Decentralized Social Update: Embracing Too Much, Holding Too Little

Transcript

Hi. So, today we will talk about the state of decentralized social as of now and how we came up to this point. My name is Eva. I have been the five founder for the last like four years. And also right now I am helping to build the web three privacy explorer, which is the go to place if you want to have a data on any web three privacy related project. It has information on product metrics, team, funding rounds, and ratings. And also we have now a new graph dashboard where agentic pipelines gather real-time data and find relationship between contributors, donors, team members to see how interconnected really the

privacy sector of crypto is. Which brings us to the point of this talk connections. We as a species evolved our brain around empathy and cooperation, but current platforms hijack that impulse. They optimize for engagement, FOMO, feelings of inferiority, and rage. And now look at this quote. Some of you might laugh and that is exactly the problem because 20 years of social media were enough to shake our beliefs in human cooperation and that is exactly what we are trying to fix with decentralized platforms.

So, what are features that emerge when you give people access to the protocol? You can use social network as a market of truth. You could control where data is shared and with whom. And if you career evolves around connections, you do not have to fear of losing your social graph like President Trump and other politician and journalists. So, I have my personal picks out of these features. I really like custom clients and the ability to adjust the UI for the features I use the most. And I really like the format of mini apps in

Farcaster. I think it's like insane combination of distribution and payment in one place. It can become what Telegram bots were promised to be in 2018 if you remember, but they never achieved that. For example, um I web coded a short flashcard app of speakers and people I want to talk with during ECC with some basic information and common points of collaboration. And then I just shared it like in 5 seconds with my team and friends using Coinbase app.

And actually yesterday I added a feature where you can get a recent post and news from person or project they are representing to have some proper small talks with them, I suppose. And you could do it by paying like 10 cents inside of the app to cover the four LinkedIn and API costs and some token for LM to aggregate that. And this is exactly the interaction of web coding, payment, and distribution that can solve any niche problem. And it can be achieved only inside of the crypto, inside of decentralized social.

X could never do that. Another thing I want to customize is the recommendation algorithms so I can choose what content I am served in the small amount of time I have to browse my feed. And ideally I want my AI agent who knows me, my preferences, my recent conversations, and my information bubble to read and filter all the post and decide what I am served and highlight the important stuff. So, why now we can pull it through? Why now? Because um all the tech is finally ready. Back in 2014,

the Ethereum white paper had three-part vision of EVM as compute, Whisper as messaging, and Swarm as storage. And social was one of the big promises to deliver, but none of it actually worked. Whisper could not even handle a hundred nodes. But now the full stack actually exist. Additionally, we have ZK proofs for identity, account abstraction, rollups for cheaper transaction. So, the technology is here.

But the problem is that we don't have a proper model to accommodate for it. The original idea was build tools for free society, but somewhere along the way they lost it and become numbers go up. And that happened in social file specifically. So, now the tech has caught up, but we have a chance to try different models. So, how have been doing it so far? Uh you can see the timeline. The short version is um every attempt added even more finance and failed faster.

We tried token incentives, we tried creator incentives, we tried different financial curve, but in the end it only attracts speculators, but not communicators. And people just trade each other connections and post for for the sake of trading and the pattern just repeats itself. Now we have only Farcaster and Lens that actually survived. The Farcaster's bet was on consumer experience first. In 2020 they started with the promise of a decentralized Twitter.

Then in 2022 came frames, which is interactive mini apps in each post. And because of that daily active activities jumped like 10 times in a week. But after a couple of weeks they dropped again. And um but it was something really interesting because it was the first genuinely new DeFi primitive. Like TikTok was short-form video with music and before that it was only Farcaster frames. So, we could deliver some new content primitives on top of crypto, they really tried.

And it is something that decentralized social literally cannot do. And then by 2025 they launched full mini apps with wallets in the feeds and they raised nearly 200 mils to a billion valuation. But the paradox is the protocol revenue was around like 3 million. So, they don't really have any engagement to support those numbers. And the Lens approach was different. It was actually the opposite. In 2022 the bet was on infrastructure and you own the social graph as NFT, you own on-chain NFT through portability, but they never even built like the flagship

client to use their protocol so they relied on community clients, which divide attention. And they minted like half a million profiles and peaked at 42,000 active users, but then crashed. So, turns out infrastructure doesn't create a social network by default. >> [snorts] >> So, we have two opposite philosophies, but like same result. 250 millions raised less than 100,000 sustained users. And for context, X has around 250 millions daily, not total.

And now they are both doubling down on their philosophy even more. Farcaster acquired an AI token launchpad and pivoted to come for the wallet, stay for the social. And now they are really bullish on Coinbase integration to tap into base ecosystem and like liquidity. And Lens went the other way. They decided to do even weaker finance and stronger social, basically admitting that leading with finance was a mistake, which is Yeah, and recently in Q1 2026 a lot happens actually. Farcaster was acquired and Lens handed all the consumer product side to Mask Network.

So, a pivot from building crypto onto Twitter to building native decentralized social. And at the same time Vitalik sanctuary tech thesis emerged, which was about forget mass adoption and build for people who really need censorship resistant tools like dissidents journalists authoritarian regimes. And the goal was to create any authority of like single-handedly like handling the social graph. But what is actually working is like people can now earn their first crypto just by posting quality content, which is cool. And mini apps really generates real revenue for their creators.

And web coding accelerates those trends. But here's the thing, like AI also makes content free. So, you get slop optimized for earning, but now you have slop with mini apps and even more finance. So, it's like advanced slop. And the scarce resource become not like created content anymore, but the curation. >> [snorts] >> So, on one hand hand like build for dissidents, build sanctuary technology, but that is probably the right thing to do. But look where the money actually went, 250 millions and they are all chasing come for the wallet, stay for the social part. So, both different approaches, but the one

has money and the one has beliefs. You could guess where it will all goes. But, what could the answer be? Like from my research, maybe we could try to do like shared data layer when you Well, like anyone can write code their own client on top. Like the data is open, they could write code their own like algorithms to compete with each other, and you choose which one serves you like content better. And it will be like not less content, but better filtering. And it is not only about algorithms, like creators themselves can optimize for audience, too.

They can use an intense like intense in demand but for contents. User will express what they need, and creators join opinionated downs that serve a specific point of view instead of appealing to everyone, and they can concentrate around the style, a topic, or perspective. So, creation happens on both sides. And finally, the Vocal test, which everybody in crypto really like. Uh it's elegant architecture test, but honestly, no platforms really pass it today.

It is necessary for foundation, but it's not what attracts users. Nobody switch because their architecture is resilient. They switch because of their unique experience or better experience. So, in the end, like we evolved to cooperate when 20 years of social media trying to undo that, and we have around like 5 years to build something that works and to work with instinct to cooperate instead of against it. So, this is my message, and if you have time for Q&A. Okay.

Any questions? [snorts] Yeah, thank you. Thanks a lot.