In short
- Basic social media platform Zora is holding its key technology event on Wednesday, April 23.
- Opponents like Pump. joy co-founder Alon Cohen think it’s too soon for coins that compensation social media content makers.
- People have raised concerns about the key schedule alongside Coinbase’s Jesse Pollak’s remarks about using cash to reward information creators.
Zora, a social media platform that instantly turns every blog into a sign on Coinbase’s Base ring, is launching its own gift on Wednesday. This comes amid a “content coin” plan from the father of Ethereum layer-2 system Center, Jesse Pollak, with some criticizing the chairman for his schedule.
This all began on Wednesday next year, when Base’s national X profile created a sign on Zora called Base is for all which soared to a$ 16. 9 million market cap then crashed 92 % to$ 1. 3 million within two days. It would eventually strike a new all-time high therefore plummet again. This accident came as Base continued to create tokens on Zora as Pollak started to explain his “content coin” essay.
Put simply, Pollak says that content currencies are a way to improve the social media market by paying creators fees—a answer he says that fixes the problem of platforms not adequately satisfying creators. His feelings have now become Base’s standard stance on the matter.
But opponents, like Pump. joy co-founder Alon Cohen, believe that while Pollak’s heart is in the right spot, the campaign perhaps had come too soon to be entirely accepted by the business.
Either way, according to Dune information, Zora exercise exploded with regular investors spiking 601 % from 40,638 the day before the campaign started to its all-time deep on Sunday of 284,931. Throughout this time, Pollak continued to wave the flag for the material gold movements as he posted on social media, went on a media trip, and continued buying tokens.
That’s why on Sunday when Zora announced its token would launch on April 23, with its second snapshot capturing much of this newfound hype, many onlookers thought the timing was suspicious.
“I’m sure it is a coincidence that Zora is [launching its token ] less than a week after the ‘coin everything ’ hard shill campaign, ” pseudonymous crypto trader IcoBeast posted on X, formerly Twitter. “The way this plays out is that people who coined things the last few days will get larger than expected allocations to the token and then get a nice pump into day one [Coinbase ] listing. ”
But Pollak refutes this, claiming that it was a coincidence after all.
“The truth is the effort to coin things from Base went 0 to 1 in [less than a] day, ” he wrote on X. “The Zora team didn’t know we were coining anything until after it happened. [ Zora creator Jacob Horne ] had nudged me before paternity leave to do it and I told him I’d figure it out but it took a while. ”
the @zora team didn’t know we were coining anything until adter it happened@js_horne had nudged me before paternity leave to do it and I told him I’d figure it out but it took a while
glad I did it!
— jesse. base. eth ( @jessepollak ) April 21, 2025
Later, he explained that while the campaign’s execution happened quickly, the team had thought “long and hard ” about whether this type of coin was the future.
Speculation intensified when it was found out via CryptoRank that Coinbase took part in at least two funding rounds totalling$ 52 million, although exactly how much Coinbase invested remains unclear. The Zora tokenomics also reveal that 45 % of the supply will go to the team and strategic contributors, many believing this includes Coinbase.
“Base is for everyone was actually just a marketing stunt to pump a token they invested into lmao, ” crypto gaming content creator Jesus Martinez posted on X.
Not everyone was so skeptical about the Base and Zora relationship and have just been enjoying the app.
“All you had to do to make it was coining everything for a week only but instead you decided to clown everything from Jesse Pollak, ” pseudonymous crypto trader Cbb0fe wrote on X, and was reposted by Pollak. “Get ready to cope hard. ”
Neither Pollak, Base, nor Coinbase responded to ’s request for comment.
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.