Dee Goens has taken over as chief executive of Zora, replacing co-founder Jacob Horne, who is leaving the company after more than six years, Goens said in a post on Wednesday.
Goens, also a co-founder, inherits a company that has cut itself to fewer than 10 people and rebuilt its product around trading pairs on other networks rather than the Creator Coins it built on Base last year.
Fees on Zora’s Base deployment, the only one DefiLlama tracks, totaled $14,768 in August, against $2.51 million in August 2025 — a 99.4% decline, according to DefiLlama. Over the past 30 days the deployment took $14,971 in fees, of which $6,165 went to Zora itself, and its pools traded $551,284.
“After more than six incredible years as the company’s co-founder and CEO, Jacob is transitioning out of Zora and onto his next chapter,” Goens wrote. “I will be stepping into the CEO role as we continue building and stewarding Zora.”
Goens said Zora reduced headcount earlier this year and is “now smaller than we were at the start of the year, less than 10 people.” He did not give a prior figure or say how many people left.
