The block explorer BaseScan apparently crashed earlier today at the same time web3 social network Zora rolled out its airdrop program in chaotic fashion. The ZORA token and airdrop went live shortly before 2pm without any fanfare. Indeed, the company’s last pre-launch communication about the project was an X post from two days ago that simply said, “$ZORA will be live on April 23, 2025.” Zora finally got around to making an official announcement two hours after it launched, and even then, its first tweet was quickly deleted before the current one was uploaded.
X users noticed that BaseScan had crashed during the launch, and that blocks on the Base blockchain hadn’t been created for at least 15 minutes. Blockscout also went down. ZORA’s market cap fell 64% from a $461 million high to a low of $167 million over these two hours, resulting in upset users and accusations of insiders selling their allocated tokens in advance.
One user noted that Jesse Pollack, the founder of Coinbase’s Base chain, received 2.1 million ZORA tokens as part of the airdrop. Pollack has been promoting ZORA and has had to repeatedly apologize and clarify his actions while marketing the token. Zora has allocated 45% of the airdrop for its team and strategic contributors and 25% for its project-controlled treasury and liquidity pools. The token will also give holders no voting rights, as Zora is essentially claiming the token and airdrop are just for fun. BaseScan is working again at the time of writing.
