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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NFT marketplaces

Zora

# Zora Token incentives Methodology

## 1. Overview

Token incentives represent rewards distributed to users in the form of native protocol tokens. For Zora, this metric is currently set to zero across all time periods and chains, indicating that Zora does not implement a token incentives program. However, the infrastructure exists to track such incentives if they were to be implemented in the future. The calculation maintains consistency with other Token Terminal metrics by using the same temporal structure as the fees metric.

## 2. Data sources

The underlying infrastructure for token incentives calculation relies on:
- **Blockchain events**: Parsed Zora v1 smart contract event logs from Ethereum, Optimism, and Base networks, including `721Drop_MintFeePayout_event`, `721Drop_Sale_event`, and `1155_Purchased_event`
- **Transaction data**: NFT mint and sale transaction records containing user payments and protocol fee distributions
- **External data**: End-of-day price feeds for native tokens (ETH) and token metadata for accurate USD conversion
- **Protocol metadata**: Zora v1 smart contract addresses and NFT collection information across supported chains

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Fee payout tracking
- **Purpose**: Captures protocol fee distributions from NFT mints that could theoretically be used for token incentive calculations
- **Logic**: Extracts mint fee payout events from Zora v1 ERC721 drop contracts across Ethereum, Optimism, and Base networks. Processes `721Drop_MintFeePayout_event` logs to capture the `mintFeeAmount` field, which represents fees collected by the protocol during NFT minting activities. Associates each fee payout with transaction details, NFT contract addresses, and blockchain metadata
- **Key fields**: Transaction timestamp, NFT contract address (`address`), fee amount (`mintFeeAmount`), transaction hash, and chain identifier

### Component B: Mint volume tracking  
- **Purpose**: Captures the total value of NFT mints that represents the potential pool from which token incentives could be distributed
- **Logic**: Processes two types of mint events - ERC721 sales from `721Drop_Sale_event` logs and ERC1155 purchases from `1155_Purchased_event` logs. For ERC721 mints, calculates total amount by multiplying `quantity` by `pricePerToken`. For ERC1155 mints, uses the direct `value` field. Combines both mint types to create a comprehensive view of user payments to the protocol
- **Key fields**: Mint quantity (`quantity`), price per token (`pricePerToken`), total value (`value`), NFT contract addresses, and mint counts

### Component C: Trading volume aggregation
- **Purpose**: Combines fee payouts and mint amounts to create total trading volume, which serves as the baseline for potential token incentive calculations
- **Logic**: Unions fee payout data with mint transaction data, treating both as components of total protocol activity. Aggregates data by day using timestamp truncation, standardizes chain identifiers, and maintains NFT type classifications (ERC721 vs ERC1155). Converts all native token amounts to USD using end-of-day exchange rates and applies decimal correction for proper token representation
- **Key fields**: Daily timestamp (`timestamp`), trading volume amounts, chain identifiers (`chain_id`), and NFT metadata

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: Rather than utilizing the underlying trading volume and fee data for token incentive calculations, the final model explicitly sets token incentives to zero for all records
- **Currency conversion**: Not applicable since all values are set to zero, but the infrastructure supports USD conversion through standard Token Terminal macros
- **Time aggregation**: Maintains daily granularity consistent with other Zora metrics, using the timestamp structure from the fees model to ensure temporal alignment
- **Final calculation**: Token incentives are hardcoded to 0 for all records, indicating Zora currently does not distribute token rewards to users. The calculation preserves the complete data structure and temporal framework needed to support future token incentive programs if implemented

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

Value of native tokens distributed as incentives.

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Token incentives

Token incentives

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown