Creators create and sell NFTs on Zora. They receive a cut of the primary sales (supply-side fees).

Zora is a non-custodial NFT minting protocol built on Ethereum and launched in 2021.

Team and investors own and govern the protocol. They currently take a cut the primary sales paid by collectors (revenue).

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Zora

# Zora Revenue Methodology

## 1. Overview

Zora revenue represents the total fees earned by the Zora protocol from NFT minting activities across Ethereum, Optimism, and Base chains. The metric captures revenue from both ERC721 and ERC1155 token standards, accounting for different fee structures that evolved over time. Revenue is calculated using three distinct approaches: explicit fee payout events for newer ERC721 mints, fixed per-mint fees for ERC1155 tokens, and percentage-based fees for legacy ERC721 mints.

## 2. Data sources

The calculation relies on the following raw data sources:

- **Zora protocol event logs**: Parsed blockchain events from Zora's smart contracts across Ethereum, Optimism, and Base chains, including `MintFeePayout`, `Sale`, and `Purchased` events
- **Blockchain transaction data**: Transaction logs and event data from the three supported chains
- **External price feeds**: End-of-day token price feeds for wrapped ETH tokens on each chain (WETH on Ethereum, WETH on Optimism and Base)
- **Token metadata**: Token contract information including decimal places for proper amount normalization

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: ERC721 explicit fee payouts
- **Purpose**: Captures direct fee amounts from newer ERC721 mints that emit dedicated fee payout events
- **Logic**: Extracts data from `721Drop_MintFeePayout_event` logs across all three chains. These events contain explicit `mintFeeAmount` values representing the fees collected by Zora. Each chain uses its respective wrapped ETH token address for fee denomination. This represents the current fee structure where fees are explicitly tracked and recorded in dedicated blockchain events.
- **Key fields**: `mintFeeAmount` (explicit fee amount), `address` (NFT contract address), transaction identifiers, and chain-specific wrapped ETH token addresses

### Component B: ERC1155 fixed fee calculation  
- **Purpose**: Calculates revenue from ERC1155 token mints using a fixed fee structure
- **Logic**: Processes `1155_Purchased_event` logs to identify ERC1155 mint transactions. Revenue is calculated by multiplying the `quantity` of tokens minted by a fixed fee rate of 0.000777 ETH per mint. This fixed fee model is applied consistently across all ERC1155 mints regardless of the actual purchase price or mint value.
- **Key fields**: `quantity` (number of tokens minted), fixed fee rate (0.000777 ETH), `address` (NFT contract address), and chain identifiers

### Component C: Legacy ERC721 fee calculation
- **Purpose**: Handles ERC721 mints from the legacy fee structure before explicit fee tracking was implemented
- **Logic**: Identifies ERC721 mints from `721Drop_Sale_event` logs that do not have corresponding fee payout events. Uses a left join operation to find mint transactions without associated `MintFeePayout` events. For these legacy mints, revenue is calculated as 5% of the total mint amount, where mint amount equals `quantity` multiplied by `pricePerToken`. This percentage-based approach represents Zora's original fee structure.
- **Key fields**: `quantity` and `pricePerToken` from sale events, legacy fee percentage (5%), and transaction matching logic to exclude mints with explicit fee events

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: All three revenue streams are combined using union operations, creating a unified dataset of daily revenue records with consistent field structures across different fee calculation methods
- **Currency conversion**: ETH amounts are converted to USD using end-of-day wrapped ETH price feeds specific to each chain, with proper decimal place corrections applied based on token metadata
- **Time aggregation**: Transaction timestamps are truncated to daily boundaries, and revenue amounts are aggregated by day, chain, and NFT contract
- **Final calculation**: Daily revenue equals the sum of explicit ERC721 fees plus calculated ERC1155 fees (mint_count × 0.000777 ETH) plus legacy ERC721 fees (mint_amount × 5%), all converted to USD and aggregated by day with zero-filling for days without activity

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

fees * take_rate (illustrative — revenue is observed directly per project, not derived from take_rate)

Fee revenue retained after supply-side payouts. Before cost of revenue (e.g. L2 DA fees) and before operating expenses.

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Revenue

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