Like many Farcaster users, I was swept up in the Degen frenzy earlier this year. Amid the excitement, I kept thinking there was an opportunity for a Farcaster-native token that offered branding and ideas not steeped in degenerate crypto culture, and could appeal more to people attracted to Farcaster specifically for its potential to improve social media.
This was the initial idea behind Farther. I branded as a Farcaster evangelist token, launched by airdropping it to power users, and didn't set an initial price. I explicitly said it had no intrinsic value and let airdrop recipients decide what it was worth.
While I was reluctant to follow Degen's path by launching tipping, the Farther evangelist program (tweet for token rewards) wasn't very effective. It was clear tipping was at the top of the list of things Farcaster users were excited about, so I built a tipping system for Farther. I now believe this was a mistake.
What I'm about to write will likely be obvious to some, blasphemous to others:
In my view, most (all?) Farcaster tipping tokens aren't sustainable. They require massive inflation and create constant sell pressure that can only be temporarily countered during a perfect speculative storm like Degen experienced. Eventually the music stops.
Farther has recently been allocating out about 5 million tokens per day in tip allowances. That's ~150 million per month, which is 15% of the total supply. That might work if the number of holders is quickly growing and nobody is selling, but the majority of these tokens are allocated to existing $farther holders, and the majority of the tokens get swapped for more stable assets as soon as they're claimed.
It doesn't help that there are many similar tipping tokens and Farcaster's active users has declined since Farther launched. Many tippers have been getting marked as spam accounts, which leads them into tip trading echo chambers. This is all the opposite of what I was trying to build with Farther.
All these realizations led to Farther V2, which essentially turns each tip into a bet in a prediction market on the social capital of the recipient. The hope behind this was if tips could be imbued with more tangible value, it could provide a path to fixing the economic model. This was a long shot, but the combination of Farcaster and OpenRank seemed like a fresh design space where tips could be used to boost engagement for underrated users and potentially reduce user churn. If enough of the Farther community bought into this vision, I thought it buy some time to transition to bringing more of the system onchain and make tips paid directly by tippers.
The V2 design has mostly been a success. While not perfect, it has shown good results in only a few weeks. Veteran tippers earnestly giving the most to underrated users outside of the Farther community have risen to the top of the leaderboard.
But I unfortunately overestimated the community's appreciation of the need to fix the economic model. Most tippers simply want to trade tips with each other so they can cash out at the end of each month. All attempts to restrain this behavior has been met with frustration and large amounts of selling (see replies here).
FartherDAO
Despite the trajectory so far, I still think Farther has potential. The community is active, the token still has some value, most of the supply isn't in circulation yet, and the V2 scoring system seems to be working.
But given my increasing feeling of misalignment with the community, not to mention the large amount of time and money I've already spent on the project, I think the most ethical path is to turn it over to the community through a DAO.
This is the plan:
I've already burned the Uniswap LP tokens so liquidity stays permanently locked.
Tip allowances will pause indefinitely after the current cycle, ending tomorrow at 9am PDT.
Liquidity bonus rewards will also stop. The onchain incentive program will continue until its scheduled end (Oct 27, 2024).
Snapshots for August claims will be made within the next two days and claims will go live shortly after. As announced last week, claims will use Sablier airstreams that linearly vest over 30 days.
FartherDAO has been deployed. I encourage developers to review its code (tests here). It uses Governor.sol with minimal changes. It was deployed with a 1-day voting delay, 1-week voting period, and 100k $farther proposal threshold. If I don't receive any messages alerting me to bugs or concerns about the initial parameters, I will send all the treasury funds (except the founder allocation) to it one week from today.
The founder allocation is also being streamed by Sablier, linearly vesting until August 2026.
In the event that the community decides to burn the treasury tokens to remove them from future circulation and wants the same done with the founder allocation, I will do so.
If not, the founder allocation can remain available for someone interested in taking over the project. I'm open to purchase offers that would include all the assets (github repo, database, domain, @farther account, etc).
