Zora Hit Record Daily Revenue Amid Base-Driven Buzz Last Week, But Other Metrics Were Down

Zora, an onchain social network, hit an all-time high in platform trading revenue last week, fueled by viral buzz around posts from Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) network. At the same time, other metrics, such as wallet addresses and total value locked (TVL), were down or flat. The spike in revenue has reignited debate over the power of social media attention to drive real onchain engagement.

On April 16, Zora’s platform trading revenue soared to $137,652, a sharp uptick from the $6,069 recorded just a day earlier, according to data from Blockworks. This was the day the official Base X account posted “Base is for everyone” in text and image form, followed by a link to the tokenized version of that content on Zora. Zora generates a token for all content posted on its platform, which other users can then buy and sell.

Given that the post on X was from Base’s official account, many initially perceived it as an official token from Base, though the text of the Zora post clarifies that the memecoin is in fact “not an official network or protocol token for Base, Coinbase, or any other related product.”

Regardless, the X post quickly sparked a buying frenzy, sending the token’s market cap soaring past $17 million before it plummeted by 95%, as The Defiant previously reported. Currently, the coin has a market cap of $4.7 million and a 24-hour trading volume of 3.3 million. The token is trading around $0.0047, down 12% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

The momentum continued on April 17, with another post from Base on Zora. That day, the onchain social platform brought in $94,071 in revenue.

Interestingly, however, the number of active addresses and TVL on Zora were down in the same time period that trading revenue was up.

TVL dropped to $49,000 on April 17 from $49,240 on April 15, according to DeFiLlama. Active addresses dropped to 91 on April 17 from 95 on April 15, according to Token Terminal data.

By Monday, April 21, as Base hype cooled, platform trading revenue had dropped down $26,641.

Zora’s TVL, however, is on the rise, surging over 10% on the day, now around $59,200. The TVL surge can likely be attributed to the fact that Zora plans to launch its own token, ZORA, which the project revealed earlier this week. The timing of the token launch quickly garnered skepticism from the crypto community, as it appeared that the Base-fueled hype around Zora was planned to coincide with the platform’s token launch. Coinbase Ventures is an investor in Zora and ZORA token will be launched on the Base blockchain.

‘The fundamentals haven’t caught up yet’

Mike Cahill, CEO of Douro Labs, explained to The Defiant in comments that platform trading revenue was the only metric to soar on Zora not because of sustainable growth in activity, but very much because of the high-velocity experiment from Base that drove massive speculative flow last week.

“When a viral token mints from a major ecosystem like Base, you can get outsized revenue from a burst of trading, even if broader network activity is flat or down,” Cahill said:

“It’s a reminder that in crypto, moments of attention can generate real economic spikes, even if the fundamentals haven’t caught up yet."

Doug Colkitt, Initial Contributor at Fogo, echoed Cahill’s sentiment. In comments to The Defiant he said: "Zora’s revenue spike was driven by a single, high-intensity event — not organic network growth.” He noted that when speculative flows flood in, there may be a temporary surge in fees and creator earnings – even if core metrics like TVL or transaction count are declining.

“This highlights a structural challenge: we still don’t have mechanisms to separate sustainable usage from hype cycles,” Colkitt said. “If we want on-chain content to become a real market, we need infrastructure that can handle attention without breaking usability."

‘Attention is programmable’

“Zora’s record trading revenue is a clear signal that culture-driven protocols like Base are successfully converting attention into economic activity,” Todd Ruoff, the CEO at Autonomys, told The Defiant.

Ruoff explained that the Base ecosystem is creating an environment where minting becomes a form of cultural participation. “Users aren’t just speculating, they’re collecting and signaling identity,” he said. “This surge in engagement is compounded by Zora’s unique model of redistributing more than half its revenue back to users, which amplifies network effects and incentivizes repeat behavior.”

“It’s a reminder that in web3,” Ruoff noted,”attention is programmable—and platforms that can harness it through both community and economics will continue to outperform.”

Base creator speaks out

The sharp crash of the “Base is for everyone” token drew criticism from many in the crypto community. In response, Jesse Pollak, the creator of Base, addressed the backlash and denounced the stigma around creators issuing tokens in an interview with The Defiant.

“I've uploaded a ton of pieces of content to Zora because I always like to be at the cutting edge, at the forefront and figuring out how these tools actually work for creators? And my experience as a creator has been, there's been a lot of stigma,” Pollak said. “People have gotten attached to a notion of what coins are that's different than just the technology.”