Author: Evie, Founder of JE Labs Source: Twitter, @0xEvieYang
How is the social protocol Farcaste, with a valuation ceiling of $1 billion in the social track and backed by top investors like a16z and Paradigm, doing now? Can ecosystem applications really deliver? What are the innovative aspects within the ecosystem?
With these questions in mind, I recently explored over 50 ecosystem applications of Farcaste, and now I’d like to share with you:
1. My exploration experience within the Farcaste ecosystem
2. Thoughts and visions on Web3 Social
3. Essential data dashboards for exploring the Farcaste ecosystem
Exploration Experience within the Farcaste Ecosystem
1. One of my biggest takeaways is the “interconnectedness”: one identity can seamlessly move across various clients; while each client may have different focuses, the content I’m interested in remains interconnected, providing a sense of familiarity wherever I go without the need to create an account from scratch.
2. Farcaste is quite open: users can add “action” widgets, allowing them to click on widgets next to each post, such as checking how many $DEGEN tips a post has received.
There are also “Frame” mini-programs that can be inserted, enabling users to access various functions and services directly within the Farcaste client without leaving it, including gaming, NFT minting, airdrop claiming, news subscriptions, shopping, voting, and potentially even adding one-click swap and other on-chain functions. This greatly enhances the extensibility of the Farcaste client, diversifying application gameplay and providing a smoother user experience.
3. Tokens within the Farcaste ecosystem are interconnected, making “consumption” more convenient. For example, $DEGEN can be used on clients like @perl_xyz and @Jamfrens for post tips or social asset transactions. This is beneficial for newly launched clients that haven’t issued their own tokens yet, as they can utilize a circulating currency; these tokens also help to some extent in consolidating ecosystem consensus.
(By the way, currently the “Joy Beans” – $warps on the official Farcaste client @warpcast_ – are still centralized and not on-chain, and the official statement mentions that they will not correspond to future earnings. So, is there a chance for $DEGEN or other tokens to gain pricing power within the Farcaste ecosystem? Creating a consensus around “$DEGEN standard”).
4. Content is more vertically segmented and of higher quality: users can choose to follow channels of interest, such as meme, founders, fitness, etc. The content quality on Warpcast is generally higher than on Twitter, which is due to the initial user quality.
For ordinary users, it can be challenging to consistently create content without traffic in the early stages of a platform, so most of the OG users who joined initially already have influence. I’ve noticed that many OG users are not very active on Twitter but are quite active on Warpcast, including Farcaste’s founder @dwr.
Other Thoughts on Web3 Social
1. Most users don’t care about what’s being built, but rather if it’s user-friendly, interesting, and meets their needs. Even for underlying protocols, there needs to be applications running on top to showcase the underlying value – this is why the Farcaste team spent over a year building the official client Warpcast; @TakoProtocol is also developing the top-level application @Jamfrens while constructing social infrastructure.
2. Web3 social, decentralization, and censorship resistance are one aspect, but to meet the needs of Web3 users, it primarily needs to revolve around transactions – such as @friendtech’s buying and selling Key mechanism; @interfacedapp’s content focuses on the on-chain dynamics of followed accounts, allowing users to swap directly within the app when they see who they follow buying a certain token. In short, it still needs to be able to help users make money and have wealth-building effects. During the peak popularity of $DEGEN, the number of posts on Farcaste also significantly increased.
3. Combining social with memecoins, DeFi, will lead to more gameplay options. For example, on @alfafrens, users can stake a specific user and share in their earnings. Additionally, in terms of customer acquisition, perhaps integrating the user’s on-chain and off-chain activity levels to provide initial points/airdrops.
4. The channels within the Farcaste client are a great channel for project community building, as they can combine incentives to generate UGC and have richer gameplay by integrating with Frame mini-programs. For example, during the initial hype of $DEGEN, users could receive airdrop points simply by posting $DEGEN in the Degen channel; the more interactions you receive, the more you can tip others; the more popular a post is, the more tips you receive.
5. How open will the Farcaste ecosystem be? As mentioned earlier, Farcaste as an underlying protocol attracts developers to build on it, which I believe is more open and friendly than http://Friend.tech. However, as a part of the ecosystem that can capture relatively more commercial value, most traffic and functional innovations are currently concentrated on Farcaste’s own Warpcast. In the future, how will Farcaste support a more diverse ecosystem development without monopolizing traffic and product features? I’m quite curious about the team’s strategy moving forward on this matter.
Exploring the Farcaste Ecosystem with Essential Data Dashboards
Farcaste Ecosystem Projects: https://decaster.xyz
Overall Farcaste Data: https://farcaster.network
Dune Dashboard: https://dune.com/pixelhack/farcaster
Meme Coin Data: https://farcaster.in
