Zora's Engagement Drops 98% Post-Airdrop

Zora, a platform that introduced content coins, has seen a significant drop in engagement following its airdrop. The Zora airdrop, which aimed to boost ecosystem participation by distributing 10% of its 10 billion ZORA tokens to early users, initially generated considerable hype. However, the sentiment around Zora tokens has since fizzled out, with engagement and mentions dwindling significantly.

According to data, engagement on the Zora platform has decreased by 98%, from over 12.2 million to around 142,000. Mentions of Zora have also dropped by 58% since the airdrop on April 23. Additionally, the number of creators on the Zora app has reduced by 57.6%, and sentiment has decreased by a modest 6%. Platform traffic on Zora.co has also declined from 500,000 to 300,000 over the past three months, and users on the Zora Network have decreased by 90% since the peak in early April 2024.

The "Coin It" indicator, which tracks the frequency of the phrase "coin this" or "coin it" on social media, has also shown a sharp decline. After peaking at 15 mentions on April 15, this metric has dropped to 1 after the Zora airdrop, suggesting a decline in engagement with content coins post-airdrop.

Jesse Pollak, the creator of Base and a supporter of content coins, acknowledged that he had received feedback about being too aggressive in communication earlier. He stated that he had made some mistakes in his messaging and had since adjusted by slowing things down. However, Pollak remains committed to helping builders push boundaries on Base toward realizing on-chain’s full potential.

In a recent interview, Pollak distinguished between meme coins and content coins, emphasizing the latter’s potential to empower creators without reliance on speculative communities. He also articulated Base’s vision to expand the on-chain creator ecosystem by fostering virality and creativity while lowering the barrier for non-crypto users to engage with blockchain technology.

Pollak's vision for content coins on Base involves tokenizing individual pieces of content on-chain. He believes that this approach can grow the on-chain creator ecosystem and bring a billion people on-chain. However, the charts imply a potential lack of sustained interest, aligning with criticisms questioning the long-term viability of such experiments on platforms like Zora.