The century debate between the founders of Base and Solana: When ZORA soared 883% and encountered the "value return to zero theory"

A heated debate erupted between Base founder Jesse Pollak and Solana founder Toly over the value of "creator tokens," sparked by researcher Sterling Crispin's critique of Zora, a Base-based platform tokenizing user content.
Crispin argued that most tokens on platforms like Zora and Pump.fun lack real value, citing Pump.fun's ERC20 tokens often dropping to zero, while Jesse defended Zora, asserting content's inherent value and dismissing comparisons to Pump.fun.
Toly challenged Jesse, questioning whether Zora tokens grant holders rights to creators' future revenue, likening them to valueless "digital junk" akin to meme coins and NFTs.
Despite Jesse's insistence on content's fundamental worth, the debate ended inconclusively, highlighting broader ideological divides in crypto over token utility and value.
Meanwhile, Zora's token ($ZORA) surged 883% amid Binance's perpetual contract launch and Base's integration, though on-chain data suggests potential market manipulation with minimal large transactions.
The clash underscores ongoing tensions between blockchain ecosystems and differing visions for creator monetization in Web3.

Author: Fairy, ChainCatcher

The founders of two major public chains are clashing head-on, setting Crypto Twitter on fire.

A heated debate over "creator tokens" has ignited the crypto community. The founders of the Base and Solana public chains have made a rare public appearance, engaging in a head-on confrontation over the ZORA and Pump.fun platforms.

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

The Flashpoint: Sterling Crispin's Questioning

This heated debate in the crypto community began when Del Complex researcher Sterling Crispin publicly questioned Zora.

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

But in Sterling's view, Zora is just old wine in new bottles. He bluntly stated that the vast majority of tokens issued on automated market makers (AMMs), with extremely low liquidity and exponential price curves, are still "junk coins in a new skin."

During a debate with community users, he cited Pump.fun as an example: "The median performance of ERC20 tokens on Pump.fun didn't underperform the market, it went straight to zero."

Faced with this heated questioning, Base founder Jesse Pollak quickly launched into defense mode. He said on the X platform: "I think you are wrong. Content is valuable, and creators are valuable." He further emphasized, "It is a logical fallacy to regard the assets issued on Pump.fun and Zora as equivalent. Not all tokens are the same, and fundamentals are important."

However, Jesse's remarks soon stimulated the emotions of another big shot - Solana founder Toly.

Solana founder interjects, escalating the debate

Solana founder Toly quickly intervened in the debate, retweeting Jesse's post on X and sarcastically commenting, "Lol wut? Do the tokens on Zora have any rights to the creator's future cash flow?"

From then on, the battle between the two founders officially began:

Round 1: Does content have 'fundamental value'?

Jesse firmly stated: Content itself has fundamental value.

Toly pressed on: How do you prove it has fundamental value? Do token holders have a share of future advertising revenue from the content?

Jesse responded: Advertising is just a monetization method. Just like a painting, it still has value even if no one pays for it.

Toly continued his attack: According to this logic, would creators selling Zora tokens be a good thing for retail investors? Because retail investors can buy at a price below the fundamental value of the content?

Jesse attempted to explain: There are many types of tokens on Zora, but they all have one thing in common: they are all repeated, infinite games, in which the actions of participants affect the operation of the entire system.

Round Two: Inconclusive, Neither Side Gives Up

Toly wasn't convinced, sarcastically remarking, "It sounds like their 'basic value' is zero."

Jesse insisted: "If you want to believe that content is worth zero, that's fine. But I believe content itself is incredibly valuable, and we can build a new system to return that value to hundreds of millions of creators."

Toly delivered his final blow: "Then convince Coinbase holders to use their profits to buy up those Zora tokens, which are nearing zero value, because they are "below the fundamental value of the content."

The conversation was like a schoolboy's bickering, neither side willing to admit defeat, and ultimately ended abruptly with Jesse's "OK."

Interestingly, toIy himself has been touting the Solana ecosystem's meme coins for the past few years, but this time, to bolster his argument, he added: "I've been saying for years that meme coins and NFTs are digital junk with no intrinsic value. They're like loot boxes in mobile games, and people spend $150 billion on mobile games every year."

Zora's "Pump-Up Show"

The Zora project, the focus of this debate, not only features Base founder Jesse Pollak... The token $ZORA has surged 883% over the past month, thanks to the Base App's integration of content tokenization features and the launch of the ZORA/USDT perpetual contract on Binance. Yesterday, the number of creators on the ZORA platform reached 21,478, including 12,292 new creators, and the number of tokens issued reached 50,475, both of which set new all-time highs. However, on-chain data offers a different interpretation. According to on-chain analyst AI Yi, Coinbase is the largest spot trading platform for the token, with a 24-hour trading volume of $82.6 million. Meanwhile, Binance's 24-hour trading volume for futures contracts reached $1.354 billion, 16.4 times that of the spot market.

He stated that ZORA appears to have emerged as an independent altcoin, but the chain has not seen any recent single transactions exceeding $500,000, suggesting that funds in CEX exchanges are manipulating the market.

Image Source: AI Aunt

The heated exchange between Jesse and Toly not only reveals the profound disagreement within the crypto world regarding the nature of "creator tokens" but also reflects the complex competition and ideological clashes within the public blockchain community.

There is no winner in this debate, just like the world's struggle for the definition of value, which is always a fierce game between ideals and reality, faith and doubt.