In the meantime, I can help orchestrate any proposals & votes on how to move forward. I can also post token-gated polls in the channel.
Anyone who knows me knows I'm obsessed with Farcaster and want to do everything possible to help make it succeed. I'm hoping Farther can still be a part of that.
Huge thank you to everyone who believed in this project, especially those of you who have given positive feedback and encouragement along the way.
Collect this post as an NFT.
August claims are now live on Sablier. As mentioned earlier, they vest for 30 days. The stream must be initiated by you, which you can access by following the link from your profile page.
What happens after the 30 days? Do I need to go back on Sablier to claim them? Or how does it work? Thanks!
You can withdraw at any time, but since it streams/vests at a continuous rate you will only be able to withdraw whatever has vested when you withdraw. It will reach the full amount by the 30th day after you initiate it.
Ah ok, thanks!
Sorry, but I am super disoriented on the Sablier interface. What button would we need to click to withdraw when the time comes? Thanks!
Is there a demo how to do it?
When you go to the page, connect your wallet & click this 'check eligibility' purple box. I can post a video if needed.
Thanks @farther Do we disconnect after streaming starts?
It is safe?
Never any guarantees when it comes to smart contracts, but the team is very respected and the protocol has been audited by multiple firms: https://github.com/sablier-labs/audits
So I actually really like this stream thing. This is the first I’ve ever seen it. Thanks for showing me something new and cool.
My pleasure! Its really underrated.
Vesting had to be done immediately, although it should have been taken over a shorter period of time, within a month or two
it’s only worth $4 now from $600 🥲
wasted my time and money to claim only $3 noice!
It was not expected with farther coin 😴😴 500$+ lost already @farther
Anyone dares to explain why I have to wait for 30 days to claim my 2 dollars?... ain't punishment enough? I just want to claim the full amount and move on ... Its like waiting for a slow death.
I committed to doing this when I was still holding on to hope that I could fix/replace the economic model of tipping allowances. But then when I tried to restrict tip trading, many people freaked out and sold. That resulted in even less time to better system. Explained it all here: https://paragraph.xyz/@farther/the-next-chapter?referrer=0x97e3b75b2eebcc722b504851416e1410b32180a3
I was one of the very few who still held it down but the fact that YOU didn't listen to anyone and kept on bulldozing and micromanaging how people do things and slowly changing the rules of engagement. By throwing all kinds of curveballs in one season was the straw that broke the camel's back. You might have the best ideas but they were extremely rushed with no consent.. don't blame anyone for selling as we even suggested lock in tokens for allowance to prevent the bleed but of course you ignored that too as you said it is not efficient. The project is dead so it's time to move on and instead of holding tokens hostage with this stream thing just let people claim it right away... I don't get why we all have to wait for the full amount in a month. And yes I read that " The next chapter " and I sold immediately... You just don't listen to anyone and to me that's not leadership. Best of luck on any future project you got down the pipeline.
I think the idea was to keep the price a little bit more "stable". But it just keeps sinking
No one got time for this BS stability .. all these coins are going to new lows and there is no stopping
so sorry Chalie. Farther is shit.
dailyart dailydrawing #3727 . geometric blood drawn
250 $degen
🤍🤍🤍
🍖 x 500
5000 $FARTHER
thank you . unfortunately farther shut down today . https://paragraph.xyz/@farther/the-next-chapter?referrer=0x97e3b75b2eebcc722b504851416e1410b32180a3
O, I guess they paused them already
yes . 😅 . but i do appreciate the gesture . 🙏🏼
🍖x300
Oops
i guess we’re done here 😅 https://paragraph.xyz/@farther/the-next-chapter
People are right to call me out for removing Farther from my bio last night. Very dumb move. I did it out of embarrassment. I had genuine intentions and was trying to be as transparent as possible, but in my strongly-held opinion, the value of tipping tokens is a mirage and only sustainable in a bull market (no offense intended to other tipping token projects but I can't lie about this). I should have listened to the voice in my head telling me this before launching Farther, which happened during the latest peak of interest in crypto & Farcaster. (continued in replies...) https://paragraph.xyz/@farther/the-next-chapter
After realizing how unsustainable it was, I tried to build a path to something that could work. Most tippers rejected it and revolted. At that point, the only ethical move I could see was to put the community in control of the treasury and offer to burn the founder allocation. I'm proud of some of what was built (still think the V2 scoring mechanism using OpenRank data has potential), but I made zero money from this. I'm very sorry to anyone who viewed Farther as an investment. I explicitly said it had no intrinsic value from the start, but I take responsibility for creating false expectations. I love Farcaster and hope others can learn lessons from this.
