The Zora Flywheel: Posting, Pairing, and the $ZORA Surge

Zora is an onchain social network where everything you post becomes a tradeable coin.

This focus on content makes Zora distinct in the coin launchers vertical right now.

Plus, the Instagram-like feel of Zora's mobile apps (available through Apple and Google Play) makes the platform intuitive for both normies and crypto diehards alike.

Notably, the project has also been surfing two major catalysts recently:

• The Base App (formerly Coinbase Wallet) integrated Zora's tech, so now every post made via its Farcaster client becomes a coin.
• The Creator Coins debut, so now all of your coined posts are paired with your tokenized profile, and all profiles are paired with $ZORA.

These tailwinds have helped Zora reach new all-time highs in posts, active accounts, volume, trading fees, etc.

Moreover, they've brought an influx of attention and value accrual to the $ZORA token, which is up a whopping 800% over the past month.

This traction has generated plenty of discussions about the new Zora flywheel (h/t path.eth) and a goldilocks scenario (h/t AJC) forming here.

It's also generated lots of debate. Are content coins shitcoins? Is there a better way to do this (h/t Sterling Crispin)? Are critics overthinking it?

We'll have to wait and see if this flywheel keeps accelerating and where the dust settles from here.

Yet it's clear Zora has the hot hand, and more people are diving into the platform, so it's worth wrapping your head around Creator Coins if you haven't already.

Basically, when you log into Zora now you can activate a coin for your profile with your username providing the ticker. Then:

• Supply is hard‑capped at 1 billion units. 50% gets streamed to you the creator over five years, and the other 50% is immediately open for trading through a liquidity pool.
• Each new post you make launches an additional trading pair between the post’s coin and your Creator Coin. Accordingly, engagement and virality funnel liquidity back to your profile‑level token.
• Trades on posts and profile coins carry a 1 % protocol fee. This fee is paid out in $ZORA to the post creator or the parent profile.

The design goal here is to make creator upside reflexive. In other words, more posts = more pairs = more trading touchpoints = higher potential demand for your Creator Coin.

As such, supporters who buy your content are serving as patrons while effectively taking a bet on your flywheel.

If you want to try your own Creator Coin, Zora makes it simple to get started. New users automatically receive theirs upon setting up their accounts, while existing Zora users just need to press "Activate" in their profiles.

As for finding new posts and Creator Coins to trade, you can surf Zora's Explore page or use notifications to find new profiles.

You might also want to check out external apps that can help with your analytics and trading here, like Zora Terminal, Bankr, Hype, and ZoraRadar.

The Zora team has also released a Dune dashboard if you want a bird's-eye view on coins activity going forward. Eclipsing $1B total trading volume over the next few months is certainly within reach!