By Kyle, Investment Manager@Bing Ventures

A sufficiently decentralized network must be one where users can communicate with each other anytime, anywhere, in real time, which means that censorship resistance and security are at the core of the network. At the same time, users must have complete control over their identity (username), data (messages) and social graph (relationships with others).

If a third party controls either, they can prevent the two users from communicating. Developers must also be free to build applications with unrestricted access to the network. Users must be free to switch between these apps. If only one application is connected to the network, it may still prevent two users from communicating.

Source: Farcaster

As a decentralized social network protocol must allow users to own and control their social graph while avoiding the fragmentation of the current social network. Farcaster is a decentralized protocol that enables developers to build novel social networks. Farcaster redefines identity, the way messages delivered, and the social graph, and addresses scenarios where user social ownership applies at the fundamental level of privacy, authenticity, portability, availability, and scalability.

Open Web3 social future

Over the past few decades, social networks have profoundly affected society, giving rise to novel ways of communicating and entirely new careers. We believe they have the opportunity to further unlock a whole new consumer market and explode social networks built on license-free protocols.

In terms of economies of scale, an open social stack will allow for freer and more direct interaction with users and developers due to the introduction of token incentives, the seamless portability of data to other applications and the composability of content.

It is important to emphasize that decentralized social protocols must be cension-resistant, which means that users and developers cannot be arbitrarily banned or restricted.

a.Definition of social networking protocol

First, we need to distinguish between a decentralized social media platform and a decentralized social protocol. Social media platforms are services that users use to share social content, such as videos and comments. It focuses more on helping users connect with social interactions, including Tiktok and Twitter.

Decentralized social protocols are protocols that provide the underlying infrastructure for decentralized social media platforms and applications. Developers can build new projects on top of the protocol. The most important criteria for a good decentralized social protocol are interoperability and composability of all the services that use it.

Source: Jay Graber

Decentralized social protocols give users complete control over the ownership of their data. The protocol is only responsible for managing the distributed storage of user data so that it remains permanently independent and resistant to censorship. That means users can use the protocol to choose any social media platform and move their data freely between those apps.

In conclusion, the decentralized social network protocol has the following characteristics:

1. Open source artificial intelligence. This artificial intelligence is created through projects within the protocol and needs to be presented to the user on a regular basis in a way they can understand.

2. Build blockchain-based development capabilities for social interaction and content creation and distribution.

3. Design mechanisms to protect user privacy and enhance data security.

4. Tokens and NFT and other forms of Web3 assets.

5. Innovative ways of making business profit.

b.The benefits of decentralized social networks

A decentralized social network rests on a peer-to-peer network of thousands of nodes around the world. Even if some nodes fail, the network is not severely affected, making applications based on the protocol resistant to network failures. In particular, distributed storage systems like IPFS can protect user data from malicious use by third parties. Decentralized social networks have the following benefits:

1. Users do not need to trust a single centralized node.

Decentralized social protocols don’t secretly back up data from user-authorized applications. Even if the startup team behind the app goes out of business, a user’s data doesn’t disappear or be sold, but is still stored on the blockchain. In a well-designed decentralized social network, users can eliminate trust in third parties.

2. Reduced single point of failure rate

Centralized websites often have a single point of failure. When they fail, users have no choice but to wait. In a decentralized social protocol, because a single node in a distributed network can barely bring down the entire network, an application can stay up and running no matter how much user traffic there is.

3. Robust censorship resistance

For a platform like Twitter, it’s notoriously easy to ban a user’s account. Even if you choose to appeal, the decision is still not yours. However, it can be more challenging to censor content on a peer-to-peer network, as any packet passed may be connected to another peer on the decentralized network, who then forwards the message. This type of encryption will prevent malicious censorship.

Source: ByteByteGo

4. A more open development platform

Anyone can build flexible tools on top of a decentralized network. At the same time, the bigger the product built, the greater the flywheel effect that locks consumers into the network, so the greater the potential to build a diversified business on top of that.

Over time, the best products, services and content are more likely to be identified and recommended. If traffic, attention, and money flood into a closed algorithm, then the system may go into decline.

The skywalk of decentralized social networks

a.Resistance to the development of decentralized social protocols

Given the growing dissatisfaction with the hegemony of these centralized social networks, a growing number of people are considering switching to alternatives that offer greater security and privacy. However, decentralized network also has its own development resistance, which can be summarized as follows:

1. Takes longer to develop.

2. The way to accumulate users and generate interaction in the early stage still follows the Web2 customer acquisition logic.

