The revenue of the Farcaster protocol surged from $308,647 to $550,570 between Jan. 29 and Feb. 7.
Farcaster revenue for several months. Source: Dune
On Jan. 29, the platform announced the launch of Frames, enabling users to create small social media applications.
Following this announcement, the number of daily active users (DAU) experienced a dramatic increase.
DAU growth on Farcaster. Source: Dune
How does Farcaster work?
Farcaster is a protocol for social finance (SocialFi). The project allows developers to create their social networks based on the Web3 concept, featuring decentralized management, no censorship, and no centralized control.
It’s worth noting that some people confuse Farcaster with Warpcast. However, the latter is an application based on the Farcaster protocol.
The same team worked on both projects. Warpcast is one of the most popular products on the Farcaster protocol. This may be because the interface is similar in style to Twitter.
Link to Warcast via Farcaster. Source: Farcaster
Dan Romero, formerly an engineer at Coinbase, founded Farcaster in 2021. However, with the introduction of Frames, the project has only recently gained widespread attention.
Is Farcaster the future of SocialFi?
It’s too early to predict the future of decentralized social networks. As Web3 is still in its early stages, many projects face challenges and may not have a chance to prove their potential before being shut down.
Comparisons between Farcaster and Friend.Tech, formerly known as Stealcam, are circulating on social networks, indicating a growing interest in these platforms.
The Friend.tech platform, renamed in 2023, is built on Base. Users can sell their accounts for tokenized shares on the platform.
Friend.Tech positions itself as a platform for friends, as new accounts can only be created through invitations from existing users.
Friend.Tech has become popular because Coinbase and other crypto influencers support it.
The project’s activity has significantly decreased over time, with daily active users plummeting. As of Feb. 6, only 41 users were recorded on the network.
The contrast in user activity is striking, considering that on Oct. 15, the number of users surged to 73,794.
Friend.Tech daily active users. Source: Dune
What are the differences between Farcaster and Friend.Tech?
One of the main differences is that they have a different economic model. Friend.tech allows users to monetize their accounts.
However, it is interesting to note that the Base chain, on which Friend.Tech operates, is also popular among Farcaster users.
On Feb. 5, users chose this chain for transactions, accounting for 67.8% of the total, followed by Polygon at 10.3%, and Ethereum at 7%.
Transactions of Farcaster users by chains. Source: Dune
It is too early to talk about the future of Farcaster, as both the project and the industry are still in the early stages of development.
Indeed, Farcaster enjoys support from various other crypto projects, including Ethereum Name Service (ENS), whose token recently surged by 25% in a single day.
ENS enables Farcaster users to acquire shorter nicknames, such as Cryptomode.eth, enhancing their user experience on the platform.
We like Farcaster on https://t.co/b9CAMO7vld!
— ens.eth (@ensdomains) February 5, 2024
