Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.
Unfamiliar with the term Protocol? Gmail, Yahoo, and every other company you know in the email market are all clients built on the SMTP or IMAP email protocol. The client is an interface, and the Protocol connects all the interfaces. For example, Twitter is a client with a database, but it could be one of many interfaces connected through a protocol.
I’m writing this article to explain why I have decided to build an audience on a niche social platform known as Warpcast, a client of the Farcaster Protocol, “A protocol for building sufficiently decentralized social networks.”
The Protocol is being developed by a team of former Coinbase staff, and it leans heavily into encryption, decentralization, ownable identity, and despite all odds, an extremely scalable, durable, and fast social data store growing in decentralization. Why is that important? Let us start by looking not at the team, the features, or the promise; but at the investors who support it.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1520949176103620608?s=20&embedable=true
Is it starting to make sense yet? Innovation does not all stem from a single company, and it is not likely to arise from the failed choices and leadership of a bellied-up company like Twitter/Bluesky. That is why I bet on the Farcaster protocol, to reap the benefits of being an early adopter of what may be the backbone of all future social media.
As an early adopter, developer, content creator, reader, and outside founder, I need neither laundry nor food.
My long-term goals point to the set of opportunities that the Farcaster team worked hard to unlock. I need access, I need high-status networks, I need intense technical discussion, I need technologists, and I need the most easily accessible distribution channels that a man can find.
I need work opportunities, money in my pocket, introductions to people, and referrals that I could not otherwise obtain.
Is it starting to make sense?
Protocol, client, opportunities.
I was drawn towards Farcaster because joining closely resembled my approach towards startups; it was high risk yet held the potential for high reward. Even though my business wasn't directly related to social media, I aimed to expand my network and build product distribution channels. By tapping into these new networks, I found everything and more. Opportunities like this enabled today's mega-influencers like DJ Khaled, Gary Vee, Jamie Oliver, and countless brands to become known yesterday. The opportunity is unmatched when compared to growing on an existing network, and the pie is getting larger.
https://youtu.be/mArnxXgyeQQ?embedable=true
- I found a job in data engineering
- I found $10,000+ (6.9Ξ (Ethereum)) to build whatever I wanted
- I found referrals, mentors, and friends
- I became a better developer and engineer
- I learned why my Startup would fail and what could win
- I learned what people do in their startup careers and who they were
- I watched my friends raise hundreds of thousands, even millions
- I watched artists, writers, and developers earn cash for work
- I participated in a DAO war; The Great Online Game unfolding realtime
…99. I watched Vitalik pretend to care about decentralizing social media
https://github.com/farcasterxyz/protocol?embedable=true
Understanding Turing Completeness
Turing completeness is a term that often leaves me perplexed. Although I know it relates to the Turing test, which signifies a system's capability to perform any computational task, relating the meaning to specific circumstances remains difficult. This concept frequently surfaces in discussions around programming languages and blockchains. However, regarding its application in a Social Network protocol, the discourse is still in its early stages and somewhat primitive.
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Generic message type handles many schemas, including standard text content, unique metadata (such as links, blockchain transactions, nft items, etc.), reactions, polls for voting, and any novel proposals.
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Social Contextualization, such as Reddit communities, or the unique audiences on otherwise completely separate platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or TwitchTV.
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Rapid yet decentralized storage and the prioritization of new content (say one year old), with the ability to form markets around longer-term access and memory.
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Encrypted content, meaning true encryption, where the CEO can’t unlock the data with their encryption key. This applies to private messages and content publicly available in the social feed.
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Identity Solutions, similar to Ethereum sign-in and Social Logins like Facebook or Google, these Identity solutions can offer key advantages such as the type of data packaged on a signature, access controls, and decentralization (existence beyond a single company)
Unlocking Opportunity Today
Why would anyone care about a Turing-complete and decentralized social Protocol? If you read the section above and it did not resonate, let’s sideline the entire conversation and focus on the immediate value propositions of a new social network.
The Cold Start Problem applies to startups, social experiences, job opportunities, and any place where the ability to start anew is akin to firing a cold engine; it’s difficult and requires priming.