Thank you for your honesty here. Keep experimenting, good luck on whatever your next journey is
Much appreciated Jason. Means a lot.
🫂
> I love Farcaster and hope others can learn lessons from this. No harm in trying, of course, the hard work is evident and generally thankless! But to your last point, just because token tipping was new to FC does not mean it was net new. It’s also important to look at how these things have succeeded or failed outside our narrow garden here as well.
they can do a cto if they want. just hand over the control of the liq and open source the tipping engine. let's see if they can bare the cost 😆
Half of the people that started tipping farther only did so because they didn't want to lock up degen to get an allowance and wanted a free allowance from just holding tokens lol If they actually cared they'd take over the "farther dao" and implement their ideal version of tipping themselves
I think you handled the entire project and the exit well in a world rife with theft the best we can ask of a founder is honesty it sucks that ppl invested money and time but it’s a good reminder of what we all need to be reminded of: most crypto tokens are a culture of belief with very little true utility
Thanks Jon much appreciated 🤜🤛
I actually bought a lot of Farther bc I worked with ur contracts at sound and I was excited that u‘d figure it out But it also fine if u decide to not do that. I took a gamble with my money on ur token
You worked really hard. Ignore everyone else who is complaining. No one is entitled to free tokens 🤷🏻 You also put in a lot of liquidity to try to make it work. I doubt all the farmers complaining put in any liquidity themselves.
Thank you Sam! The last thing I want to do is contribute to narratives about crypto being full of scams, and a lot of Farcaster users are relatively new to crypto so I understand why they'd be upset.
You are really empathetic and patient and it shows! Please don’t let it bother you too much
Why do you think people here are relatively new to crypto?
It says a lot that the majority of them just dumped their tokens instead of trying to take control of the "farther dao" and work towards making farther what they wanted it to be (which would've ended up with people farming it until it was worthless anyways)
I pinged my group chat on this, but I think they all sold tbh.
honestly agree with you. it’s a tough situation bc something you stated has changed significantly, and it’s hard to move forward without impacting a bunch of people. i think giving it over to the community is a viable path but some protest is to be expected
onwards giga. we live and learn. lego
🙏🙏🙏
you are good! builders are there to push the limits, fail and share the journey 5M tokens a day just too much, tipping can work, but should not be released in that way. Also tbh not all tokens needs tipping, the one that has the strong culture, cult will benefit more. Imagine brett has tipping, does not make sense
Commendable bro. It takes a good man to take ownership of your mistake and address it head on. I don’t have and hard feelings and could clearly see the effort put forth. I also thought the new mechanism was unique and implemented rather quickly too which shows some dev skills.
Joined from first day so I know how hard work you're and you put a lot of money into it too. Also mentioned about tipping is not sustainable and expecting for something new. Good luck on your next one!
For anyone who has been tipping $Farther: The tipping cycle is being paused indefinitely after this season. Read here 🔻 https://paragraph.xyz/@farther/the-next-chapter?referrer=0x97e3b75b2eebcc722b504851416e1410b32180a3
so sad
tip 7000 $farther
🫂 Thanks Flex! The last "hurray" ? If there is one more allowance tomorrow, you'll get it all. 17100 $units 😀
Unfortunate, but timing is everything in the market. This summer has been punishing. Glad they are being so open about their next moves.
