Written by: San, TechFlow
On September 15, 2025, Base founder Jesse Pollak announced that the team is exploring a native Base token, attracting widespread attention and discussion in the crypto market.
As the flagship L2 under Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Base has a TVL of about $7.2 billion. With numerous SocialFi products in its ecosystem, it boasts nearly 700,000 daily active on-chain addresses, ranking first among all L2s.
This series of data has led the market to hold high expectations for a Base token launch. Previously, Coinbase Wallet was renamed Base App and underwent major product updates, adding social, payment, and other functions, which also seems to indicate that a native Base token is imminent.
Related reading: "From Coinbase Wallet to Base App: Understanding the Opportunities and Changes of Web3 Super Apps in One Article"
The current market consensus is that Base is highly likely to complete its TGE in Q4 this year, and may distribute airdrop shares based on interaction records with leading projects in the Base ecosystem.
Such speculation has made leading applications within the Base ecosystem scarce assets, and many users have turned their attention to Zora.
As a leading application in the Base ecosystem, Zora has performed exceptionally well in the past half month. On October 14, it announced that it would soon launch a live streaming feature on its platform, seemingly preparing for the upcoming "big event."
The "content as token" narrative of traditional crypto creator economy platforms has gradually lost its novelty for Meme players. Compared to text and images, live streaming can provide audiences with richer content and a stronger FOMO sentiment on all levels. It is foreseeable that a large number of "talented" creators will use Zora's live streaming feature to launch more narratively attractive Memes.
Zora: From NFT Platform to Creator Economy Infrastructure
Zora was founded in 2020 and received support from Coinbase's venture capital fund at its launch, raising a total of $60 million through three rounds of financing.
Zora launched during the NFT narrative boom and, as the NFT platform in the Base ecosystem, accounted for more than 50% of NFT market share on Base. Until this year, Zora completed its transformation from an NFT platform to a popular content platform in the current Base ecosystem, which also laid the foundation for its natural advantage in Base token distribution.
In April 2025, the $Zora token was issued with a total supply of 10 billion, of which 50% was allocated to the community. At that time, the market was busy chasing various Memes on Solana, and not much attention was paid to Zora.
The turning point came in July, when Zora underwent a major update, enabling large-scale issuance of creator tokens and meme coins on the platform through Base integration. It officially transitioned from an NFT trading platform to a Meme launch platform, quickly becoming the hottest application in the Base ecosystem.
Compared to established products like Pump.Fun, the later entrant Zora absorbed a lot of experience from its "predecessors" and introduced many innovative mechanisms.
In terms of token types, Zora not only has tokens corresponding to content, but also adds a "creator coin" for each creator, with each user profile corresponding to one, allowing creators to receive additional rewards recognized by the market for providing high-quality content on this platform.
The core innovation lies in Zora's revenue distribution model. The token trading fee on the Zora platform has dropped from 3% in the early days to 1%, of which 50% is paid directly to creators, 20% is permanently locked as token liquidity to increase pool depth, 20% is rewarded to developers/platforms that refer creators to deploy tokens, 4% is allocated as rewards to specific trading addresses, and 5% goes to the platform treasury.
This distribution mechanism is also closely related to the platform token $Zora. All rewards are paid in $Zora tokens, and all income entering the platform treasury will support the price through market buybacks.
Overall, Zora provides users with an easy-to-use and almost barrier-free token issuance tool, allowing any content creator to deploy tokens with one click. Creators can obtain continuous income from secondary market trading rather than one-time profit-taking sales.
According to data, Zora generated over $460 million in trading volume in July alone, nearly 10 times its historical NFT trading volume. More than 1.6 million creator tokens have been issued, surpassing competitors like Pump.fun during the same period, making it one of the most active meme issuance platforms in the Base ecosystem.
This transformation is most directly reflected in the price of $Zora. According to Coingecko data, this transformation caused $Zora to surge from $0.012 to around $0.09 in just ten days, achieving a nearly 800% increase.
Recent Performance and Analysis
In the past month, Zora has demonstrated strong competitiveness in both price resilience and product iteration.
After the price surge in July and August, as the creator economy narrative cooled in September and the crypto market generally declined, the price of $Zora also fell back to around $0.05.
On October 10, Zora announced its listing on Robinhood. As the first Base ecosystem token to be listed on Robinhood, $Zora's price soared about 70% from $0.05 to $0.085 on the day of listing, and 24-hour trading volume skyrocketed about 780% to $569 million, bringing a huge improvement in liquidity for $Zora. On the other hand, being listed on Robinhood also marks mainstream market recognition of Zora's value and attention to the development of the Base ecosystem.
