Bankless: Can Farcaster make crypto social a reality?

Source: Bankless Compiled by BitpushNews Mary Liu

Last week, the permissionless decentralized social protocol Farcaster was officially launched, and crypto social took a big step forward. Twitter/X is still a major communication platform for the crypto community, so how can the vision of web3 selling get more people to pay?

This article will dive into Farcaster and its prospects.

In a year of downturn in the cryptocurrency industry, crypto social gaming seems to have made some progress in 2023.

“Crypto-social” here refers to web3 applications centered on social connections. For example, friend.tech recently rose to prominence with its crypto-native version of Super Chat, which is to buy the keys of your favorite bloggers for a solo chat with them.

![Farcaster] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-40baef27dd-0768aa87d8-dd1a6f-69ad2a.webp)

This use case is very appealing, friend.tech the popularity of the PWA mobile stack has also been recognized by the market, but one problem: not everyone has enough ETH to pay for their favorite KOLs.

Another attractive crypto social rise this year is Lens, a web3 social graph protocol focused on data portability, where users can enjoy a range of Lens-powered applications such as Orb, Hey, Tape, and more.

![Farcaster] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-40baef27dd-91e66f0f0c-dd1a6f-69ad2a.webp)

The vision of Lens V2 is also eye-catching enough, it will use ERC-6551 as a wallet and all web3 activities through Open Actions. The problem is that Lens V2 is not yet available, and V1 currently has a waiting list.

Another big crypto social project that has made waves recently is Farcaster.

Farcaster is on the hot search because its license-free registration has just gone live. Account creation is managed on Optimism L2, so the registration fee is very “wallet-friendly”. Like Lens, Farcaster is a protocol that supports decentralized applications, and users can use Farcaster in a number of different ways.

Of course, this decentralized approach to portability is a cornerstone of Farcaster’s design, as it strengthens user control over data (in stark contrast to the data silos of web2 platforms) and facilitates permissionless application development (as opposed to centralized “walled” app stores).

![Farcaster] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-40baef27dd-2000e5d924-dd1a6f-69ad2a.webp)

However, what does this decentralized design look like in practice?

For example, if you are banned from an Ethereum-centric Reddit subreddit for sharing an article of your own, because the moderator insists that it is spammy. This ban makes you want to log out of Reddit, but you leave a lot of records on that old account, and the best thing to do is to port this data to another social media platform so that you can continue to build on it, but this is unrealistic because Reddit’s data is exclusive.

In contrast, Farcaster is an open protocol on which many different crypto social applications can be built. One such application is flink.fyi, a Reddit-like Farcaster pure web client. At the time of writing, it dominates in registration, probably thanks to its familiar user interface and affordable annual fee of around $7.

![Farcaster] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-40baef27dd-659902c0ab-dd1a6f-69ad2a.webp)

Also, assuming you don’t like Flink’s UI, or you’re fed up with stalled development, you can choose to move to another Farcaster app, such as Twitter-like Warpcast, and still build on the same social graph.

For users, this portability is very attractive, because there will always be people who do not want to be socially trapped on one platform or put up with Elon Musk’s whimsy or gibberish on X.

![Farcaster] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-40baef27dd-6bf87ff660-dd1a6f-69ad2a.webp)

With Farcaster, users can opt in and out of the app as they wish, while keeping the underlying social data intact on-chain. Of course, Musk can change the settings of the X account at any time, but he can’t steal the ENS name inserted into the Farcaster ecosystem, and that’s the power and promise of crypto social, radical user empowerment.

As a web3 system, Farcaster can also be a springboard for users to explore cryptocurrencies. For example, Warpcast has a dedicated noun channel that showcases NFT minting in a way that traditional social media platforms have not shown so far.

![Farcaster] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-40baef27dd-4e0a0aedc4-dd1a6f-69ad2a.webp)

Therefore, whether compared horizontally or vertically, projects like Farcaster can be an important catalyst for the future crypto social scene, supporting the unique experiences and data ownership that crypto natives crave, while also being open enough to create apps that appeal to a wider audience.