Zora reaches new highs: is it due to real substance or Coinbase's push?
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Zora reaches new highs: is it due to real substance or Coinbase's push?
Zora reached a new high after Jesse and Toly's argument.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: BUBBLE,律动
$ZORA surged nearly 10x over 20 consecutive days, hitting a new all-time high on August 12, with a 24-hour peak gain approaching 50% and a circulating market cap nearing $480 million. This may have been fueled by Binance's launch of perpetual contracts or the combined effect of rising user momentum and trading volume following Base App integration. The strong rally, along with Coinbase’s active promotion, even led some community members to jokingly refer to it as being officially "adopted" as a flagship token.
Regardless of how the driving factors are broken down, this surge—combined with earlier debates between Base and Solana founders on the topic—has once again brought “content/creator tokens” into the spotlight. What exactly has it done? And what opportunities can we find within its ecosystem?
Is Zora's rise driven by "content," or institutional forces?
Zora's new paradigm assigns each creator a Creator Coin (total supply 1 billion, 50% linearly vested to the creator over five years); meanwhile, every post becomes a "content coin," whose pool is paired with the creator’s coin and then with $ZORA. To reduce friction in the three-step swap from "USDC → content coin," Zora has introduced routing solutions like 0x aggregation, improving liquidity efficiency from fiat entry points to content assets. Creators earn a 1% fee from each transaction, creating a direct incentive for continuous creation.
The advantage of this model is that unlike launch platforms such as Pumpfun, which must carefully orchestrate schemes to generate wealth effects and recapture attention, Zora takes a different approach: "just scale up the volume first." Minting tokens on Zora feels less burdensome—posting equals minting—and since each "post/coin" is paired with the creator’s token, the "value of content" accumulates under the overall account. As a result, Zora has minted over 2 million tokens in a short time, while its pairing with $ZORA has caused explosive growth in Zora’s own adoption rate.
The chart shows a positive correlation between Zora's adoption and price rise. Source: Messari
Pumpfun has issued approximately 12 million tokens so far, with around 20,000–30,000 new tokens daily. Zora has issued 2 million tokens, with 35,000–55,000 new tokens per day. Pumpfun maintains DAUs consistently above 100,000, whereas Zora currently has only about 35,000 creators (DAU 10,000–20,000). The per-user token production ratio differs by a factor of ten. While not comprehensive, this suggests that in terms of token volume alone, each new user on Zora generates 10 times the network effect compared to Pumpfun.
Over the past month, with the release of the new Base App, Zora, Farcaster, and Noice have gradually been integrated. Zora handles "turning content into tradable assets" (Creator Coin / Post Coin), while Noice manages "social distribution and tipping" (USDC/multi-currency tips, direct payments within timelines). Together, they form a closed loop of "creation–distribution–monetization" within Base’s unified interface.
After Base App integrated Zora, creators can mint, trade, and receive payments without switching apps. On July 27, Noice announced integration with Zora, introducing a lightweight monetization mechanism for "one like, one tip." The combined effect compresses previously fragmented workflows—posting, wallets, DEXs, tipping tools—into a single entry point, significantly boosting conversion and retention.
On one hand, distribution channels are expanding; on the other, the creator ecosystem is maturing. Additionally, both Zora and Base are actively recruiting off-chain artists and content creators. Kong Pham, COO of SamandColby, revealed that several large Web2 content creators with massive followings will soon join Zora and Farcaster en masse.
A series of moves has dramatically increased Zora’s mindshare on social media (up 1456%). In an era where "attention" equals "opportunity," Zora appears to have discovered a growth path beyond mere price pumping—earning money at zero cost (evident from the flood of X posts from Base ecosystem creators showcasing earnings from simple posts).
Beyond that, Zora has numerous influence distribution channels. Several platforms have already integrated dashboards or metrics for Zora’s content coins, including Indexy’s leaderboard (top 20 influential tokens/creators on Zora), Zoracle, Matcha, Zora Terminal, TBD’s token dashboard, and more. Slayed, founder of Loudio, announced plans to launch a Zora index fund and build a DAO of collaborative creators to expand outreach.
