The web3 world has long hoped for a blockchain-based consumer application that could reach breakout speed, bringing crypto technology to the masses. Farcaster hopes that will happen through its network.
More often than not, it’s rare for native crypto users to have an easy, quick onboarding experience. For Farcaster, a network for decentralized social apps, the process was as smooth as it could be when I tested it.
From start to finish, it took me four minutes to create an account. Farcaster tried to overcome the cold start problem by supplementing my feed. When my account was live, I was following 60 accounts, which I assume came from pre-selection of my interests. I also had a following. feel free to follow me here.
It also does not allow users to join Farcaster with a crypto wallet, one of the network’s co-founders Dan Romero wrote to X, to allow more users to sign up faster. “The best way to do this is to integrate as [Web 2.0] as possible — mobile first, no wallet required, no crypto required.”
Farcaster is a network and has some applications running on it today. The biggest application on Farcaster is Warpcast, a platform modeled after X or Reddit, that allows users to write posts or ‘casts’ and do other functions like NFT coinage, claim tokens and trade.
Image Credits: Jacquelyn Melinek (opens in new window)
Farcaster should become more capable over time. “Since Farcaster is public and decentralized, anyone can build an application to read and write data. Users own their accounts and relationships with other users and are free to move between different apps,” according to her documents page. This is fairly standard for protocols or decentralized networks that allow other applications to build on their technology.
Since the app is a decentralized, public ecosystem, developers and users can create networked apps that will open the door to more social media-like activities.
Rapid growth
Founded by former Coinbase employees Romero and Varun Srinivasan in 2020, Farcaster didn’t see explosive growth early on. But the co-founders might be on to something here, as the network has seen a 10x increase in daily active users over the past 14 days, Romero shared on Tuesday.
As it stands, Farcaster’s DAU tally is over 61,500, thanks to a major app update, Frameswhich attracted a lot of new users thanks to the ability to turn any “cast” into an interactive application.
The day before Frames was released on January 25, Farcaster had about 2,200 DAUs on a seven-day average, according to user Dune analytics pixelhack. At the time of publication, it is over 140,000 users have signed up to Farcaster, which is a nominal number compared to traditional social networks. But it’s a powerful wave of momentum for crypto standards.
The chart below makes it clear that Farcaster is having a moment:
Image Credits: Data from Dune user pixelhack (opens in new window)
On that note, Frames was released on January 26th as a feature that allows users to perform a number of activities — either on-chain or off-chain without having to leave Farcaster.
For crypto users, this is huge: It means no more swapping from one app to another just to complete a transaction. And for those worried about scams or malicious attacks, Romero told X in late January that the authorization system built into the ecosystem eliminates security risks and is “not deceptive.” (Of course, hackers will test this claim more often as the network itself grows.)
And for the normies out there, even though the app is based on Optimism, a layer 2 blockchain focused on scaling the Ethereum network, Farcaster brings a Web 2.0-like experience.
Joining the app requires a US-based phone number to sign up for free, pay $5 for an in-app purchase, or already have a friend on the app who can pay $3 for your invite. The associated cost aspect may be bothersome to some, but it’s Farcaster’s attempt to prevent bot activity, something that plagues other social networks. The service also limits the number of “casts” users can post to applications on the network, potentially limiting the reach and effectiveness of bots that are often found under X-crypto posts.
Since the app is decentralized and has crypto-related features, users can purchase warps, the in-app currency, to “perform a variety of onchain and Warpcast-specific actions,” such as creating a channel on Farcaster where you can bring users with common interests. This costs 2,500 warps ($25) per year. People can also get 50 warps by inviting friends if they sign up through your link, which is a common reward-based tactic to gain adoption that has been used by web3 and regular apps for quite some time.
The app’s strategy is different from other web3 social networking apps – and it seems to be paying off. With the Avara lens protocol or Friend.tech, it focused on using blockchains and web3 technology for a social experience, while Farcaster aims to improve Web 2.0 strategies with additional blockchain features such as person-to-person control of data, interoperability of applications on the network and lack of censorship.
Cautionary tales
While Farcaster is enjoying rapid growth today, we’ll need to see more data over a longer period of time before we can declare it a winner on its own, let alone something that could change the trajectory of mainstream cryptocurrency adoption. To that end, we’ve seen some crypto-friendly social projects rise quickly — and fall just as quickly.
In August, Friend.tech saw a quick spike in trading and growth, but within weeks those same indicators plummeted, according to Dune user analysis cryptocorium. Lots of people have accounts on Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon and the like, but after the initial hype around a new network has died down, how many people still go to those pages every day?
In order to keep the momentum alive, networks and projects need to keep shipping new upgrades, apps or tools to attract users. And the core loop needs to rely on more than guesswork to last, as previous web3 experiments in social networks show.
As it stands, Frames’ on-chain functionality is only available for Ethereum-connected networks, but the founders have said that support will be extended to other blockchains such as Solana, Romero told X. “People are asking for it. So we ship,” he said added.
