Zed Champions: Is The Future of Digital Horse Racing On Coinbase's Base? — Here’s What’s New About NFTs and Gameplay

Zed Run Starts Anew As Zed Champions On Base Network

Virtually Human Studios is breathing new life into its once-popular digital horse racing concept with the launch of Zed Champions, a refreshed version of its earlier hit Zed Run.

Now built on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network, the game has officially launched.

What Is New In Zed Champions Compared To Zed Run

While users will still race and breed digital horses, Zed Champions introduces a major shift in how races are run.

Unlike the original where players manually entered races, the new system will automatically match horses based on skill level, streamlining the experience.

Horses now race automatically, ensuring faster and fairer competition among similarly ranked competitors.

Nir Efrat, CEO of Virtually Human Studios said,

"Zed Champions is the next evolution of our platform. We’ve built a system where skill and strategy drive the outcome, and both casual fans and seasoned players have reasons to keep coming back."

ZED Token Takes Centre Stage In The New Gameplay

A deeper integration of the Ethereum-based ZED token sits at the heart of Zed Champions.

Players will use ZED to enter races, breed horses, and buy in-game augments or power-ups.

Each of the 4,320 digital horses in the game carries an internal ZED balance, influenced by its breeding cost and race results.

When horses race, a percentage of their internal ZED tokens are risked.

Winning increases a horse's balance, while repeated losses can deplete it.

Players can choose to retire their horses and cash out their earnings or continue competing.

However, if a horse’s internal ZED balance falls too low, it could be automatically retired, according to the Zed Champions website.

A Clean Slate For Players But No Carryover From Zed Run NFTs

One significant change is that existing Zed Run NFTs on Polygon will not transfer into the new Zed Champions ecosystem.

Although Zed Run horses are still tradable on platforms like OpenSea, they hold no utility in the new game.

However, long-time players were not entirely left behind.

According to a January blog post, users who earned badges before the original game's shutdown on 28 February were rewarded with race and breeding horses for Zed Champions.

Efrat said,

"Legacy players were offered an opportunity to win rewards based on engagement and ownership to onboard into the new game. Returning users should be excited.It's a new era of Zed Run, under new leadership, we moved to Base, and leveraged the learnings from past mistakes to create a sustainable model for longevity and success."

From Peak Success To Shutdown

At its peak during the 2021 NFT boom, Zed Run was a major player, helping onboard newcomers to the NFT space and even collaborating with major brands like Budweiser and Stella Artois.

Virtually Human Studios secured $20 million in funding from investors including TCG Capital Management and Andreessen Horowitz.

At its height in 2022, Zed Run recorded millions in monthly secondary trading volume, with some horses fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Source: X

However, as broader interest in NFTs fell sharply, so too did Zed Run’s fortunes.

Trading volumes plunged, with February 2025 registering about $28,000 in activity, falling sharply to just $627 by March, according to CryptoSlam data.

Today, original Zed Run NFTs are still listed at OpenSea starting from around $0.20.