value) and boost privacy, it backfired here, turning a fair launch into a bot bonanza. X lit up with gripes: “Retail got app crashes; snipers got the keys to the vault.”
These wallets? Likely pros from the memecoin wars of early 2025, where sniper bots became as common as coffee runs. Bubblemaps even clocked one buy in the “first second” of liquidity. It’s a reminder: In crypto’s speed-of-light arena, humans hit snooze while machines hit send.
Bigger Waves: Creator Coins’ Promise vs. the Perils of Pumps
$JESSE’s saga isn’t isolated – it’s a microcosm of 2025’s creator economy boom. Platforms like Base are minting these tokens daily, with Galaxy Digital noting Layer-2s like it generating $185,000+ in daily revenue back in July. Pollak’s vision? Empower creators to ditch middlemen, letting fans co-own the narrative. But sniping scandals erode trust, echoing April’s “Base is for Everyone” flop that pumped then cratered.
For regular folks, the lesson is clear: These launches blend lottery thrills with tech hurdles. Retail misses out on the low buys, left chasing peaks. Yet, as $JESSE lists on spots like BingX with zero-fee trading through November 27, it opens doors for safer dips into the experiment. Pollak’s caveat rings true: Treat it like a concert ticket – fun if it pops, forgettable if it fades.
In the end, $JESSE’s 15x fireworks lit up Base’s potential, but the sniper shadows remind us: Crypto’s creator wave is here, waves and all. Will it wash over the masses, or just the machines?
Track $JESSE live → https://dexscreener.com/base/jesse Base explorer for transactions → https://basescan.org
Disclaimer: This isn’t financial advice. Creator coins are high-risk experiments – DYOR and only play with what you can lose.
