In addition to the recent explosion of Friend.Tech, what other Web3 social applications are worth paying attention to?

Original author | Crypto researcher Ann

Original text compilation | Bai Ze Research Institute

Recently, Friend.Tech on the Base chain exploded, causing controversy among users. However, there’s no denying that its popularity has helped raise awareness about SocialFi.

On-chain social platforms are often touted as an important area of the crypto industry to attract the attention of the wider public. After all, blockchain technology isn’t just about finance.

There are several projects that have been building within this space, but I don’t feel like many people know about them, even in the crypto community.

Why do you need decentralized social media?

Before introducing several on-chain social protocols, it’s important to understand why we need to build social media on the blockchain. As a result of what’s happened to Twitter (or X) in recent years, you probably already have the answer in mind:

• Not reviewable. You can’t trust Elon Musk to protect free speech.
• You have ownership of your account. Prevent people like Elon Musk from stealing your Twitter account.
• Adjustable incentives. Social media treats users more like products. The company uses the user’s attention to place ads, the company makes money, and the user gets nothing. The attention we give is hardly worth anything. This has to be changed.
• Because traditional social media doesn’t allow us to trade KOLs (haha, just kidding.) ）

1. DeBank Hi and DeBank Stream

Long before friend.tech gave users the ability to get paid by paying their fans, DeBank was already offering similar features through DeBank Hi.

As you can see in the image above, you can set a price and let fans chat with you privately.

In the DeFi space, DeBank has become a popular wallet tracking platform for investors.

They have added two important social features over the past year: DeBank Hi and DeBank Stream.

After reading DeBank Hi’s white paper, I am not averse to trading attention with money. For celebrities and busy KOLs, direct messages are actually a nuisance. DeBank Hi has set up a paywall that not only adds value to their time but also blocks people with bad motives, likes to be intrusive, and spammes. (Here’s something I’ve experienced firsthand in a Twitter DM.) ）

DeBank Stream

At the same time, the DeBank team also built a Twitter alternative, DeBank Stream.

One of the most appealing things in the image above is that each post comes with a $. For example, in the post below, the “value realized” is $52.29.

“Realized value” is a reward distributed to all those who participate in the post (likes and comments), usually funded by the poster or sponsor.

DeBank Stream is fully functional and fun – like you can decorate your profile with NFT badges – and it pales friend.tech by comparison. I feel that DeBank Stream is completely ahead of other Web3 social platforms in terms of features.

There are even rewards for participating in governance activities (voting), so you should definitely give this project a try. (However, you need to have at least $100 worth of assets in your wallet.) Platform anti-witch. ）

There’s another reason why DeBank should be used as early as possible: it could be an airdrop! They hinted at this not too long ago via a Debank Chain announcement.

2. Farcaster

Farcaster bills itself as a “protocol for decentralized applications”, a bit like the Lens Protocol. By the way, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik is already using this platform.

Since it is a protocol, many applications can be built on top of it. (Simply put, this protocol is like a blockchain.) ）

However, disappointingly, this agreement has not yet been opened to the public. You can send an email to the developer and ask them to give you access to it.

I was even directed to the waitlist page for Discove, a Twitter alternative developed by Farcaster.

It’s clear that DeBank is way ahead when it comes to accessibility. All you need is a wallet address to get started. (Although it’s unclear if DeBank Stream is actually using blockchain technology to store people’s information and data, rather than a centralized server.) ）

For accessibility reasons, Farcaster makes me appreciate Friend.Tech even more.

Some VCs will complain like the tweet below.

Graphic: When talking to the builders of consumer crypto platforms, they are all frustrated, because the only way to develop at the moment seems to be to lean towards speculation, or essentially to build a “casino”…

But now we can see the answer that people are flocking to platforms like Friend.Tech, and that’s because the Web3 social platforms that these VCs have invested in are simply not ready for public use, gated, exclusive, and not open to everyone.

3. Blockscan for Etherscan

While Blockscan, a chat Dapp developed by the Etherscan team, may be the least feature-capable of the three platforms, it’s the only DApp that works well and has the lowest barrier to entry. All you need is to have completed at least 1 transaction on the Ethereum mainnet, and you can send him a message via Vitalik.eth at Vitalik’s website.

Note: Blockscan has similar functionality to Openchat on the IC blockchain, but the latter is fully decentralized.

Blockscan is also an app on Android and iOS.

One thing to note about Blockscan is that it’s not a fully decentralized platform. As they explain on their FAQ page, “Messages are sent and received for free because they are done off-chain.” "They’re obviously not aiming very high – honestly that’s okay because people just need a Web3 app that’s temporarily available.

Conclusion

When thinking about decentralized social, many crypto enthusiasts fall into the “perfectionism trap”. We’ll ask for something that aligns with crypto values, and such apps often have trade-offs in terms of user experience or accessibility.

Comparing the three DApps above, plus Friend.Tech and Lens Protocol, we can draw some conclusions about the current state of Web3 social.

Platforms such as Friend.Tech and DeBank Stream already have a large number of users, and while they are questionable in terms of decentralization, they are currently available to the public.

On the other hand, protocols like Farcaster and Lens strive to be fully decentralized, but not everyone can easily join and use them at the moment. The user experience isn’t very “simple” in terms of their web design today.

Which one do you prefer?

Risk Warning:

According to the Notice on Further Preventing and Handling the Risk of Speculation in Virtual Currency Transactions issued by the central bank and other departments, the content of this article is only for information sharing, and does not promote and endorse any business and investment behaviors.