Solana and Base founders engage in a debate: Does the content on Zora have "fundamental value"?

2025-07-28 19:49:51

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$ZORA vs $PUMP, Base vs Solana.

*Author: Fairy, *ChainCatcher**

The two major public chain founders are facing off, and the tension on Crypto Twitter is palpable.

A heated debate surrounding "creator tokens" has ignited the crypto community. The founders of Base and Solana have rarely taken the stage themselves, engaging in a direct confrontation over the ZORA and Pump.fun platforms.

What sparked this clash? Let's start from the beginning.

The Controversy Ignition Point, Sterling Crispin's Doubts

This "war of words" in the crypto circle was ignited by Del Complex researcher Sterling Crispin's public questioning of Zora.

Zora is a social network platform on the Base ecosystem that tokenizes user profiles and posts, aiming to help creators profit directly from their content.

However, in Sterling's view, Zora is just old wine in a new bottle. He bluntly stated that the vast majority of tokens issued on automated market makers (AMM), which have extremely low liquidity and exhibit exponential price curves, are still "rebranded garbage coins."

In a debate with community users, he cited Pump.fun as an example: "The median outcome of ERC20 tokens on Pump.fun is not underperforming the market; it is going to zero."

In the face of this fierce criticism, Base founder Jesse Pollak quickly entered defense mode. He stated on the X platform: "I think you are wrong. Content is valuable, and creators are valuable." He further emphasized, "To equate the assets issued on Pump.fun and Zora is itself a logical fallacy. Not all tokens are the same; fundamentals matter."

However, Jesse's remarks soon provoked another big shot's emotions—Solana founder toly.

Solana Founder Interjects, Escalating the Conflict

Solana founder toly quickly intervened in the debate, retweeting Jesse's post on X and sarcastically asking, "lol wut? Do the coins on Zora have any rights to the future cash flows of the creators?"

(Note: "lol wut" is an English internet slang phrase, carrying a slight tone of disdain or feigned confusion, often used to express disagreement or find the other person's viewpoint absurd.)

After that, the battle between the two founders officially began:

Round One: Does Content Have "Fundamental Value"?

Jesse firmly stated: Content itself has fundamental value.

toly questioned: How do you prove it has fundamental value? Do token holders have the right to share in the future advertising revenue of the content?

Jesse responded: Advertising is just one way to monetize. Like a painting, even if no one pays for tickets, it still has value.

toly continued to attack: By this logic, is it a good thing for creators to sell Zora tokens to retail investors? Because retail investors can buy in below the fundamental value of the content?

Jesse attempted to explain: There are many types of tokens on Zora, but they all share one common point: they are a repeated, infinite game, where the actions of participants affect the operation of the entire system.

Round Two: No Resolution, Stalemate

toly dismissed it, coldly remarking: Sounds like their "fundamental value" is zero.

Jesse insisted: If you want to believe the value of content is zero, that's up to you. But I believe content itself is very valuable, and we can build a new system to return this value to billions of creators.

toly delivered the final blow: Then go convince the token holders to let Coinbase use its profits to buy up those Zora tokens that are "below the fundamental value of the content."

This conversation resembled a squabble among elementary school students, with neither side willing to back down, ultimately ending with Jesse's casual "OK."

Interestingly, toly himself has been vigorously promoting Solana's meme coins over the past few years, but this time, to strengthen his argument, he added: "I have been saying for years that meme coins and NFTs are digital garbage with no intrinsic value. Just like loot boxes in mobile games, while people spend up to $150 billion a year on mobile games."

Zora's "Pump Show"

The focal point of this "war of words," the Zora project, not only has the endorsement of Base founder Jesse Pollak, but the token $ZORA has also surged 883% in the past month. This wave of momentum is driven by the positive news of Base App integrating content tokenization features, as well as Binance launching ZORA/USDT perpetual contracts.

Yesterday, the number of creators on the Zora platform reached 21,478, with 12,292 new creators and 50,475 tokens issued, all setting historical records.

However, on-chain data presents a different interpretation. According to on-chain analyst AI Yi, in terms of spot trading, Coinbase is the largest platform for this token, with a 24-hour trading volume of $82.6 million; while in terms of contracts, Binance's 24-hour trading volume reached $1.354 billion, 16.4 times that of spot trading.

He noted that ZORA seems to have entered an independent altcoin market, but recently there haven't even been any single transactions exceeding $500,000 on-chain, suggesting that funds from CEX are manipulating the market.

Image source: AI Yi

The fierce exchange between Jesse and toly not only reveals the profound differences in the crypto world regarding the essence of "creator tokens," but also reflects the intricate competition and ideological clashes between public chain camps.

This debate has no winners, much like the ongoing struggle over the definition of value, which is always a fierce game between ideals and reality, faith and skepticism.