Meanwhile, the holding structure of $Zora also changed significantly during September and October. According to on-chain data, a large number of whales entered or increased their holdings of $Zora in the past 30 days, especially during the overall market downturn in September, with large holders still buying against the trend. Such changes in holding structure seem to indicate that Zora's long-term value is being recognized at the institutional level.
Following its listing on Robinhood was the black swan event on October 11, when Trump announced increased tariffs on China. $Zora's performance during this largest black swan event in crypto market history further attracted market attention.
According to data, on October 11, $Zora's price dropped sharply from a high of $0.12 to $0.05, but unlike most assets that failed to rebound, $Zora took only one day to return to around $0.1, with a single-day increase of nearly 50%, becoming one of the few assets to quickly achieve "post-disaster reconstruction."
During this black swan event, the strong resilience demonstrated by $Zora led many investors to add it to their watchlists. On October 15, $Zora's price once again showed strong resilience, rebounding from $0.08 to around $0.1.
From an ecosystem perspective, Zora currently almost monopolizes the creator economy track on Base. Currently, more than 90% of meme coins in the Base ecosystem come from Zora, and such impressive data provides strong support for market speculation about Zora's weight in Base token distribution.
Also in October, Zora announced that it would reduce trading fees from 3% to 1%, with 50% of the revenue directly returned to creators. Although this concession may affect protocol revenue in the short term, it is beneficial for greater user participation and subsequent expansion in the long run, and the approach has also improved Zora's reputation among the broader community.
Recently, the Zora platform has also shown clear strategic acceleration. On October 14, Zora posted an official tweet previewing the upcoming launch of its live streaming feature. This inevitably reminds people of Pump.Fun, another Meme launch platform, which launched its live streaming feature not long ago and quickly generated a large number of viral events and meme coins.
Although Zora has not yet released detailed information about this live streaming feature, based on the current mechanism of content tokens on the Zora platform, we can predict the possible impact of the live streaming launch on $Zora.
For example, users may spend $Zora to tip streamers in real time; streamers may use $Zora to mint NFTs for their fan groups as identity badges; on the other hand, users may spend $Zora to unlock high-quality paid live rooms and streaming privileges, etc.
All these possibilities will provide clear upward momentum for $Zora, showcasing a model that is more in line with long-term development and $Zora token price than Pump.Fun.
Potential Risks
Although Zora has many positive factors and information, the risks behind its growth cannot be ignored.
The main issue is that most creator tokens on the Zora platform lack liquidity. Currently, CoinGecko only tracks 9 tokens with meaningful market caps, with a total market cap of just $18 million. Compared to Meme launch platforms on BSC and SOL, which often have tens of millions in market cap, Zora still has a lot of catching up to do.
If recent market volatility leads to a cooling of market sentiment, it could easily trigger widespread liquidity exhaustion.
A more direct investment risk is token unlocking. On October 30, 160 million Zora tokens will be unlocked, accounting for 4.55% of the total supply, which may create significant short-term selling pressure.
On the other hand, the upcoming live streaming feature may also be a double-edged sword. Pump.Fun is the best example: although the live streaming feature brought popular tokens like $BUN and $BackWork and attracted many meme players, it later led to more market controversy due to poor content moderation, and the collective collapse of popular tokens caused significant losses for many investors.
However, unlike Pump.fun's always "wild" development path and inexperienced young team, Zora is backed by the more mature and "steady" Base ecosystem, and its demonstrated operational capabilities have to some extent alleviated similar concerns. Currently, the Zora platform has a user base of over 2.9 million, providing ample resources for the spread of the live streaming feature. Perhaps this time, Zora can deliver a new answer to the integration of crypto and live streaming.
Seizing the Window of Base Token Launch Expectations
Zora provides a clear path for participating in the expected Base token airdrop. Its core position in the Base ecosystem, strong growth data, and demonstrated price resilience all indicate that it is a project worth watching.
The current $850 million FDV still leaves reasonable room for growth given Zora's ecosystem position and growth potential. Especially with the catalyst of the Base token expectation, its value as a leading application in the ecosystem may be further amplified.
However, the high uncertainty of the market in the short term and the upcoming large unlock also pose resistance for $Zora. Investors can monitor recent market changes and post-unlock price performance to decide whether to add $Zora to their investment lists.
The expectation of a Base token launch is approaching step by step. In the context of intensifying L2 competition, launching a native token is almost an inevitable choice for Base, and Zora's position makes it a project that cannot be ignored for those seeking a Base airdrop.
The opportunity is right in front of us—the key is whether you can seize the timing and rhythm accurately.