True.
1000 $farther last one🫡🫡
Thanks Shoaib! Yep, I am already out…
No worries no we are all out officially
1994 $farther
Interesting
Sorry to hear this
That’s very unfortunate to see this.
FartherDAO: The Next Chapter - Tipping will pause indefinitely after the current cycle - The treasury will be turned over to community control via FartherDAO Please read the blog post for all details and post questions below: https://paragraph.xyz/@farther/the-next-chapter
so basically, your ego is shot ok, sorry— you didn’t deserve the degen grant you shipped half baked all year. Farther should have continued evangelizing CT if you think a tipping token is deflationary. Literally doing anything or 0 was better than “indefinitely stopping because this isn’t MY vision” 🙄
down 66% with one announcement Not very ‘championing the Farcaster community’ of you, not very demure, not mindful
https://warpcast.com/smokingfrog.eth/0x0c6c7294
theoretically, could the DAO vote to reinstate a tipping model?
Reaction video coming soon 🫡
rip him a new one pls david sos
eager to hear this take
this is a shit show always have been you didnt listen to anyone and now its dead... not even gonna compensate anyone or let us get what we earned and jeet it
What most people were demanding was massive amounts of free tokens that they could trade with other tippers. As I explained in the piece, that is a broken economic model. I couldn't continue burning my own money on a broken system. I already spent thousands trying to make it work.
what a dishonorable exit to a smal dishonorable man
What is the point of farther without tipping?
I spoke and described ideas in DM at the first day. I'm sure they would work and involve more people in Farther. The second part is not to distribute the farther to those who now have 0 allowance, but to block it. Why did I and some others have to pay more than $250 to get the allowance, while others are just given out and it's not banned. And the third point is to take the degen model as a basic, as you wouldn't want, but it works, blocking and vesting
Thanks I paid over 300 USD to tip and this is a sad state of affairs watching it drop after having faith feeling abused.
I hear you and I'm sorry. I'm out of ideas. The community hates what I've tried.
You did a lot of interesting things! Going all in on Tipping may have actually been the turning point. I thought your rewards for posting on Twitter was pretty innovative and potentially impactful. It certainly got me and many others posting about FC (and $farther) on Twitter. Thanks for your efforts!
Sorry about that, it’s the nature of this game at the moment unfortunately :( 11000 $farther
No, it didn’t have to go down like this, this is v shitty
I was trying to better my community at this moment I was risking about a week's wage on this. Would have been better to pay into my rent savings fund. Thanks tho.
✅ Valid tip from @links to @jacque Tip amount: 11000 ✨ Remaining: 215 ✨ 11,000 ✨ / 11,215 ✨ (98%) 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I feel rugged
I hear you and I'm sorry. I've been pouring time and money into this and tried everything I could think of to make it sustainable.
Yeah, I also spent $300 on ham that is now worth $30 and locked $500 worth of degen that is worth $100 now? Even MOXIE has dumped 90% since launch. The tipping party is over, I guess.
Same 1000 FARTHER
Me too, hopefully it’ll be good for ham but sucks. I think we got in at the same time.
I think so 🫂
Dang. I thought the current system had promise, if you were able to just kick out the farmers and just even start with a small group of real tippers and slowly add more that meet some pretty strict requirements, even if things remained low and took a long time. But I do understand and appreciate that the time and effort you put into it, only to get so much farming and so much criticism, probably was very demoralizing. Enjoyed the experiment and actually enjoyed tipping much more over the last few weeks. Thanks for the effort.
Much appreciated wahoo 🙏 It did show some promise but I think it was too little too late. Community had already been captured by tip farmers.
In the latest blog post, @farther reflects on the journey of the Farther token amidst challenges in the tipping ecosystem. A new version (V2) aims to add value through prediction markets, but misalignment with community priorities raises questions. Turning Farther into a DAO may be the sustainable path forward.