A New Battle in Crypto Live Streaming: Can Zora Break Pump.fun’s Dominance?

Since the beginning of this year, Pump.fun's total revenue has been approximately $578 million, almost double Twitch's total revenue in 2017.

Written by: Byron Gilliam

Translated by: Chopper

Cryptocurrency has reignited interest in the live streaming sector. But who will achieve long-term growth, and who will gradually fade away?

Excluding Web2 platforms such as X, Twitch, YouTube, and Kick, among crypto-native live streaming platforms today, Pump.fun, Zora, and The Arena are considered the best candidates. There is also Abstract, but this platform only grants live streaming permissions to invited users or those who apply and are approved.

Pump.fun Dominates

At present, Pump.fun (hereinafter referred to as Pump) appears to be in the lead. However, the recent rise of Binance Chain Memecoin platforms such as Four.meme has stolen some of its thunder, and Pump's token has dropped 50% over the past month.

At a glance, there are more than twenty live streaming-related projects on Pump with a market cap exceeding $100,000. For creators, live streaming on this platform can indeed be profitable.

Last month, Pump's total revenue was about $55 million, slightly higher than summer levels, but still significantly down from the peak at the beginning of the year.

According to Blockworks Research, since its launch at the beginning of 2024, Pump has paid a total of $98.65 million in fees to creators, and the platform's total revenue has exceeded $982 million.

Although not directly comparable, according to Business of Apps, Twitch's revenue in 2024 is about $1.8 billion.

This means that in terms of revenue scale, Pump is still not as large as Twitch; but considering that Twitch has been operating for 14 years and is owned by Amazon, Pump's performance has far exceeded expectations for a platform of its size.

Since the beginning of this year, Pump's total revenue has been approximately $578 million, almost double Twitch's total revenue in 2017.

Can other competitors shake Pump's leading position in crypto live streaming?

In the short term, I don't think any competitor can achieve a surge in revenue and surpass Pump, not for lack of trying.

Zora's Live Streaming Strategy

Since being listed on Robinhood, Zora's token price has risen more than 83% in the past week, with a current market cap of about $400 million and a fully diluted valuation (FDV) exceeding $987 million.

Although Zora had previously hinted at launching a live streaming feature, it wasn't until the team confirmed two days ago that the feature was about to go live that the token price rose another 15%.

Zora co-founder Jacob Horne stated that the live streaming feature is currently in testing and only available to invited users.

However, Zora's revenue is still far below Pump's. Its highest revenue quarter was Q3 of this year, just over $2.7 million.

Can Zora's content tokens and creator tokens compare to Pump's Memecoins? I believe they can. The two are basically interchangeable in form and function; most Zora tokens are essentially carriers of memes or creativity, or tools to support creators.

According to Blockworks Research, about 10,000 accounts post content on Zora every day. This indicates that its active user base is at least that large, but it is still unclear how many more traders there are compared to creators.

I believe that if Zora wants to gain a foothold in the competition, the live streaming feature is crucial. Admittedly, it has a more user-friendly interface, a more refined style, and a less speculative atmosphere than Pump, but it still needs to compete with Pump for user attention.

As of Wednesday morning, among the 12 highest market cap posts on Zora, 3 were published by Horne himself or the Base ecosystem, and only 1-2 were art creations, indicating that art itself is not the core factor attracting traders to the platform.

After Zora's user base surged in August, the willingness of new users to register in September dropped sharply. More than 57,000 new creator tokens were issued that month, and given the daily average of 10,000 active posting accounts, it seems that many users simply opened an account on Zora but did not continue to post content.

So, are these inactive Zora users waiting for incentives to return, or are they busy on other platforms?

The Arena's Differentiated Path

The Arena is another crypto social platform where creators can be tokenized, and live streaming is also one of its core features. The platform uses its own token + AVAX, but both tokens have performed poorly recently.

The Arena was formerly known as Stars Arena, which was initially a tool similar to Friendtech.

At the beginning and end of 2024, due to crypto Twitter users' enthusiasm for trading each other's shares, the platform's activity surged twice.

According to Dune, since its launch, The Arena has paid creators a total of over $1.8 million in earnings, which is far from Pump's $98 million in creator fees.

One thing I am optimistic about regarding The Arena is that it can be regarded as a Twitter alternative; users can post content simultaneously on The Arena and Twitter with one click. Also, the current platform is not saturated with creators, so content exposure is relatively high.

Although The Arena is a small player in the crypto live streaming ecosystem, it has carved out a niche for itself—mainly targeting AVAX holders and small to medium-sized creators.

Over the past year, Solana (SOL) has risen by 25%, while AVAX has fallen by about 25%.

Summary

If we use chess as a metaphor for the current landscape:

• Pump is the king: its leading position is hard to shake in the short term;
• Zora may be the bishop: it has the opportunity to make big moves quickly and divert more Pump users;
• The Arena is the pawn: even in the face of low token prices, it is still making steady progress; of course, it could also be called a dark horse.

Although there are other live streaming platforms in the crypto space, I believe these three are the most worth watching.

Can the live streaming trend continue? I believe it can. After all, Twitch is still growing, and independent creator platforms such as Substack, Beehiiv, Patreon, and OnlyFans are also developing steadily.