That is a problem for the Farcaster founders, and it’s a problem they’ve worked hard to overcome. It is not a problem for users, Farcaster may have a capped volume to date, but what it lacks in quantity, it makes up in quality, whether that is the willingness to engage new users, the reach and activity generated by an otherwise average performing post, or the excitement generated by high achieving content. I would compare the activity generated by 100 users on Farcaster to 1,000+ on Twitter or similar socials. That is not to say they mindlessly like content; genuine interactions are as simple as liking a post or sharing it to as complex as helping onboard new users and funneling monetary value into the content through NFT purchases and new business lead generation.
This is the only Social Network I have joined which returned more than $10,000, or 6.9Ξ (Ethereum), within a few months of attempting it and under a year since joining the network- all this with no prior connections to anyone on the network.
https://twitter.com/JoshuaOgundu/status/1200443772858847232?s=20&embedable=true
To me, friendship is a willingness to help others, including without any immediate benefit. I see it as less transactional than was offered up by my friends in Tech but not wholly lacking. I have met many interesting people on Farcaster, and like my experience in Founding, I have made friends with whom I have never met in the real world. I find this less outlandish than some, and I value real-world interaction. I am simply limited and play by the rules of the game. I refer to The Great Online Game, the ability to perceive the internet as we know it as an incarnation of the Metaverse in a text-based format, an MMORPG with real-world consequences, opportunity, friendship, and love. Farcaster is a new land, vast with opportunity, products, and people, yet mostly unknown.
It has player groups, specifically in the spirit of web3, DAOs. One of the most notable is the Purple DAO which recently went into a spirited battle with a competing Purpler DAO; the funny thing is, they are competing to give away money to new creators and builders to help foster the Farcaster ecosystem; they’re simply competing on the best way to achieve that. These opportunities include developers, artists, gamers, writers, founders, etc. Even my article is part of a native community-led (not founder-led) contest.
I've also witnessed the launch of unlonely.app, a web3 Twitch.tv style startup that emerged from the Farcaster community. Although it is currently small in scale, it has attracted exceptional builders and founders, including notable figures such as Stani Kulechov of Lens and Aave, Jesse Pollak from Coinbase's new L2 project coined base, @Cassie, the creator of the revolutionary decentralized compute platform Quilibrium, Dan Romero, the founder of Farcaster, and Greg Skriloff, an impressive young builder who is now an ENS employee. These individuals and many other startup founders and employees have shared their insights and experiences through interviews, demonstrating their resilience during a global economic recession and a crypto bear market.
https://www.unlonely.app/nfc/327?embedable=true
Other remarkable people are working on projects like decentralized hacker news kiwinews.xyz, interoperable crowdfunding withfabric.xyz, NFT trading with VFProtocol, and zero-knowledge social technologies with bigwhalelabs. The presence of these accomplished individuals and their contributions further enriches the vibrant web3 startup ecosystem on Farcaster.
Joining the Farcaster Network
I joined Farcaster for apparent reasons; after exploring many new and existing social platforms, I decided the best opportunity was to build an audience through the largest opportunity platform. One that allowed me to readily discuss my interests, specifically startups, web3, metaverse, and identity. It enables me to bootstrap distribution to a group of individuals within those niches. And it allows me to grow with the platform, which would have been incredibly hard on other platforms if compared to aged accounts that have bootstrapped growth for years. I have about 1,500 followers, around 15% of the total network, a network with almost no bots, and an otherwise rigorous and hand-vetted invite process. Only now is that invite system starting to open up slowly. You can reach many well-known people and people just starting out; seriously, it’s all about the people. Simply familiarizing myself with the technologies helped me obtain new job opportunities, access references, and build a professional network to learn from that would have otherwise likely not been possible. Not everyone posts about web3 or Ethereum, and new content is welcomed.
From Marc Andreessen shilling communism upon unsuspecting capitalists
To Vitalik, cosplaying as someone who might have known how to build deep neural networks
and Brian Armstrong teaching us about the value of friendship
Farcaster is the place I chose to double down on, where I meet friends, engage in combat, share new ideas, complain about the founders, and ultimately, where I hope to become rich and famous through (jk). But, in the infamous words of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Want to Join?
I currently have 48 invites and would like to use them to bring new members into the community. To acquire an invite, comment on this article, or email me directly at padenfool[@]gmail[.com].
As for me, I’ll be busy working on a new career, a career which was unlocked through… you guessed it, the Farcaster Protocol! -Alex