Our Thesis (Then)
When we first published this memo internally,
had just launched. The token was dropping fast. The narrative wasnβt clear.
But we werenβt betting on a memecoin. We were betting on a protocol shipping with speed. One that could monetize attention directly onchain.
Over the years, Zora had evolved from:
A minting platform β Into its own L2 β Into a consumer monetization app for creators
What stood out early:
High-velocity shipping: AI-gen content, USDC support, mobile-first UX
A viral creator coin model
Clear fee capture and protocol revenue
A team with product and market design DNA
The mechanics were tight:
Creators mint content β fans buy coins
Liquidity routes through
Coins quote-paired on Uniswap v4
Zora Labs collects ~0.25% of every trade
At peak, Zora hit ~$5B in annualized volume and ~$6M in run-rate revenue. Even though most of the trading volume happened off-app, we saw that as a wedge. Not a weakness.
Whatβs Playing Out Now
is still down from its post-TGE high. But the product is in a stronger position.
Creator coins launched, and they work. Any user can mint a creator coin, which is bonded to a content coin. Coins trade on bonding curves, quote to
, and settle instantly.
It feels like a TikTok feed with embedded markets, where attention is liquid.
Feed and screens
Engagement is healthy:
Creators with 5+ post interactions show 11β27% D30 retention (a16z cites 25% D30 as strong for social)
Increasing cohort usage from creators, from 3 posts per month on month 1, to 10 by month 4.
The quote model compounds usage, pioneered by Virtuals.
Each coin trade touches:
The creator
The buyer
Zora Labs
And the
token itself
Referral flows, top-holder comment pins, and monetized posts are beginning to structure the attention economy.
This is a consumer product that earns protocol revenue.
Distribution is getting solved.
Zora is now deeply integrated with Base through TBD, an official, TikTok-style app built around Zora rails.
This isn't just a monetization layer. Itβs becoming infrastructure.
They distill it in 6 core pillars:
In app user sharing: All flows will promote users to share their content on other social media
Creator Partnerships & Incentives: 1M allocated to onboarding sub 10k tiktok + 50-60k IG followers creators across music, fashion, lifestyle and mememaking
New users: Paid marketing on social channels, with a focus on TikTok
20% of the total TGE is being allocated for incentives: Both trading incentives on pools, but also other types of incentives to grow the community.
Events and media: Podcasts and events with a crypto focus but also a creator focus
Dev partnerships: Teams like Base, Noice, and others are integrating and building on top of the Zora protocol
A quick search of βZoraβ on tiktok shows virtually no results, and the chances of it growing and going viral, with some efforts, are high.
Metrics Check
From our Dune
Zora currently trades at ~$250-300M FDV. Volume peaked at $1.8B monthly annualized. Fee structure: ~1% total, with ~0.25% to Labs. Thatβs ~$18M in annual protocol revenue at peak. Volume is now at 594M annualized, July month-through. And thatβs with just ~4-7k daily active creators. We think Zora has the UX and economic model to onboard 10β100x that base over the next 12 months.
More metrics in our Dune here:
https://dune.com/socialgraphvc/dollarzora
Labs Entities as R&D Spend
Thereβs an ongoing debate in crypto around protocol vs. Labs value capture.
We donβt speak for Zora Labs, but weβve spoken with the team multiple times and this is how we frame it: Labs revenue is best seen as R&D spend.
The 0.25% cut to Labs isnβt value extraction, itβs the fuel for:
Iterating on creator tooling
Building growth infra
Running ecosystem experiments
Improving UX across mobile and web
If Labs succeeds in compounding usage, building stickier monetization, and deepening protocol liquidity, that value will reflect back into the token.
Itβs a cost center. Just one that ships.
Ads
One of the biggest open questions, risk, and opportunity is ads.
Right now, brands arenβt participating in the content coin economy. But the opportunity is there.
If Zora can build an ad system native to its coin mechanics, where brands pay to sponsor posts, hold coin supply, or amplify creators, it becomes a self-reinforcing attention market.
Top coin holder pins a comment
Balaji's on Ads
There are already glimpses:
Pinned comments let top coin holders display a message
Thatβs an early ad unit
It can evolve into brand-native monetization for posts and campaigns
If Zora pulls this off, it won't just be paying creators. Itβll be routing brand dollars through token rails, and doing so natively, not via banners or popups.
We think theyβll get there.
The Team
The team has backgrounds from Coinbase, and has been consistently high-velocity and focused on building unique experiences that combine crypto-native and Web2-native UX.
Theyβve pushed the space forward with new ideas like bonding-curve-based quote coins, content-based tokenization, and referral mechanics. Zora has shown itβs willing to experiment publicly and build fast, traits we value in teams going after new social, creator, and monetization mechanics.
Jacob Horne β Co-founder & CEO Former product manager at Coinbase, pushing USDC and Coinbase Ventures, two of the greatest product lines within Coinbase. He focused on Ethereum and DeFi integrations. Jacob is known for his deep thinking on crypto market design, NFTs, and creator monetization. He is the public face of Zora and frequently shares vision and updates via interviews and X. He previously worked on crypto-enabled fashion projects and has been building Zora since 2019.
