Hello, Regens! I've been exploring Farcaster for a few years now and what I've come to understand is that this isn't just another social network. I see it as the ideal comfy hub for anyone knee-deep in web3—from builders to artists, degens and yes even regens to flourish.
Firstly, what is a Regen? Well it's a bit of a nebulous term, but in this specific context, I'm referring to the concept of 'Regen' in web3 parlance; using decentralized tech to regenerate communities, ecosystems and economies. This could be public goods, open source software, educational initiatives, growing communities, banking the unbanked, supporting environmentally mindful initiatives and more.
So why is Farcaster the place for these regens to convene and coordinate? Well, Farcaster has proven itself as the leading (sufficiently) decentralized social network, especially for web3 leaning builders, artists and more recently degens. People often term it to be a 'web3 Twitter' but in reality it is much more than that, as explained in this 'Farcaster 101' video.
Farcaster is in reality an open protocol that anyone can build on and with. Most people access it through its main client Warpcast, although anyone can create another client. This aspect of being an open protocol vs. the closed, permissioned social networks we are used to is pretty important, especially when combined with the makeup of the initial community onboarded to Farcaster.
Back in the day, Facebook strategically onboarded students to create a trusted community based on real-world connections, leveraging the existing social structures of universities to foster rapid network growth.
In a similar way, Farcaster grew organically by initially onboarding mostly web3 aligned builders, particularly within the Ethereum community, leveraging existing online and onchain structures. This had the effect of propagating an engaged, ideologically aligned community, with incentives to enhance the protocol and overall experience for everyone else.
While initially Farcaster was more or less twitter with some cool web3 aspects like an NFT feed, more recently a few key new features have been game changers:
Frames (which are like interactive online billboards) allow web2 and web3 interactivity e.g. display and mint an NFT in a social feed, all the way through to complex games with onchain payments.
Channels allow specific focus areas to flourish, a bit like dedicated community spaces or subreddits.
Tips, both off-chain and onchain via tokens like $degen, allow anyone on the network to reward others for their contribution or engagement.
This last feature has been very transformative across social, technical and economic aspects of Farcaster, particularly with the rise of the Degen project. Degen was the first project to effectively faciliate tipping, which can be performed by any user who holds 10k $degen in a verified walled on Farcaster via a simple text comment e.g. 420 $degen.
The mechanics of tipping gamifies engagement and attention, allowing these core components of social media to be directly incentivised and monetised. This is not an original idea of course; simply the first time it has been applied effectively at scale.
Initially $degen tips provided actual utility for the degen memecoin – something which is pretty unusual in web3. The token itself initially had little value, but was intelligently distributed via airdrops and most importantly had incredibly strong memetic energy. Within 3 months, the token reached >$1b FDV. So what enabled this to occur?
It was the unique combination of Farcaster's open, decentralized social graph, builder friendly tools such as Neynar and Airstack, timely new features like Frames, a community of engaged, incentivised builders and farmers, web3 integration (especially the rise of Base) plus the incentive mechanics inherent to $degen itself.
The architecture of Farcaster, combined with the makeup of its community allowed a virtuous cycle of tech, culture, and financial value to grow. People began developing around this new economic system and as a result, the community attributed increasing financial and social value to the token.
Tipping became a new meta. Memes, tools, art, games, and communities all emerged, culminating in the deployment of Degen Chain.
Meanwhile centralised, closed platforms like X have become increasingly challenging for genuine discourse. My algorithm on X has been a mess for a while now; my feed is mostly noise, ads, spam and scams, even with verified status. As a result I barely use the platform any more.
Farcaster for a long time felt like an (ad-free) village. While now its more like a slightly noisier town, it retains a very high ratio of signal to noise. This means that beyond the tech and financial speculation, it's also a space where one can develop meaningful connections fairly rapidly, which was the main draw for me (honestly).
It's all of these ingredients that I feel makes Farcaster fertile soil for Regens to coordinate and prosper:
Open, decentralized architecture and ethos
Channels to effectively coordinate around key topics
Frames to enhance distribution and interactivity
Tips to incentivise / reward intended behaviours
Village/Town feel for more meaningful conversations
web3 native community
The goal is now to test this hypothesis out, focusing energy initially within the /regen channel on Warpcast. A new project will soon be launching, emerging from this channel, and you're more than welcome to join us to participate in growing something that can enrich the overall regen movement. A good first step is to join the channel and mint a Regen OG NFT which is available until the next full moon...
Having seen the growth of Farcaster and /degen first hand, I'm excited by the prospect of channeling (literally) that same energy into regen action! Inspiring a new meme and movement where degens
regens as people like @nicnode have proposed (collect the manifesto if you can!).
Hope you're onboard Regen.
🍄
