Zora is an onchain social network built on the Ethereum blockchain and its Layer 2 scaling solutions, primarily Base. It has evolved from an NFT marketplace into a social-financial platform where creators can tokenize their content as tradable "coins." The platform's interface is a social feed where users can discover, trade, and interact with content, reflecting its slogan, "Trade what's trending." This model aims to create a more direct and equitable system for creators and collectors to earn from online activity through cryptocurrency.^[2][17]

Doge NFT auction

In a notable historical event, Zora hosted the June 2021 NFT auction where Doge, the iconic meme of a Shiba Inu, was sold as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT).^[3]

Overview

Zora's model is centered on its identity as an onchain social network where content is financialized. Creators can tokenize their posts—primarily visual media—into tradable assets called "coins" on the Base blockchain. This mechanism is reflected in the platform's slogan, "Trade what's trending."^[2]

The main interface at zora.com is a social feed that integrates discovery, social interaction, and trading. Users can buy, sell, and trade tokenized content directly from their feed, with real-time pricing, price history charts, and on-chain ownership data publicly displayed for each post. The platform supports standard social features such as commenting and following, creating a transparent, on-chain social graph. This model aims to transform content creation and social posting into a direct source of revenue for users, allowing value to accrue to creators and collectors.^[2]

There are no fees associated with creating, selling, or buying works on Zora. The only cost required to post a creator's media is the gas fee at the time of posting on the respective blockchain, such as Ethereum or Base.^[4]

While it previously focused on being a universal media registry protocol for NFTs, its mission has shifted towards building a decentralized social layer where creators have more control and ownership over their work and community. The platform is committed to open, interoperable systems built on Ethereum and its L2s, which it considers the most "value-aligned, secure and scalable foundation."^[17]

Community Rewards

Zora gives creators, artists, and brands the power to launch their own community tokens, a model that has evolved into the platform's current "creator coin" system. As a fan and holder of a community token, one can gain exclusive access to community chat groups, forums, content, and restricted features on platforms that the creator uses, for example, community-only drops on Zora.^[6]

Retroactive Community Distribution

Historically, a community token launch by Zora started with a retroactive community distribution. This is the act of retroactively rewarding proven and existing community members: this could be Patreon or Twitch subscribers, store customers, followers on Instagram or YouTube - any platform where creators interact with their community.

For example, if one bought some merch on RAC's online store before the launch of their token, one would have received some $RAC as a reward for that purchase. ^[16]

Ongoing Rewards

There are also ways to earn community tokens after the initial community distribution. The main way to reward current and future fans is to redeem items that a creator has dropped on Zora. A creator can set a reward per item redeemed.^[6]

Drops

This section highlights early projects that were foundational to Zora's development.

$FAME: The First Zora Drop

The Zora team created an internet-owned fashion house called Saint Fame, which created a token called $FAME.

Like Unisocks, it was redeemable for a real-world item, in this case, a shirt. Unlike Unisocks, they decided to push this one step further: the team launched it before they even knew what the design was going to be. All that everyone knew beforehand was that it was going to be a shirt design by Dapp Boi. In December 2019, people started buying into the idea of the shirt.^[1][2]

The starting price was $8, rewarding early adopters. Every FAME sold increases the cost of the next, but they can be sold back into the pool at any time. The 99th shirt, if it sold, would be worth $170,000. The final one can never be bought.^[1]

$FAME traded near $20,000 in volume before the design even dropped. As of June 9, 2021, the price was sitting at $2460, with only 13 out of 100 shirts remaining.^[2]

DJ RAC NFTs

In 2020, the Zora team announced that the first creator on Zora is Grammy Award-winning artist André Allen Anjos, known as RAC.^[7]

RAC released a personal token on Zora. The $TAPE token represents 100 limited-edition cassette tapes featuring RAC’s latest album, BOY, and is sold on a bonding curve with a starting price of $28 per token. Tokens can be redeemed for a physical copy of the tapes.^[8][2][10] As of June 9, 2021, the last traded price of the TAPE token was over $2,794.^[10]

