Most apps assume they can scale indefinitely on general-purpose chains like Base and other rollups. But when your app actually gets usage, things break down quickly. Here's why you need an appchain sooner than you think ↓

Rollups like Base use EIP-1559-style gas mechanics. When block utilization crosses 50%, gas prices start rising—up to 12.5% per block. This isn’t just a Base issue. Any chain using EIP-1559 with these parameters faces the same problem. And today, that’s almost all of them.

This creates a brutal spiral: — Usage >50% — Gas spikes — Fees hit max — Users drop off — Gas resets — Users return — Spiral restarts That means as your usage grows, your own users start bidding against each other––and costs rise exponentially.

How much activity does it take to tip things over? On Base, just ~12,200 transactions in a minute will push gas toward $1. That’s not some extreme scenario—that’s a normal day for a consumer app with traction.

So why not just scale the rollup? Increasing blockspace doesn’t solve the problem. It attracts more high-frequency activity—like DEX arbitrage, oracle updates, and MEV extraction. The chain fills just as fast, and your app is still competing for blockspace.

Appchains change the economics of scale. When you own your chain, growth stops being a liability—it becomes an advantage. + Control your own fee market + Fees flow back to builders, not third parties + No more bidding against yourself + Subsidize user transactions