Zora Financials
Revenue
The Zora Coins Protocol is a platform for creating and managing media tokens. The Zora App is a social application built on top of the Base Blockchain using this protocol. The app focuses on user-owned content, bringing monetization opportunities to all creators.
The team also operates an L2 blockchain built using the op-stack. The chain facilitated the former NFT-centric design of the Zora protocol. Following the launch of the Coins Protocol on Base in February 2025, the activity of Zora chain does not correspond to the activity of the social app since it is built on Base.
Zora's Total Revenue consists of both Platform Revenue generated by the Zora Coins Protocol and Network REV generated on the L2. Today, the Total Revenue is primarily driven by the Zora Coins Protocol.
- Coins Platform Revenue: Zora is an onchain social network that initially used NFTs to empower creators to capture value through community. An early 202 upgrade migrated away from NFTs by tokenizing posts on the social platform with 1 billion supply tokens. Notably, the tokens are minted and traded on Base rather than the L2 it operates. Zora charges trading fees on activity in the platform, distributing the majority of fees back to users. Platform Revenue tracks all trading fees kept by the protocol. Note, we currently only platform revenue after the migration to tokenized posts in early 2025.
- Network REV: Network REV (Real Economic Value) is the measure of user demand to transact on a blockchain. It consists of all transaction fees and out-of-protocol tips paid for transaction execution. In the case of Zora, there are no out-of-protocol tips, so all REV is generated by in-protocol transaction fees, of which there are three types.
- L1 Fee: Covers the cost of submitting L2 transactions to Ethereum mainnet L1. It fluctuates based on Ethereum mainnet's network congestion.
- L2 Base Fee: The minimum fee required for a transaction to be included in a block, dependent on network congestion.
- L2 Priority Fee: An additional fee paid to prioritize a transaction within a block. OP Stack chains like Zora rely on priority ordering, where higher paying transactions are executed first, so priority fees enable sophisticated users to effectively bid for inclusion.
Operator Payments
The value paid to the infrastructure providers responsible for running the network, such as posting transaction data and stateroots to the L1.
- L1 Data: The sequencer batches L2 transactions, compresses them, and submits them to the L1 to ensure the transaction data is accessible for verification and dispute resolution. This category includes both the cost of L1 transactions and blobs.
- L1 Settlement and Other: A state root is a cryptographic hash representing the current state of the L2 blockchain. The state root is posted to the L1 to enable the L1 to verify the correctness of L2 state transitions, which is used to verify the legitimacy of the bridge withdrawal requests.
Gross Profit
The value remaining after subtracting the Operator Payments from Revenue, measuring the efficiency of executing user transactions and securing the network.
Other Expenses
- Optimism Collective: As part of its membership in the Optimism Superchain, Zora has a revenue share agreement with the Optimism Collective. Zora contributes the greater of 2.5% of total sequencer revenue (Network REV) or 15% of its net onchain sequencer revenue (Network REV less L1 Operator Payments) to the Collective. This excludes any revenue generated by the consumer application.
- Zora Labs Take Rate: Under the current construction of Zora, all net income (after accounting for the Optimism Collective Fee) accrues to Zora Labs.
Token Holder Net Income
The excess Revenue that accrues to token holders net of all Operator Payments and Other Expenses.
In the case of Zora, there is no Token Holder Net Income as there is no token related to Zora. Zora Labs is the beneficiary of any net income, as noted by the Zora Labs Take Rate in Other Expenses.