Hey ZAP community! While things have been quiet into the New Year, we want to take a moment to sit down and take stock of what we’ve been up to, the events of 2024, and our upcoming plans.

As we step into 2025, it’s the perfect time to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re headed. The past year was filled with both challenges and triumphs, and none of it would have been possible without your support. 

Starting with a recap on the $ZAP token and economics surrounding it:

• Listed on Bybit, Gate, Mexc, and Uniswap, with other smaller listings that were free.

• ZAP onboarded 2 Tier 1 Market Makers in Q4 - Auros and Presto.

• Almost ⅓ of all ZAP tokens are now liquid. 

• Total ZAP bought back by the team since launch: 10,016,539.

• Around 3% of circulating $ZAP supply has been staked. Lower than anticipated, but a good start

• By the end of Q1, approximately 37% of the supply will be circulating. We believe this is healthy given market conditions and the promising year ahead thanks to the Trump administration's pro-crypto outlook. 

While we’ve had conversations about changing vesting, increasing it, or even decreasing it, we believe we should stick to our initial plan of a fairly fast vesting schedule for investors - and focus on bringing new holders and attention to the ZAP economy through the points listed in this changelog.

We are also committed to responsible buy backs, but also want to ensure sufficient runway. We’re here for the long term.

Chase Two Rabbits, Catch Neither

In Q4, we shifted our focus to the ZAP Launch model (fast, cost effective token launches) to drive revenue and ensure we could continue growing the company sustainably while also supporting the long-term value of ZAP. We wanted to avoid becoming a feature-factory which is why we moved from shipping lots of product features every week, to focusing on existing bugs and polishing the systems that we know have a lot more potential. At this point, shipping a new feature every week won’t affect the price of ZAP, because we need to focus on bringing new users onboard as a priority.

As a result, we paused development of ZAP Labs and ZAP Drops, to focus on the token launch platform, and creating software that’s super accessible to first time Web2 users. We implemented social sign on and fiat ramps to assist with trading on ZAP—but this relies heavily on our Web2 strategy - which we’re excited to unleash after months of meticulous planning!

Base activity has surged, but so has competition. We are one of approximately 50 token launchers (that we know of) on Base alone.

With this in mind, we’re in the final stages of launching multiple Social Media Channels, including TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. We believe that our edge is in our Web2 user acquisition strategy - so we’ve also partnered with a leading Web2 Marketing Agency: Lifted Management, who will manage these channels with us. They are experts in working on viral content, animation and influencers - and have led campaigns for brands like Red Bull. But more than this—ZAP is the first crypto company they feel confident to work with, which is a great sign! 

We’re confident this sets us apart from our competitors on Base and will also help us gain key support from the Base ecosystem as we push to make 2025 bigger and better.

That said, we also need to look ahead and try to get ahead of trends before they emerge. We’ll share what we’re seeing, what’s exciting and what we are considering later, but first…

Web2 Meets Web3: Our Pipeline

We’re also still committed to our Web2 strategy discussed here. We’ve spent months building out exciting gamification features, integrating Dynamic.xyz for social sign ons, and we also updated the user interface to be as sleek as possible. 

Where things currently stand, we have multiple exciting memecoin launches in the pipeline—however, these projects have been waiting for the right market conditions to launch, and recent volatility has proved a bit of a roadblock. Once these are feeling more comfortable, we expect some big launches to drive more attention to ZAP as a platform, as we market to a Web2 audience eager to get involved in memecoins.

Our partners at Lifted Management are also building something fun with us, which is set to launch in February.

To make this even more rewarding, we’re actively exploring ways to integrate these memecoin launches with our Seasons and gamification features, creating an ecosystem that’s not just about trading, but about meaningful engagement and value creation for our community.

We’ve also been cooperating with a team called BRAT, and we’ve been working closely with the team to ensure good launch conditions that benefit all of our community but also are accessible and fair.. Which leads us to:

Examining the “Fair Launch” Meta

Most token launchers claim to be fair launch, but because of such low liquidity requirements to bond to a DEX, they encourage two things:

1. The team to bundle + snipe, to protect supply from other snipers

2. Sniping groups who watch for hot launches, and destroy early momentum

Put simply, there are very few projects that have successful fair launches in this evolving market. We have a unique opportunity to innovate this meta – starting with customisable bonding curves that allow teams to raise more money in a fairer way. We want to make investing in high potential tokens accessible to everyone. One of the teams we’re working with who are launching soon are helping us to design this model. 

Working with the BRAT team on a unique, tailor made launch method should also make us an attractive team to approach for custom launches in an ever changing market. 

Also, while we never ran a traditional launchpad raise, we can't ignore seeing an increase in demand for large public sales, which we believe is being led by Legion and Echo. This means the team are also exploring the traditional launchpad model with other projects we are working with in the background. There is a future where large scale, public sales for memes and utility coins run on ZAP. We might be in that position sooner than later.

Over the past few months, AI-related content has also surged, and AI as a narrative holds as much as 60-70% of crypto twitter’s mindshare. Memes will always be core to internet culture, but the AI wave is shaping how people interact and share ideas in the space. 

We don’t want to jump on the AI bandwagon and expect immediate results, but we can’t ignore the importance of innovating in this direction, so we will be working with our advisors to identify effective ways to benefit from the current Agent meta; perhaps even having our own swarm of agents trading on ZAP?

CTZN’s Next Chapter

We put a lot of effort into CTZN, and we don’t want to waste it. Especially the amazing work that the artists have done. We’re exploring bringing a new team to actually manage the CTZN IP entirely - we’ve built worlds, animations, and have lore and a full collection ready to launch… But we don’t want to launch this without it finding its own identity. Whatever is decided for CTZN, we’ll retain the supply needed to airdrop our users, but we also want to make sure we create value and bring success to the project, beyond an airdrop you forget about.

We will be sharing more about the new folks involved in CTZN soon - a totally new leadership team and direction who can take it very far with our advisorship. 

So… What’s Next (TLDR)?

• Responsible Buybacks: Continued commitment to buybacks while maintaining long-term sustainability.

• Focus Shift: Prioritizing token launches and onboarding Web2 users with social sign-ons, fiat ramps, and a sleek UI.

• Marketing Push: Partnered with Lifted Management to expand on TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram with viral campaigns.

• Fair Launch Innovation: Developing customizable bonding curves for fairer token launches and exploring traditional launchpad models in partnership with Tier 1 teams.

• AI Opportunities: Exploring ways to leverage the growing AI narrative for innovation in trading and engagement.

• CTZN Project: Transitioning management to ensure CTZN has its own identity and value beyond airdrops.

Lastly, we’d like to say a thank you to the community—we’re looking forward to what’s next in 2025 and are grateful to have everyone’s support! Here's to an exciting 2025.

Thanks,

Francis & the ZAP Team