Base ecosystem support, Zora may become the next Virtual in the SocialFi space.
Author: dpycm
Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow
Disclaimer: This article is for reference only and does not constitute any financial advice. The author of this article has personal investments in the tokens mentioned above. Any opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and should not be construed as the basis for investment decisions or as investment trading advice.
Why Zora feels familiar—and why that’s a good thing.
This strange feeling is like you’ve experienced what is happening now to some extent.
I’m sure everyone has felt a sense of déjà vu at some point in their lives—whether it’s a famous quote, an event, or a simple interaction.
Strangely, I felt that way again recently when I read about Zora’s flywheel. I immediately recalled the feeling I had in October 2024 when I first read about Virtual’s economic flywheel—a sense of familiarity.
Will Zora repeat history this time?
SocialFi
Back in August 2023, as discussions about consumer applications heated up in the cryptocurrency Twitter community (CT), we witnessed the rise of Friend.tech. Participants invested in keys of their favorite KOLs in exchange for access to private chat rooms, opportunities for price speculation, and airdrops.
However, after the token launch failed, users quickly left, and Friend.tech soon faded from view.
Was the emergence of SocialFi premature? Or are its underlying mechanisms insufficient to attract natural users? More importantly, as cryptocurrency gains more attention, will consumer applications become a hot topic again?
Zora
Unlike Friend.tech, Zora is an on-chain social network that functions similarly to Instagram. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that every profile and post is tokenized, allowing creators to profit directly from their content.
Zora creator's profile:
How it works
The $ZORA flywheel
The $ZORA flywheel:
Every profile is tokenized
Every post you make is tokenized
Every post you make is paired with your creator coin
All creator coins are paired with $ZORA
A 3% fee is charged on each transaction. This helps creators profit from every transaction on their posts or profiles.
The fee model is designed to benefit all stakeholders.
Advertising
https://paragraph.com/@socialgraphventures/zora-the-thesis
Advertising is a crucial component of social media. Zora has pioneered a peer-to-peer advertising market, allowing for the implementation of micro-targeted advertising strategies. If Zora can execute effectively, it will have significant profit potential.
Token Economics
The total supply of $ZORA tokens is 10 billion:
Community incentives: 20%
Airdrop: 10%
Liquidity: 5%
Investors: 26.1%
Reserve assets: 20%
Team: 18.9%
https://support.zora.co/en/articles/4797185
Unlocking
Airdrop, community incentives, and liquidity: A total of 35% will be fully unlocked at the token generation event (TGE) on April 23, 2025.
Team and investors: Locked for 6 months post-TGE, then released linearly over 36 months.
Reserve assets: Locked for 6 months post-TGE, then released linearly over 48 months.
This means that on October 23, 2025, the team and investors will unlock for the first time.
Funding
https://cryptorank.io/ico/zoraco
Zora has completed three rounds of funding, with the largest round raising $50 million, valuing the company at $600 million. Notably, as of the writing of this article, the fully diluted valuation (FDV) of ZORA is $800 million, approximately 33% higher than the last funding valuation.
Price Trends
Does it look familiar?
This is the price trend of Virtual.
Despite being launched for only a few months, $ZORA has experienced a period of low interest and activity—almost like going through a “seller’s purge.” However, through the integration of its underlying applications and the driving of the flywheel effect, $ZORA is regaining momentum and gradually returning to market focus.
Team
Social Graph Ventures provides a great summary of this team:
The team has a background at Coinbase and has maintained rapid growth while focusing on building a unique experience that combines crypto-native and Web2-native UX.
They have pushed the field forward with new ideas such as bond-curve-based quote coins, content-based tokenization, and referral mechanisms. Zora has shown its willingness to publicly experiment and build quickly, which are qualities we value in a team pursuing new social, creator, and monetization mechanisms.
Jacob Horne—Co-founder and CEO, previously a product manager at Coinbase, responsible for driving Coinbase’s two standout product lines, USDC and Coinbase Ventures. He focuses on the integration of Ethereum and DeFi. Jacob is known for his deep thinking on cryptocurrency market design, NFTs, and creator monetization. He is the public face of Zora, often sharing visions and updates through interviews and X. He was previously involved in the development of crypto fashion projects and has been dedicated to building Zora since 2019.
Dee Goens—Co-founder, formerly a marketer at Coinbase, is a veteran of the early NFT movement and creative community. Dee played a key role in shaping Zora’s early ecosystem partnerships and community strategy. He is committed to enabling creators from marginalized communities and emerging digital cultural groups to use Zora.
Tyson Battistella—Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Zora’s engineering lead. Tyson also previously worked at Coinbase, focusing on smart contract infrastructure. He designed many of the protocol components currently used by Zora, including its minting tools and L2 integration. Zora tokens have raised $60 million and recently received about $600 million in investment from Haun Ventures. According to the team, Zora’s “growth path” will last for many years.
Thoughts
With a strong flywheel model, a clean UI/UX, support from the Base team, and favorable bull market conditions, I believe Zora can continue to rise through reflexivity effects.
Price increase → Increased interest in Zora → More activity → Price increase.
Remember when the CT unanimously agreed that Coinbase was the best choice for on-chain retail entry? (We were all shouting for consumer applications!!)
Now, with the new Base application integration, Zora is in an excellent position to benefit from this wave of user onboarding—if it really comes. Just like how Friend.tech attracted attention, Zora will do the same. It usually starts with curious content creators and KOLs creating profiles to ride the trend, and then this reflexivity continues to rise.
Independent teams are gradually building Zora's infrastructure: terminals, bots, sniper tools, and more. Traders have already begun to engage in trading profiles and content. All of this evokes memories of the early stages of the SocialFi frenzy in 2023, and it seems a new wave is brewing.
That said, I do have some concerns—mainly about whether SocialFi still has enough narrative power. We have already seen its performance in the early stages of this cycle, so it may feel less fresh or exciting. In contrast, back in Q4 2024, Virtual perfectly fit into the mainstream.
https://dune.com/zorateam/coins
Compared to the TGE period, Zora's metrics do not look ideal, but they have started to recover after the recent price surge. The market is forward-looking, and we need to be forward-looking as well—not just predicting the current situation but also forecasting possible future developments. For this reason, I believe that as the reflexivity cycle progresses, the metrics will continue to improve.
A good narrative does not start with 100% consensus
I remember in the early days of the Virtual token launch, I shared my theories and promoted them loudly, but many participants hesitated simply because it was not on the Solana platform. There was also a lot of panic, uncertainty, and doubt. But just a few weeks later, with strong participants emerging and broader acceptance, the price skyrocketed. The current era reminds me of that time.
Conditions > Narrative
Overall, I believe investing is reasonable, with the specific position size depending on personal judgment. Although $ZORA has surged over 700% in the past week, I still believe there is room for further growth in the coming months.
It only takes one well-known creator to ignite the frenzy.
Hope you enjoyed this article, cheers!
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