Dee Goens β Co-founder Ex-marketer at Coinbase, and a veteran of the early NFT movement and creative communities. Dee has played a key role in shaping Zoraβs early ecosystem partnerships and community strategy. He's focused on making Zora accessible to underrepresented creators and emerging digital cultures.
Tyson Battistella β Co-founder & CTO Leads engineering at Zora. Tyson was previously at Coinbase as well, working on smart contract infrastructure. He architected many of the protocol components Zora uses today, including its minting tools and L2 integrations. Token Zora raised $60M, lastly at ~$600M from Haun Ventures. With a "multiyear runway", according to the team.
ββ$ZORA token has a total supply of 10 billion tokens
Strategic Contributors (Investors): 26.1% (2.61 billion $ZORA)
Treasury: 20% (2.00 billion $ZORA)
Community Incentives: 20% (2.00 billion $ZORA)
Team: 18.9% (1.89 billion $ZORA)
Airdrop: 10% (1.00 billion $ZORA)
Liquidity: 5% (0.50 billion $ZORA)
Unlocks
Airdrop (10%) and Liquidity (5%): Fully unlocked at Token Generation Event (TGE) on April 23, 2025.
Community Incentives (20%): Fully unlocked at TGE, available for immediate distribution to support ecosystem growth.
Team (18.9%) and Strategic Contributors (26.1%): Subject to a 6-month cliff post-TGE, followed by linear monthly vesting over 36 months.
Treasury (20%): Subject to a 6-month cliff post-TGE, followed by linear monthly vesting over 48 months
This means that the 6 month cliff post TGE, on Oct 23 2025, the team and investors will have unlocked the initial set of supply of the token.
Final Thoughts
Yes, the token is still down.
But:
Usage is climbing
Ecosystem integrations are deepening
Creator retention is slowly getting healthy
And protocol revenue is real
Zora isnβt a pure memecoin play. Itβs a monetization rail for the crypto-native attention economy.
We still think itβs one of the clearest bets in consumer crypto today.
The foregoing material is provided to professionals of Social Graph Ventures LLC and solely for the purpose of such individualsβ evaluation of the investment opportunity described herein. This material is not intended to provide any person with investment advice or any recommendation regarding the appropriateness or merit of any investment for such person on an individual basis. These materials are not intended to create any investment advisory relationship.
Social Graph Ventures
Share Dialog
A very interesting write up about @zora I found today on @paragraph via @kiwi β What if ads actually paid creators? π Brands can potentially buy creator coins, hold supply, and pin comments (aka ads) πThe top coin holder can already leave a message (we can consider it an early ad unit) πIf Zora gets this right, creators wonβt chase brands. Brands will chase creators What do you guys think? https://paragraph.com/@socialgraphventures/zora-the-thesis
@procoin curate creators
Thanks Humpty! Curious where this is going, Zora seems to be unto something
ofc keep it going πͺ
This cast has been curated to CREATORS on the Feeds miniapp @asha you have been issued CREATORS shares Feed Market Cap: $85.29
Awesome! I can't wait to read through this. π€
Let me know what you think fam!
Will do! π€
Interesting read Bro π«Άπ»β¨π«Άπ»
I thought so too, feeling like I still can't grasp the whole Zora thing yet but probably getting there π Small steps hahaha
Iβll read it, ty π«Άπ»π€
Let me know what you think of the ad thing. Sounds interesting for creators with a large community
ππ»bookmarked it for my bed time reading ππ€
I think the idea is great, but the system that Zora uses is really a pyramid scheme where the top creators are always the developers and friends of the developers. In my opinion, that's very bad. I'll keep participating as long as it's profitable, but Zora isn't good for me. It's replicating malicious schemes at the expense of many people like me who live day to day with the money we earn on the internet.
Those were exactly my thoughts when the first content coins were launched. We could only profit if we sold our coins after someone bought some. Apparently the new creator coins (which we have to activate first) give some revenue to the creator every time someone trades the coin. So there's some revenue coming in without the creator having to sell anything. I think that's a step in the right direction, at least for now.
Yes, it's true, this changes the situation a little. In the meantime, let's wait and see what happens and try to profit from this situation. The way I see it, the people who buy my coins are supporting my art, so I sell that liquidity because I live day to day. It's pennies, but it's something. With the rounds and moving in the artist community, I can understand that artists will always support artists, and the developers of million-dollar platforms are not on my side. Only artists help each other.
Found your post + article through Feeds (Procoin) mini app here on FC There are a lot of parallels I see w Zora content coins and FC (curator feeds + collectibles) I don't know what the long-term solution is to creatives being under valued, but bootstrapping incentives to create and curate helps us ideate faster
I just discovered the Feeds app thanks to Humpty's curation. Super interesting, will start using it too. I like the concept of personalized feeds, everyone brings their own personality to their curation and each feed is different. Love what I've been seeing so far π
Part of me feels like content coins + curator feeds are like toddlers finding themselves Having a little one of my own, the speed of them "finding themselves" by trying on 20-30 different personalities w/in 24 hrs helps them identify what feels good, bad, or indifferent I'm here for more experimentation + connection
πππ
Lots of things happening on Zora lately