# ZABAL Update #14

> Conversations That Move the Work Forward

**Published by:** [The ZAO Newsletter](https://paragraph.com/@thezao/)
**Published on:** 2026-01-05
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@thezao/zabal-update-14

## Content

Quick update today. ZABAL was cooking. I sat down for a BCZ Yaps interview with Jordan (aka Yerberzerker), co-founder of Empire Builder, for a wide-ranging conversation on building sustainable onchain ecosystems. Watch the episode here: In this conversation, Jordan walks through his unconventional path into Web3—from outdoor education and digital media to token design—and unpacks the philosophy behind Empire Builder: helping creators and communities move from idea to durable, generative infrastructure. We dig into digital scarcity, creator tokens, incentives, and why value should be built in products and communities first—not price charts. The second half of the episode becomes a live walkthrough of Empire Builder itself, covering treasuries, leaderboards, boosters, distributions, burns, NFTs, and real-world use cases for community coordination. It’s a practical look at how Web3 tools can actually support creators without extractive mechanics.ZABAL Presents: Metaverse MeetupsWe also dropped a new ZABAL Presents: Metaverse Meetups session with Attabotty and GodCloud. Watch here: This live, open-ended meetup blends conversation, reflection, and real-time performance. What starts as a music-led warm-up evolves into a wide-ranging discussion on creative process, live experimentation, and long-term collaboration across Web3-native music spaces. The conversation moves between past moments on the road, major ZAO events like Zella, and forward-looking plans for 2026—including immersive visual performances, ZAO Stock, and new formats for collaborative live shows. Interwoven throughout are live performances—finger drumming, rap verses, improvised beats, and jam segments—foregrounding process over polish. This session captures the connective tissue behind the work: shared history, trust, and the creative momentum that keeps the collective moving forward.To close out the day, Adam from Songjam dropped a fire thread breaking down lessons learned from recent launches and live coordination. It’s grounded, practical, and very aligned with what we’ve been seeing play out in real time. That thread is embedded here for anyone who wants a sharper look at what’s working, what isn’t, and where things are heading: Adam @adam_songjam Lessons from the $ZABAL launch As an unconventional $CLANKER pair we were restricted to using the legacy 'full range' LP rather than the V4 staged liquidity pools This is typical for non-ETH pairs including $MON The initial creator buy was made manually after the token went +Zaal ⏻ (on farcaster) @bettercallzaal zm gm zabal update 13 is out paragraph.com/@thezao/zabal-…? join me and yerberzerker on live tommorrow at 9 am est for a conversation around Empire builder. 12 8:31 AM • Jan 4, 2026 Worth the read. – Zaal, from the ZABAL

## Publication Information

- [The ZAO Newsletter](https://paragraph.com/@thezao/): Publication homepage
- [All Posts](https://paragraph.com/@thezao/): More posts from this publication
- [RSS Feed](https://api.paragraph.com/blogs/rss/@thezao): Subscribe to updates
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/https://twitter.com/bettercallzaal): Follow on Twitter
- [Farcaster](https://farcaster.xyz/zaal): Follow on Farcaster