Which tokens exist in the ecosystem?
zxbt
This is an "autonomous AI artist" project created by dev0xx, a former Wall Street high-frequency trader and AI builder, generating one original artwork daily and automatically minting corresponding content coins and NFTs without human intervention. Crucially, the creative process and rationale are shared alongside the final piece each day. A recent notable update: Jake "@immutablejacob," a researcher at Messari, suggested an artistic direction for the next work on Twitter, sharing a Van Gogh-style painting. Dev0xx responded: "ZXBT was initially stubborn, but evolved with community demands for greater diversity. In this post, @zxbt_agent directly tagged a user in the description, showing who influenced his art. I believe each work’s stylistic influence should be allocated based on the influencer’s impact."
This implies that each token/work can achieve secondary virality through endorsements or promotions by more influential individuals—the Messari researcher being a prime example. zxbt can use taste-makers’ input to shape its artistic output, with all evolution visible on its website and platform.
zxbt reached a peak market cap of $18 million, currently sits at $13.8 million, with a 24-hour trading volume of $290,000 and 1,400 holders.
FakeTaxi
FakeTaxi, a legacy adult content brand founded in 2013 by Jonathan Todd and Lew Thomas, launched its first Creator Coin $FakeTaxi. The team plans to migrate exclusive content to the Zora platform, replacing traditional social media presence. By holding specific Zora NFTs and burning a certain amount of tokens, fans can unlock benefits such as voice greetings from performers, custom selfies, backstage videos, or even signed physical items. $FakeTaxi aims to create recurring consumption scenarios through tokens, establishing natural deflationary pressure—a novel experiment integrating adult entertainment with Web3 fan economies.
Theoretically, this isn’t the first crossover between the two fields, but some community members argue that OnlyFans’ successful business model could serve as a blueprint for platforms like Zora. This collaboration might become a template for other niche projects or creators entering Zora.
FakeTaxi peaked at a $12.5 million market cap, now stands at $7.36 million, with a 24-hour trading volume of $148,300 and 1,184 holders.
Visualize Value
Visualize Value is a content and education platform run by Jack Butcher, creator of renowned art NFT projects Opepen and Checks VV. It serves primarily as an outlet for his artistic thinking, using minimalist yet insightful visuals to teach people how to communicate ideas through graphic language—explaining mental models, philosophical concepts, productivity tools, and other abstract ideas.
Visualize Value reached a peak market cap of $16 million, currently valued at $5.03 million, with a 24-hour trading volume of $30,000 and 2,073 holders.
11AM
11AM is a live show powered by Seed Club, hosted by @thattallguy and @joshcrnls. The name refers to its broadcast time: live Monday through Friday at 11 a.m. Eastern Time (Live M–F 11 am ET). The show emphasizes "Early to narratives. Earlier to founders. Front-run the future," indicating their eagerness to engage emerging creators and concepts before trends solidify. Guests often include industry experts, founders, and developers discussing current developments in Web3 and creator economies, covering topics such as Web3 creator economy, memecoins, creator coins, decentralized social networks, and on-chain communities.
11AM reached a peak market cap of $2.2 million, currently holds $1.83 million, but has low on-chain liquidity and only 317 holders.
Zora’s recent surge—whether driven by capital or product—reflects the same underlying trend: content is becoming a core gateway to on-chain liquidity. From Zora-initiated projects, to creator tokens and post-specific tokens, this layered structure—combined with integrated credentials for creation, distribution, and monetization—has transformed Zora’s valuation and narrative in the market.
From zxbt’s algorithmic aesthetics, to FakeTaxi’s adult entertainment experiment, to Visualize Value and 11AM’s social content expansion, these projects are both microcosms of the Zora ecosystem and potential blueprints for the future of Web3 content economies. The next big breakout may not be a single token’s rally, but the full-scale explosion of the entire creator economy on-chain.
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