Dee Goens takes over as CEO of Zora, Jacob Horne steps down

Zora co-founder Dee Goens has taken over as CEO, succeeding co-founder Jacob Horne, who held the position for over six years. Goens stated in a post on Wednesday that Horne will leave the company to embark on a new chapter but "won't stray too far from crypto." Goens revealed that Zora has conducted layoffs this year, reducing the team size to fewer than 10 people, and is shifting towards a more AI-driven operational model.

On the product front, Zora has shifted its focus from the Creator Coins model launched on Base last June to supporting trading pairs on other networks. The Custom Pairs feature, launched on August 20, allows users to customize token trading pairs, with over 4,000 created so far. Zora also expanded to Robinhood Chain and Solana this summer, supporting cross-chain trading and eliminating fees for direct messages and comments. According to DefiLlama data, Zora recorded only $14,800 in fees deployed on Base in August, a 99.4% drop from $2.51 million in the same period last year.

Goens outlined five key priorities, with the top priority being to align the business with the interests of ZORA token holders through the implementation of buyback and reward mechanisms, though he did not disclose specific scales, sources of funds, or timelines. The remaining priorities include rebuilding community trust, focusing on mobile app user acquisition, and restarting community incentive distribution. As of the time of publication, ZORA is priced at $0.00814, with a market cap of approximately $36.3 million, down 94.4% from its historical high of $0.1456 reached on August 11.