Zora, the on-chain social platform, is expanding beyond its NFT and creator-focused roots with attention markets on Solana, a product that lets users trade tokens linked to internet trends, memes and cultural moments. Unveiled February 17, the feature allows anyone to create a market for 1 SOL; once live, participants can buy and sell positions on whether topics will gain or lose traction across social media. Rather than betting on elections or macro data, traders speculate on buzz itself, including hashtags, viral narratives, and broad themes like AI girlfriend or bitcoin.
The design leverages Solana’s strengths—fast block times and low transaction costs—to enable rapid price updates and frequent trading, essential for momentum-driven markets. On day one, the primary attentionmarkets token reached roughly $70,000 in market capitalization and about $200,000 in trading volume, while liquidity for other markets remained thin, with most not surpassing $10,000. Price swings were sharp but largely driven by thin order books rather than sustained demand.
Zora previously found traction on Coinbase’s Layer 2 Base, launching the ZORA token there in April and Creator Coins tied to Base profiles in July, moves that briefly boosted Base’s daily token creation relative to Solana. Creator coins are tokens tied to a creator’s online presence—tradable shares fans can buy to signal support or speculate on popularity. Some Base community members viewed attention markets as a pivot away from momentum-driven creator coins.
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