TLDR
- Zora Network will launch the ZORA token on April 23, 2025, with a 10% airdrop of total supply (1 billion tokens)
- Snapshots were taken in two phases: January 2020 to March 2025, and March to April 2025
- Binance has confirmed listing ZORA, with Coinbase expected to follow
- Pre-market price estimates range from $0.02-$0.03, suggesting a $30 million airdrop value
- Concerns have emerged about potential insider trading following controversial “content coin” promotions
Zora Network, a layer-2 solution for NFTs backed by Coinbase Ventures, is set to launch its ZORA token on April 23, 2025. The platform will distribute 10% of its total token supply to early users through an airdrop. This launch comes after the platform recently raised $60 million in funding and follows a week of viral promotions that have sparked both excitement and controversy.
The airdrop will distribute 1 billion ZORA tokens from the total supply of 10 billion. According to the tokenomics breakdown, 20% is allocated to community incentives, 20% to the treasury, 18.9% to the team, 26.1% to strategic contributors, and 5% is reserved for liquidity.
Snapshots for the airdrop were taken in two phases. The first phase covered user activity from January 1, 2020, to March 3, 2025. The second phase captured activity from March 3, 2025, to April 20, 2025. These snapshots record blockchain states at specific times to determine user eligibility for token rewards.
$ZORA will be live on April 23, 2025. pic.twitter.com/yZdjlnDohH
— zora (@zora) April 20, 2025
Exchange Listings and Price Expectations
Binance has officially announced it will list ZORA on April 23 via Binance Alpha. The exchange also plans to offer an additional airdrop of 4,276 ZORA tokens to users who purchased at least $50 on Alpha between March 22 and April 20, 2025.
While Coinbase has not yet made an official announcement, many expect the exchange to list ZORA soon given its backing of the project through Coinbase Ventures. Pre-market trading suggests a price between $0.02 and $0.03 per token. At this price, the airdrop would be worth approximately $30 million.
Zora Network has shown strong on-chain activity, with over 87 million transactions processed and about 37,000 active addresses per day. The platform reports over 6 million active addresses and nearly 3.5 million contracts deployed in total.
$ZORA is planned to launch with a total supply of 10,000,000,000 on Base.
Check out the allocation information below: pic.twitter.com/GWiMqutpKC
— zora (@zora) March 3, 2025
Controversy and Concerns
The token announcement follows a week of viral promotion on social media platform X. Base creator Jesse Pollack drew attention to Zora’s “content coins” feature, which allows users to create tokens representing pictures or word phrases in tradeable form.
Base’s official account promoted a token called “Base is for everyone,” causing its market cap to surge from thousands to over $17 million within hours. This promotion attracted over 230,000 new wallets to interact with the platform on Sunday alone.
However, blockchain analysts later discovered that three crypto wallets purchased these tokens before the official announcement, earning profits of $666,000. This revelation has led to accusations of insider trading and questionable promotion tactics.
Critics on social media have expressed skepticism about the timing of the token launch following these promotions. Some users have characterized it as “an airdrop shill to create hype and liquidity.” Pollack has denied that the Zora promotions were a marketing campaign.
The token launch comes during a challenging period for the NFT market. According to Binance data, total sales volume across the top 10 blockchains decreased by 12.4% last month. Zora’s own user activity has reportedly dropped by over 80% in the past year.
As with many token launches, investors should anticipate volatility at the beginning. The combination of high expectations, exchange listings, and controversial promotion tactics may create price swings after the April 23 launch.
For users who may have qualified for the airdrop, the distribution will begin on April 23, with individual allocation details yet to be revealed. Zora’s launch represents one of the biggest crypto airdrops of 2025 so far, but comes with both opportunity and concerns for the crypto community.
