- Coinbase has rebranded its wallet to the Base app, featuring tokenized social media and monetization tools.
- The app enables users to create and trade “creator tokens” using the Zora protocol, allowing profiles and posts to become tradable tokens.
- Since the Base app launched, Zora tokens and activity have sharply increased, with token creation and trading volumes reaching record highs.
- Critics compare these tokens to memecoins, raising concerns over their value and the trading environment.
- Other SocialFi projects show mixed success, with some losing traction and others aiming to combine crypto with large-scale social interaction.
Coinbase recently renamed its main wallet to the Base app on July 16, introducing new features for users to monetize their social media activity. The update added the ability to create and trade social media tokens through the Zora protocol on the Base Blockchain.
Since the launch, the number of Zora tokens created surged to over 54,000 in a single day, a significant increase from an average of 5,000 daily in June, according to Dune. Zora tokens increased in value by 600%, reaching $0.077. On July 27, daily trading hit nearly 200,000 trades, and the trading volume topped $41 million.
The Base app links every user profile to a creator token—effectively turning usernames into unique digital assets. Posts become content tokens, which users can also trade. Creators earn a share of trading fees generated by their tokens. Jesse Pollak, head of Base, stated, “I believe that content is incredibly valuable and that we can build new systems that return that value to the hundreds of millions of creators who create it.”
Some critics, however, question these developments. AI developer Sterling Crispin stated on X, “It’s a zero sum [player versus player] game of musical chairs… Nobody leaves with more than they came with unless someone else is losing. And retail gets rinsed by snipers, bundlers, coordinated pump and dumps, FNF groups, and industrial scale autonomous trading bots.” Memecoins, or joke digital currency tokens without utility, are a frequent comparison by skeptics.
Other SocialFi (social-financial) apps, like Friend.tech and Avara’s Lens Protocol, attempt similar integrations of crypto into social media. Friend.tech, which had attracted 600,000 users shortly after launch, has since experienced a steep decline, now seeing under 100 daily transactions and about 250 users. Meanwhile, Pump.fun, another memecoin platform, aims to expand its reach by acquiring tools to monitor wallet activity, positioning itself as a future competitor to major social platforms.
SocialFi remains a rapidly evolving sector, with recent projects experiencing both rapid surges and sudden slowdowns depending on market trends.
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