After rising nearly 10x over 20 consecutive days, $ZORA hit a new all-time high on August 12th, with a 24-hour surge approaching 50% and a circulating market cap nearing $480 million. Perhaps due to the Binance perpetual contract listing or the user momentum and increased trading volume following integration with the Base App. The strong rally, coupled with Coinbase's proactive efforts, even led some community members to jokingly refer to it as having been officially "co-opted" into the official token.

But no matter how we dissect the driving factors, this surge, along with the previous debate between Base and Solana founders on this issue, once again brings the "content/creator coin" focus to the forefront. What has it done? And what opportunities can we find in its ecosystem?

Is Zora's Rise Driven by "Content" or Institutional Support?

Zora's new paradigm is that every creator has 1 Creator Coin (total of 1 billion, with 50% linearly vested to the creator over 5 years); at the same time, each post is also a "content coin," with its pool paired with the creator coin, and then paired with $ZORA. To reduce the friction of the three-stage exchange from "USDC to content coin," Zora has introduced solutions such as 0x aggregation on the routing side to improve the efficiency of flowing from fiat to content assets. Creators extract a 1% fee from each transaction, providing direct incentives for continuous creation.

The advantage of this model is that, unlike launch platforms like Pumpfun that require a deliberate setup to attract attention with a wealth effect coin, Zora is different. Their approach is to "first increase the quantity," making token issuance on Zora seem less burdensome. Posting is minting, and because each post/coin is paired with the creator token, the "value of the content" gradually increases in the overall account balance. This approach allowed Zora's token issuance to reach over 2 million in a short period, while its pair with Zora directly led to an explosive increase in Zora's adoption.

As seen from the chart, Zora's adoption is "positively correlated" with its price increase, Source: Messari

Pumpfun has currently issued approximately 12 million tokens, with a daily addition of about 20,000 to 30,000 tokens. Zora has issued a total of 2 million tokens, with new token numbers ranging from 35,000 to 55,000, and Pumpfun's DAU is mostly maintained at over 100,000, while Zora's creators are only around 35,000 (with DAU of 1,000 to 2,000). The ratio of tokens produced per user between the two differs by a factor of ten. Although not comprehensive, this means that solely in terms of token quantity, Zora's network effect per new user is ten times that of Pumpfun.

Over the past month, with the release of the new Base App, it has gradually connected Zora, Farcaster, and Noice. Zora is responsible for "turning content into tradable assets" (Creator Coin / Post Coin), and Noice is responsible for "social distribution and tipping" (USDC/multi-currency tips, direct payments within the timeline). Both form a "creation-distribution-monetization" loop within Base's unified user interface.

After integrating Zora into the Base App, creators can mint, trade, and receive payments without leaving the platform. Noice announced the integration of Zora on July 27, providing a lightweight monetization mechanism for "one like, one tip." The combined effect compresses the previously dispersed chain of "posting/wallet/DEX/tipping tools" into a single entry point, increasing conversion rates and retention.

On one hand, there is the growth of distribution channels, on the other hand, there is the improvement of the creator ecosystem. In addition, Zora and the Base team are actively recruiting non-crypto-native artists and content creators to join the platform. Kong Pham, Chief Operating Officer of SamandColby, revealed that some Web2 content creators with large fan bases are about to enter Zora and Farcaster in groups.
A series of actions have significantly increased Zora's MindShare on social media (1456%). In this era where "attention" is "opportunity," Zora seems to have found a way to grow other than through "pump and dump"; it is through cost-free earnings (as seen in the tweets where creators within the Base ecosystem earn money through their posts).

In addition, Zora's influence distribution channels are also diverse. Several platforms have already integrated Zora's content coin leaderboard or indicators, including indexy introducing indicators (Top 20 influential tokens/creators on Zora), Zoracle, Matcha, Zora Terminal, TBD, and others launching token dashboards. Slayed, the founder of Loudio, also claims to establish a Zora index fund and create a DAO of joint creators to increase distribution channels.

