10-Day 5x ZORA: Unpacking the Value Discovery of Content Tokens

2025-07-23 14:58

Read this article in 17 Minutes

From the initial concept of the Creator Coin to today's tangible progress, ZORA is step by step validating its on-chain experiment not as mere talk, but as a viable paradigm through product, data, and user behavior.

Original Author: Social Graph Ventures

The Initial Vision

When we first drafted this memo internally, ZORA had just launched, the token price was plummeting, and the project narrative was still unclear.

However, we were not betting on a meme coin but on a protocol that could iterate quickly and had the ability for "on-chain attention monetization."

Over the past few years, ZORA has evolved from a simple minting platform to a protocol-based product with its own Layer 2 infrastructure, ultimately transforming into a consumer-facing application that helps creators achieve on-chain monetization.

It had several distinctive features early on:

· Rapid Iteration Launch: Supporting AI-generated content, native integration of USDC payments, and a mobile-first user interface

· Unique creator coin model with inherent virality

· Clearly quantifiable protocol revenue mechanism

The team possesses deep product and market design capabilities.

Its on-chain mechanism design is highly efficient:

· Creators mint content on the platform, and fans support them by purchasing their tokens

· All transaction liquidity is routed through the ZORA token

· Tokens are priced in ZORA and traded on Uniswap v4

· In each transaction, Zora Labs extracts approximately a 0.25% fee

At its peak, ZORA's annualized trading volume approached $5 billion, with projected annual revenue of $6 million. While most of the trading volume does not occur within the official app, we view this as a wedge opportunity rather than a structural weakness.

What's Happening with Zora Now?

Although ZORA's price remains below the post-TGE peak, the product itself has become more robust.

Creator coins have gone live and are operating smoothly. Any user can mint their own creator coin and peg it to a content coin. These tokens trade based on a bonding curve, priced in ZORA, and settle instantly.

The whole experience is like a TikTok feed embedded with a marketplace mechanism, where attention can be instantly monetized and freely exchanged.

Content Flow and Product Interface

User Engagement Health:

· Creators with more than 5 interactions, with a 30-day retention rate between 11–27% (a16z considers 25% D30 as an excellent metric for social products).

· Creator engagement is constantly improving: from an average of 3 posts per month in the first month to 10 posts per month by the 4th month.

A model based on tokenomics further amplifies usage frequency, a mechanism first pioneered by Virtuals.

Every token transaction involves:

· The creator

· The buyer

· The Zora Labs team

· And ZORA itself

Features such as referral invitations, top coin holder comments, and post monetization are gradually building the "attention economy" within the crypto context.

This is truly a consumer product that can generate protocol revenue.

Zora's distribution challenge is gradually being solved.

Today, through an official app called TBD, it has achieved deep integration with Base. This app takes a form similar to TikTok, built on top of Zora's protocol base.

It is no longer just a monetization channel but is transforming into a complete underlying infrastructure. They have distilled the entire ecosystem into six key pillars:

· Built-in Content Sharing Mechanism: The product flow encourages users to share their creations on external social platforms;

· Creator Incentive Program: Allocating $1 million to attract small and medium creators in the music, fashion, lifestyle, and meme sectors (TikTok followers less than 10,000, Instagram followers around 50–60,000);

· User Growth Spend: Paid promotions on social platforms such as TikTok;

·Token Incentive Distribution: 20% of the TGE is allocated to an incentive program, which includes both transaction rewards and various community development incentives;

·Events and Media Exposure: Reaching the crypto community and creator groups through podcasts and events;

·Developer Integration Partnerships: Teams such as Base and Noice are currently conducting feature development and ecosystem building based on the Zora protocol.

Currently, searching for "Zora" on TikTok yields almost no relevant content. This means that as long as a moderate effort is made, there is still tremendous growth potential for explosive growth on the social platform.

On-chain Data

According to our data tracking on Dune, Zora's current fully diluted valuation is approximately $2.5 to 3 billion, with a historical monthly annualized trading volume reaching as high as $18 billion. The protocol currently collects approximately 1% of transaction fees, of which about 0.25% goes to Zora Labs. At peak times, the protocol's annual revenue approaches $18 million.

As of July, Zora's annualized trading volume is around $5.94 billion, with a daily active creator count ranging from 4000 to 7000. We believe that with its product experience and economic model, Zora is poised to increase its creator base by 10 to 100 times in the next 12 months.

For detailed data, please refer to our Dune dashboard: https://dune.com/socialgraphvc/dollarzora

Viewing Zora Labs as Research and Development Investment

In the crypto industry, the ongoing debate about whether the "protocol" itself or the team behind it can derive more actual value has always been a point of contention.

We do not speak on behalf of Zora Labs, but based on multiple conversations with their team, we tend to view it this way: The income received by Zora Labs should essentially be seen as R&D expenditure.

The protocol allocates a 0.25% fee to Labs for each transaction, not as a value extract, but as fuel for the following activities:

· Continuously iterating on creator tools

· Building the infrastructure necessary for user growth

· Driving various experiments within the ecosystem

· Optimizing the overall experience for mobile and web

If Zora Labs can continue to increase user engagement, build a stronger content monetization model, and expand liquidity within the protocol, these achievements will ultimately be reflected in the long-term value of the ZORA token.

Although Zora Labs are a cost expenditure, it has been delivering results.

Advertising, Will It Be Zora's Moat?

Advertising is currently one of the most critical and uncertain topics for Zora.

Currently, brands have not fully engaged in Zora's content economy, but this market space is already emerging.

If Zora can build a native advertising system based on its token mechanism, allowing brands to sponsor posts, hold content coins, or directly amplify creators' influence, then the entire ecosystem will evolve into a self-reinforcing attention market.

Top Holder Pinned Comment

Zora Creator Balaji's View on Advertising Mechanism

We have already seen a glimpse. For example, the top holder of content coins can now pin comments on related posts, which is essentially an early form of advertising unit. In the future, this mechanism could be expanded into a native brand marketing pathway for post promotion and campaign collaborations.

If Zora can truly achieve this, it will not only bring revenue sharing to creators but will also organically funnel brand funds into the token system, rather than relying on traditional banner or popup ads.

We believe they will eventually achieve this goal.

Team Background

The team members are a highly efficient team from Coinbase, continuously driving innovation in the content monetization field and focusing on building a unique product that combines native crypto with Web2 user experience.

They have propelled the entire industry forward, introducing novel concepts such as bonding curve-based quote currencies, content-driven tokenization, recommendation incentive mechanisms, and more. Zora demonstrates a style of daring public experimentation and rapid iteration, a trait we highly value in our team exploring new social, creator economy, and monetization mechanisms. Its core members include:

·Jacob Horne (Co-founder & CEO): Former Coinbase product manager responsible for core products like USDC and Coinbase Ventures, focusing on Ethereum and DeFi. He has deep insights into crypto market design, NFTs, and the creator economy. He is a key advocate for Zora and has been dedicated to the Zora project since 2019, with early involvement in the crypto fashion space.

·Dee Goens (Co-founder): Former member of Coinbase's marketing team and a key participant in the early NFT wave. He established early community strategies and partnership ecosystems for Zora, with a long-term commitment to empowering underrepresented creator communities.

·Tyson Battistella (Co-founder & CTO): Leads Zora's technical development, former Coinbase smart contract architect, and architect of the Zora protocol's infrastructure, including core minting tools, L2 solutions, and other technology modules.

Token Structure

Zora officially launched its token (TGE) on April 23, 2025, with a total supply of 10 billion tokens. The highest valuation reached $6 billion, with participation from institutions such as Haun Ventures.

Allocation is as follows:

· Strategic Investors: 26.1% (2.61 billion)

· Team: 18.9% (18.9 billion)

· Community Incentives: 20% (20 billion)

· Treasury: 20% (20 billion)

· Airdrop: 10% (10 billion)

· Liquidity: 5% (5 billion)

Unlocking Mechanism:

· Airdrop and Liquidity (15%): Fully unlocked at TGE.

· Community Incentives (20%): Fully unlocked at TGE, used for ecosystem development and incentive distribution.

· Team and Strategic Investors (45%): 6-month cliff after TGE, with monthly linear unlocking starting on October 23, 2025, for a 36-month period.

· Treasury (20%): Also unlocks linearly starting from October 23, with a 48-month period.

Conclusion

Although ZORA has not yet seen a price recovery, its on-chain activity, content ecosystem integration, creator participation retention, and protocol revenue-generating capabilities have shown structural improvement.

The significance of Zora lies not only in coin issuance or hype, but in providing a sustainable monetization path for the entire attention economy through a content minting mechanism.

In the realm of crypto consumption, we still view it as one of the most certain long-term opportunities.