In addition, in October 2020, RAC launched $RAC - a community token by Zora. $RAC is a token built on Ethereum that he decided to give to fans who support the RAC project. In total, more than 500,000 RAC were distributed among the musician's supporters.^[11]

AES-256

On July 30, 2020, the Zora team announced that AES-256, a New York-based fashion label, was launching DRP-LTD-001, three limited-edition physical garments. Each garment features refined form, fit, and fabrication. The drop includes $AESI (Black Logo T-Shirt), $AESII (Technical Cargo Pants), and $AESIII (Grey Stone Hoodie).^[12]

Nathan Head

In August 2020, Nathan Head, a visual artist, photographer, and colorist, dropped his single most requested artwork, "Hanging Gardens" as a limited-edition print exclusively on Zora. The artist said:

I am really excited to be dropping this limited edition piece with Zora. It’s awesome being able to release this print in a meaningful way and try something new and innovative. Being able to give fans of my artwork the opportunity to invest in my art and own a limited edition piece is something I am super excited for."

Doge NFT Auction

In June 2021, Zora became the host of the NFT auction where Doge, the iconic meme of an excited-looking Shiba Inu, was sold as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT). The auction was curated and certified by Know Your Meme, the internet meme database.

The portion of the proceeds from the sale of Doge went towards the following charity organizations: Plan, Terra Renaissance, Florence, Japanese Red Cross, World Food Programme, Ashinaga, and Japan Heart.^[14][15] The auction for the original 1/1 NFT opened on June 8, 2021, and received a bid of 7 ETH ($17,618) during its run.^[13]

This photo of the Shiba Inu "Kabosu" was taken by her owner Atsuko Sato on February 13th, 2010. After sharing it to her personal blog alongside the series of other famous images under the title "Taking a walk with Kabosu-chan," these photos went on to kickstart the Doge meme and have circulated the web ever since.

Funding

In October 2020, Zora raised $2 million in a seed funding round led by venture capital fund Kindred Ventures. According to the report, additional investors include Yung Skeeter (Trevor McFedries) from startup Brud, Alice Lloyd George, Jeff Staple, and Coinbase Ventures.

In March 2021, Zora received an investment from Paradigm. Fred Ehrsam, the co-founder of the crypto VC firm, announced the news on his Twitter. In a blog post, Ehrsam effectively positioned Paradigm's stake as a bet on the future of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). He went on to contend:

"Just as much of the best online media could hardly have been imagined in the early days of the internet (who would have thought watching other people playing video games would be such a big business?), the same will be true of NFTs, both as a form factor and as a foundation for new types of applications. Crypto is rapidly creating the infrastructure for the metaverse. Zora is a key piece of that infrastructure, enabling experiences and worlds that seem unimaginable today."

Developments

In June 2025, Zora introduced a new token system for social content, laying the groundwork for its current creator coin model. The $ZORA token is the platform's official native token, used for all reward payouts to creators.^[16] The creator coin model has demonstrated significant market volatility. For example, a coin launched on Base using Zora's tools, $thenickshirley by political journalist Nick Shirley, saw its market capitalization peak at $16 million before declining to $470,000 by mid-February 2026, highlighting the speculative risks of this emerging market.^[18]

On April 25, 2025, Zora integrated Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP). The integration provides Zora with a secure standard for interoperability, supporting its operations across multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Base, and Optimism.^[17]

Attention Markets

On February 17, 2026, Zora launched "Attention Markets," a new token market built on the Solana blockchain. The platform is an experimental product designed to let users tokenize and speculate on real-world trends.^[18]

Jesse Pollak, the creator of the Base L2 network, described the launch as an experiment to "grow the onchain pie," confirming that Zora's core creator tools on zora.co and the Zora app remain fully operational on the Base network.^[18]

The platform experienced a slow start. In its first half-hour, the flagship $attentionmarkets token reached a market capitalization of approximately $70,000 with a total platform trading volume of $170,000. Zora's launch of Attention Markets was seen as a move to be first to market, as competitor Polymarket was reportedly developing a similar product.^[18]