What Tokens Are in the Ecosystem?

zxbt

This is the "Autonomous AI Artist" project created by former Wall Street high-frequency trading and AI Builder dev0xx. It generates an original artwork daily and automatically mints corresponding content coins and NFTs without human intervention. The key lies in its creative process and concept, which align with the final artwork distributed daily. A recent interesting update was when Messari researcher Jake "@immutablejacob" on Twitter provided artistic style direction suggestions for the next piece, sharing a Van Gogh-style artwork. The AI's creator dex0xx stated, "ZXBT was initially very stubborn, but as the community demanded more diversity, it continued to evolve. In this article, @zxbt_agent directly tagged a user in the description, sharing who influenced their art. In my opinion, each artwork's style influence should be distributed based on the suggester's influence."

This implies that each token/artwork issued can undergo secondary dissemination through more influential individuals' "suggestions or promotions," as demonstrated by the Messari researcher. ZXBT itself can be driven by more influential aesthetics in creating its artwork, and all transformation processes can be seen on the official website and platform.

ZXBT reached a peak market cap of $18 million, with the current market cap at $13.8 million and a 24-hour trading volume of $290,000, with 1,400 holders.

FakeTaxi

The longstanding adult content brand FakeTaxi, founded by Jonathan Todd and Lew Thomas in 2013, has launched its first Creator Coin, $FakeTaxi. The official plan is to migrate exclusive content to the Zora platform, replacing traditional social media presences. Holding a certain Zora NFT and burning a specific number of tokens allows users to receive benefits such as actor voice greetings, customized selfies, exclusive backstage videos, even physical signed items. $FakeTaxi aims to create a continuous consumption scenario through the token, forming a natural deflationary drive and building a new interactive experiment that deeply integrates adult entertainment with the Web3 fan economy.

In theory, this is not the first time the two fields have "collaborated," but some community members believe that OnlyFans' successful business model could serve as a precedent for platforms like Zora. The logic behind this collaboration seems to also serve as a reference for other related projects or creators looking to enter Zora.

Faketaxi reached a peak market cap of $12.5 million, with a current market cap of $7.36 million, a 24-hour trading volume of $148,300, and 1184 holders.

Visualize Value

Visualize Value is a content and education platform operated by Jack Butcher, the founder of well-known art NFT project Opepen and Checks VV. Essentially, it serves as a platform for his artistic thinking, using minimalist and insightful graphics to teach people how to communicate ideas through visual language. It is used to explain abstract concepts such as mental models, philosophical ideas, and efficiency tools.

Visualize Value reached a peak market cap of $16 million, with a current market cap of $5.03 million, a 24-hour trading volume of $30,000, and 2073 holders.

11AM

It is a live show promoted by Seed Club, hosted by @thattallguy and @joshcrnls. The name "11AM" refers to the show airing promptly at 11 am ET from Monday to Friday. The show emphasizes "Early to narratives. Earlier to founders. Front-run the future.," indicating their enthusiasm for getting ahead of trends, engaging with new creators and concepts before they become mainstream. The show often features discussions with industry experts, founders, and developers about emerging trends in the Web3 and creator economy. Topics typically cover Web3 creator economy, memecoin, creator coins, decentralized social and on-chain communities, among others.

At 11AM, the peak market cap reached $2.2 million, with the current market cap at $1.83 million, but with low on-chain liquidity and only 317 holders.

This surge by Zora, whether driven by capital or product, reflects the same trend: content is becoming the core gateway to on-chain liquidity. From Zora's inception to creator tokens and tokens representing creators' creations, the interconnected "layered plate," along with the triad of creation, distribution, and monetization as a circulating credential, has transformed Zora's valuation and narrative in the market.

From zxbt's algorithmic aesthetics to FakeTaxi's adult entertainment experiment, and to Visualize Value and 11AM's social content extensions, these projects are not only a microcosm of the Zora ecosystem but also a blueprint for the potential future of the Web3 content economy. The next thing to be magnified may not be the individual token's price action but the widespread eruption of the creator economy on-chain.

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