Zora launches attention markets on Solana, letting users trade tokens tied to trends

The new product lets users create and trade “Trends” and “Pairs” that function like tokens inside the app, with a dashboard showing positions and profit and loss. Zora co-founder Jacob Horne noted on 17 February 2026 that deploying a Trend costs 1 SOL, a fee intended to deter spam. Zora’s documentation indicates Trends do not include creator rewards, while Pairs created under a Trend can include rewards. In a promotional example, Zora referenced $redlight and $coldplunge pairs under a $longevity trend.

Early trading in the app has centered on tickers such as attentionmarkets, longevity, cats, dogs, bitcoin and aigirlfriend, according to the platform’s interface. The launch comes as prediction markets and event-style trading products have pushed into the mainstream, with monthly volumes in the sector now running into the tens of billions of dollars across leading venues.

Zora also expanded hiring around the concept. On 16 February 2026, the company posted a job listing for an “Attention Economist,” describing a role focused on spotting emerging cultural trends across short-form video and social platforms including TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and X.

The Solana rollout drew pushback from parts of the Base community, where Zora shifted significant activity in 2025 and launched its first token on the network in April 2025. Jacek Trociński, the developer behind the Base memecoin Degen, described the move as disappointing, while another builder, Apex777.eth, criticized Zora for abandoning Base after a year of activity. Base creator Jesse Pollak responded that Zora’s creator tools remain operational on Base and framed the Solana launch as continued experimentation. Zora listed the ZORA token on Solana in January 2026 and its X profile now displays “Solana,” but the company has not publicly said it is leaving Base and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As GNcrypto wrote on 10 February 2026, a small group of U.S.-listed companies that adopted Solana as a treasury asset in 2025 were sitting on more than $1.5 billion in unrealized losses as SOL traded far below disclosed acquisition prices. The report estimated those firms collectively hold over 12 million SOL, about 2% of circulating supply, with equity prices falling even more sharply as lower share prices constrained their ability to raise fresh capital without heavy dilution.