Zora

When people say “Zora”, they can mean a few related things.

At the product level, Zora positions itself as an onchain social network. The idea is that content and profiles can be linked to onchain activity, including “coins” tied to posts, alongside reward mechanics. Zora’s own support content describes these coin features as entertainment and social engagement rather than an investment product.

There is also the Zora Coins Protocol, which is the set of smart contracts and developer tooling behind the “coins” idea. In Zora’s documentation, a post can be turned into a tradable token, and developers can integrate creation and trading using Zora’s SDK. Zora’s docs describe an implementation that routes trading through Uniswap v4 and uses a hook to collect fees and distribute rewards to different parties such as the creator and referrers, depending on the configuration.

Separately, Zora also maintains and publishes software for Zora Network, a Layer 2 chain built on OP Stack. Its published parameters include chain ID 7,777,777, gas paid in ETH, and the RPC and explorer endpoints. Zora’s materials state it launched the software but does not operate the network.

Finally, Zora’s documentation includes “legacy” NFT tooling (contracts and SDKs for NFTs and premints), which reflects earlier parts of the ecosystem that are still documented for builders.

Zora’s explicit position at launch is that ZORA is “for fun only” and does not function as a governance or ownership token for Zora.

That said, ZORA still shows up inside Zora’s broader onchain design. In the Zora Coins Protocol documentation, ZORA is referenced as the currency backing a “CreatorCoin” model, where CreatorCoins are described as being backed by ZORA tokens. This is a protocol-level role (how certain onchain assets are structured), not a statement that ZORA grants control of the protocol or the company.

And, as a standard ERC-20 on Base, ZORA can be transferred and integrated into third-party applications that support Base and ERC-20 tokens, subject to whatever those applications choose to support.

Zora’s public-facing materials tie the project to Zora Labs, Inc.

For the founding team:

• Jacob Horne (Co-Founder, CEO): Previously at Coinbase, involved in shaping Zora’s direction around open infrastructure for NFTs. - Dee Goens (Co-Founder, COO): Focuses on community and creator engagement, informed by his background and interest in music. - Tyson Battistella (Co-Founder, CTO): Worked with Horne at Coinbase and was involved from Zora’s early concept stage. - Slava Kim (Co-Founder, Head of Design): Recognised as a co-founder and leads design.