3. Current operating costs may be higher.

4. Data is not of high business importance to users, so users don’t care about decentralization.

5. Poor on-chain experience for users, unable to achieve the desired goal quickly and cheaply.

The emergence of decentralized social protocols also raises new questions about existing regulation. Who is responsible for the content of these projects? The reason this problem is not yet prominent is that existing projects have not yet accumulated enough users. If social protocols explode in the future, regulation will hurt them. The prevention of regulatory harm is also an issue for such projects.

b.An integrated architecture for on-chain and off-chain socialization

Farcaster protocol has two important parts: an on-chain registry for users to receive unique user names, and an off-chain host for users to store social data. At the same time, the on-chain registry also stores the user’s Web host URL (Web address). To read a user message, it asks the registry for host URL, and then ask the host for its message.

User identities are stored on chains in Ethereum smart contracts to take advantage of Ethereum’s strong security, composability, and consistency guarantees. Ethereum addresses control this on-chain identity and can be used to sign off-chain messages on its behalf.

Source: Farcaster Hub

The user data is then encrypted and signed by the identity and stored on a user-controlled server called Farcaster Hubs. Data is not stored on-chain because clearing on most L1 and L2 networks is expensive and slow.

This architecture determines who can create or access content. This is much more accessible than proprietary CRM technologies licensed from large technology companies and built into browsers. This open architecture also allows support for other on-chain identities such as ENS, allowing users to bring their Web3 identity and reputation to the Farcaster ecosystem and import existing identity characteristics into the project in a user-controlled manner.

Farcaster could eventually change the way social information flows are put together and give developers the freedom to innovate using the protocol’s APIs and data without a license. A beautiful user experience, an open, free and cension-resistant social network, and a very disruptive social product are basically what makes Farcaster a success.

Development ideas of a killer protocol

a.Network effects of Farcaster

The idea behind Farcaster product development is to start with tools that build native Web3 applications for social networks. Every user who uses it gets a really nice page. Different applications can be combined as plug-ins to form different experiences.

Source: Farcaster

This is a dimensional-reduction blow to isolated social programs. The network effect of Farcaster is mainly reflected in the following aspects:.

1. Applications created based on this protocol have more value-added effects. By default, Web3 social content is typically public and widely distributed over a decentralized storage network. Farcaster’s tools provide access to the highest quality web3 information and create value across the ecosystem by leveraging a growing Social-to-Earn model across the world of web content.

2. Web3 social network effect around Farcaster. Based on the identity of the Web3 wallet, the soul-bound token and the reputation role played by the NFT in interacting with social content will enable Farcaster users to interact across DAOs and communities. As a result, users’ reputations are portable and visible, making it easier to build network effects around their identities.

3. Adoption of the new social protocol standards it creates is increasing. For social content creators, Farcaster comes with a wealth of Web3 plug-ins that allow these creators to quickly interact with dApps. For developers and creators, social quality becomes more reliable, comprehensive, and transparent as the scale of the network increases.

b.Social playability without boundaries

Farcaster is an open protocol on which developers and teams can create social networking DApps. Users will be able to use their unified identity across these DApps. The open social graph makes it easier for third party developers to build new products and custom interfaces, resulting in more entertaining or useful products.

Base-layer protocols like Farcaster provide the foundation for new social applications. Decentralized communication enables wallet-to-wallet messaging, which will unshackles a wide range of scenarios for on-chain communication and also opens up opportunities for open social algorithm recommendations.

Source: Farcaster

At present, the penetration rate of crypto wallet has improved in terms of the number of users and the quality of use. Millions of people not only have encrypted identities, but often use Web3 wallets as an identity and login method for social products. Farcaster has the advantage of encrypting the native community, with a particular focus on growing the developer community while maintaining the quality of registration.

As the developer community uses innovative tools based on Farcaster, new ideas often lead to more interesting toolsets. This developer-as-user community provides positive feedback on product innovation and incubation. Consider that within the Farcaster network, developers can offer different monetization models while allowing all players to interact directly with each other.

Going forward, how Farcaster can encourage developer competition and better align incentives with user interest is a key consideration for its token system. The boundaries of social product shape are difficult to predict, but by ensuring user data ownership and a decentralized interaction model, Farcaster protocol is enabling participants across the ecosystem to innovate and thrive.