Coinbase-backed Instagram copycat Zora has frustrated users with a number of controversial decisions

First, with little warning, it terminated years of its support for NFTs (ERC-721s) for creators in favor of ERC-20-like memecoins.

Coinbase-supported Instagram copycat Zora has frustrated users with a number of controversial decisions that appear to completely go against its previous stances on several of its offerings.

First, with little warning, it terminated years of its support for NFTs (ERC-721s) for creators in favor of ERC-20-like memecoins.

Second, as a way to underhandedly hand out money to disgruntled users, it announced an airdrop. However, it withheld all governance rights and granted itself a 45% allocation for team and strategic contributors plus 25% to the project-controlled treasury and liquidity pools.

Crypto sleuth ZachXBT summed up the feelings of many members, saying, “Why does the token need to exist at all if it serves absolutely zero purpose?” Zach also called it “just embarrassing for the space.”

Let me get this right…Coinbase invests in early round of ZoraBase team then hard shills a dying product to increase activity knowing airdrop is coming within days without any transparencyAre we actually serious right now ? https://t.co/8GsaxQ6ctJ

The NFT-based social media platform pivots to content coins

Zora pivoted to turning social media posts into tradable coins with no warning, a move that several artists, who had been using the platform to mint NFTs since 2021, found frustrating. Instead of finding that they could mint NFTs, they found that they could mint ERC-20-based “creator coins.”

When a Zora user posts to the social platform, the Coinbase Base-supported project generates a new token with a supply of 1 billion, some of which goes to the post’s creator. The creator also earns 1% of the trading fees from its UniSwap listing, Zora explained.

Zora and Base touted so-called content coins as an easy way for creators to earn money from their posts. Of course, in practice, the surprise launch disproportionately benefited early insiders and key opinion leader accounts like Base itself.

‘Base is for everyone’… And is 74% below its high

The Ethereum-based layer 2 blockchain founded by Coinbase launched a content coin that initially seemed to be the first token launch by the massive project. In less than two hours, confused traders bid up the BASEISFOREVERYONE token to a market capitalization of $15 million.

As the community realized it wasn’t actually an official Base token, it crashed 94% in seven minutes.

The price of BASEISFOREVERYONE remains 74% below its all-time high as of publication time.

The Zora ‘airdrop just for fun’

The crypto sleuth described content coins as a good way to convince larger creators to stop using Zora’s platform.

The airdrop of ZORA tokens, which are entirely distinct from BASEISFOREVERYONE, will also give tokenholders no governance rights. Normally, airdrop and proprietary tokens give users at least some sort of voting rights in a project.

“ZORA is for fun only, and does not entitle its holders to any governance rights or a claim on any equity ownership in Zora or its products or services,” its legal team disclaimed.

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