What is the decentralized social media platform Farcaster?

Farcaster is another contender in the decentralized social media space, offering ways to mitigate bot activity while bolstering web3 interconnectivity. It rivals Friend.Tech, Post.Tech, Lens, Orb and other web3 social media platforms to gain user attention and build a loyal following. 

What is Farcaster? 

Farcaster is an Optimism-based protocol for building out social media platforms. Optimism is an Ethereum Layer 2 network, and allows Farcaster to have the potential to interact with other blockchains.

Their company behind Farcaster is called Merkle Manufactory, founded by former Coinbase executives Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan. The firm received $30 million in funding in 2022, led by the crypto-focused investment firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Additional participants in the round included Standard Crypto, Elad Gil, Scalar Capital and 1confirmation.

Farcaster is "sufficiently decentralized," Srinivasan claims. As he explains in a 2022 blog post, "a social network achieves sufficient decentralization if two users can find each other and communicate, even if the rest of the network wants to prevent it. This implies that users can always reach their audience, which can only be true if developers can build many clients on the network. If only one client existed, it could stop users from communicating. Achieving this only requires three decentralized features: the ability to claim a unique username, post messages under that name, and read messages from any valid name."

The platform requires users pay $5 for a limited number of posts in an attempt to avoid bots from signing up and abusing posting privileges.

What are Frames?

Farcaster introduced "Frames" to the platform on Jan. 26. These are interactive mini applications that individuals and developers can use. Nearly two weeks after Frames launched, Farcaster saw its number of daily users increase 1,360% from 2,930 on Jan. 26 to 42,790 on Feb. 8, according to data compiled by The Block. 

What is Warpcast?

One of the most popular clients for accessing Farcaster is Warpcast. It resembles the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

Warpcast users create posts called "casts" (think of "tweets") and "recasts" (akin to "retweets" or "reposts"). Individuals who post on the platform are called "warpcasters." 

Warpcast serves as a client for Farcaster, where users maintain control over their accounts similar to email. Warpcasters can connect with others by establishing profiles and sharing public messages. Key features of Warpcast include the ability to create a Farcaster account with a public profile, engage in posting and replying to public messages and discover and explore other users' public profiles.