GM. This is Milk Road Degen, the newsletter that’s more dialed into internet culture than your friend who replies to memes with memes.

Here’s what we got for you today:

• ✍️ Zora is gaining traction despite early missteps

• 🎙️ Milk Road Degen Live Show: PumpFun: Comeback or Collapse?

• 🍪 BNKR is getting listed on Coinbase today

ZORA IS GAINING TRACTION DESPITE EARLY MISSTEPS (P1)

Listen degen,

Trenching isn’t for everyone.

Every few weeks we get a new ecosystem with “trenches” that open up.

Meaning that you get to compete with snipers and bots for the chance at a 100x (gross).

It's a tricky game, one where you can lose a lot of money fast.

And lo and behold, there’s a new kid on the block: Zora.

Today we’ll dive into this “creator platform”, its bull and bear case, and how to snag tokens from the biggest names in crypto while the iron’s hot.

WTF is Zora?

Zora is a “creator platform” on Base (Ethereum’s second-largest L2). 

It turns content into tradable coins:

• You sign up and get a “creator coin” with a market cap

• You post content (art, pics, videos)

• Each post becomes its own token

I actually wrote about it way back in April on one of my first Milk Road Degen streams:

Example: Famous crypto artist Jack Butcher launched his coin this weekend; it pumped to $14M, and has now bled back down to $4M.

Zora also has a native $ZORA token on Base. It was airdropped back in April and botched so badly that even early supporters (and airdrop farmers like me) were pissed. 

It sat dead for months…

Until this past month when it 10x’d and the platform became the talk of the town.

Although it began to creep up on July 19, the major catalyst came on a few days later when famed-crypto investor Balaji launched his own creator coin. 

Now $ZORA is sitting around $250M market cap, and creator tokens are clearing $1M+.

ZORA IS GAINING TRACTION DESPITE EARLY MISSTEPS (P2)

The culture machine behind it

Zora isn’t just tech; it’s attempted cultural positioning.

Founder Jacob Horne is beloved by the Farcaster crowd (the “refined crypto” crowd who pump stuff like $DEGEN to a $1B+ FDV). They’ve been treating Zora like their art-meets-finance sandbox.

Combine that with Coinbase pushing Base App, and you get a perfect storm: corporate scale meets niche clout.

Why I’m skeptical (but still watching)

I’ve been in Zora’s orbit forever. Minted their early memes, posted content, told friends to use it. But I can’t ignore the negatives:

• Horrific reputation: It has one of the lowest scores on Ethos (decentralized reviews).

• Past PR nightmares: Base’s founder and biggest Zora supporter, Jesse Polak, could not get out of his own way quickly enough in the early days of the Zora token. First he launched, then basically rugged a token, then he promoted a stolen Hinge photo as art. 

• Airdrop fumble: Clumsy execution pissed off early users (me included), and brought into question why the token even needed to exist in the first place.

Despite all that? It rips. And when something pumps this hard against this much FUD, you don’t fade it.

So let’s just pretend that we’re bullish, and that none of these factors above matter.

How to play the Zora meta

To be honest, I don’t know if these trenches have much left on the vine. These metas don’t last long. But that could also be the perfect time to strike.

If you desperately want to snipe new launches, or at least browse creators that could pop off, here’s how you do it:

1. Load ETH on Base. Bridge via Metamask or Rabby.

2. Scan for new creators. Use ZoraScan:

   • Filter: 10k+ followers, 50+ Smarts.

   • Auto-refresh every few mins.

3. Check their X profile + Zora page. If you see an early pump/dump (snipers exiting), that’s often the best entry.

4. Watch for whales: Big names will onboard. Jack Butcher, Balaji, and more will keep this meta alive.

Will it last?

Yes…but expect cycles.

Base is clearly pushing Zora as a better version of PumpFun. 

Coinbase is a $100B company. They will keep featuring it on the Base App. That means creator coins will keep dropping, and the meta will keep refreshing.

$ZORA just ran 10x in two weeks. A pullback feels inevitable, but those dips are reload zones if you believe in the Base cabal narrative.

And who knows what other tricks the team has up their sleeve to push that token (and many other creator tokens) into alt heaven.

Wrapping up

I’m not happy about it, but I’m not fading it either.

Zora’s art veneer is backed by the most corporate force in crypto. And when those two align - culture and capital - you get exactly this kind of run.

I’ll keep trenching creators, potentially swing trade the token, and watch for some big names to pop up to mint their own “creator coins”.

PUMPFUN: COMEBACK OR COLLAPSE? 🎙️

On yesterday’s special edition of The Milk Road Degen Podcast, we broke down where PumpFun (and its token $PUMP) goes from here.

On this episode:

• Kyle and Martin argued the bull case: Buybacks, staking incentives, and PumpFun’s massive war chest could kick off a flywheel and push price back to all-time highs in the coming weeks.

• LG made the bear case: Even with all that money, does the team have the chops to pull off a real comeback?

Worth a listen for the avid degen 🔥

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

$BNKR is getting listed on Coinbase today. We called this one the best token under $100M months ago!

NBA Top Shot NFTs are available in vending machines in Japan now. If you’ve followed me for a while, apologies for the PTSD.

Memecoins are down 15-30% today as sentiment dips. Will they pick back up when ETH rips?

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