Farcaster: The Revolutionary Power Reshaping the Social Web

Farcaster, as a decentralized social media protocol, is creating an open and composable social ecosystem for developers, creators, and ordinary users. It emphasizes privacy protection and user control at the user level, adheres to open-source and permissionless principles at the protocol level, and offers an interactive experience similar to "mini-programs" through the Frames feature at the product level.

Core Features of Farcaster

1. Decentralized architecture: Operates on blockchain technology without relying on a central server.
2. User Data Sovereignty: Users have complete control over their data and social web.
3. Openness: Anyone can access Farcaster's API or applications for development.
4. Highly Composable: Provides a unified social identity, supporting interoperability between applications.
5. Hybrid architecture: Combining on-chain and off-chain systems to enhance efficiency and response speed.
6. Frames Function: Allows embedding small applications within posts to enhance interactivity.

Technical Implementation

Farcaster adopts a hybrid architecture combining on-chain and off-chain.

On-chain part

Mainly includes smart contracts running on Ethereum Layer 2 (Optimism), responsible for:

• ID Registration: Generate a key pair associated with the Ethereum address
• Storage Registration: Manage user data storage space
• Key Registration: Manage users' public and private key pairs

Off-chain part

Composed of a network of servers called Hubs, responsible for:

• Message processing: receiving, verifying, and storing content published by users
• Data Synchronization: Ensure consistency of data in the network
• Performance Optimization: Reduce on-chain transaction requirements, lower latency and costs

Social Web Experience Optimization

1. Self-sovereign identity management: Users have complete control over their identity and authorization.
2. Data Isolation: Sensitive information is processed on-chain, while non-sensitive data is processed off-chain.
3. Decentralized storage: Enhancing data's resistance to censorship.
4. Precise data access control: Users can independently set the level of data sharing.
5. Cross-application interoperability: Unified identity can be used across different applications.

Frames Function

Frames is a major highlight of Farcaster, allowing small applications to be embedded in posts, achieving:

• NFT Interaction: Directly display, mint, or trade NFTs
• Gaming Experience: Play mini-games while browsing social content.
• Content Subscription: One-click subscribe to newsletter and other media content

New Model of Asset Issuance

Farcaster has not only transformed the underlying social layer but also provided a new avenue for asset issuance. It does not design complex financial structures, but rather hands openness over to the community and developers, becoming a launchpad for community tokens, culture, and ecology.

Ecological Economy

$DEGEN token

$DEGEN is a community-driven memecoin in the Farcaster ecosystem and has become the community's first token, with uses including:

• Content Reward
• NFT Minting
• In-app trading
• Community Project Funding

Warps Points

Warps is the internal points system of Farcaster, designed to incentivize user participation and interaction:

Acquisition method:

• Actively participate in the platform
• Complete specific tasks
• Community Contribution

Usage:

• Payment platform fees
• Open a new channel
• Gifting between users

Openness and Composability

Farcaster is essentially an on-chain and off-chain integrated ecological database, allowing developers to build various front-end applications based on it, such as:

• Warpcast: Twitter-like experience
• Bountycaster: Task Reward Platform
• Kiosk: A platform focused on live streaming
• Unlonely: The emerging Farcaster client

Advantages and Challenges

Advantages:

• A preliminary user base has been formed, retaining a large number of crypto-native users.
• Balances the needs of creators, developers, and ordinary users.

Challenge:

• The registration threshold is not friendly to certain user groups.
• Future user growth may test the system's carrying capacity.
• A healthy cycle of content ecology needs to be established.
• How to strike a balance between decentralization and content management

Farcaster's current key mission is to attract and retain Web3 users from Twitter, providing them with a social platform that aligns more with the spirit of crypto. Through openness, developability, and composability, Farcaster is gradually achieving the goal of migrating users from the circle to a truly Web3 social layer.