Introducing $DEGEN
The DEGEN token launched on Base in January 2024. It was first awarded to early Farcaster users who participated in the original /degen channel. Our goal is to reward Farcaster builders, creators, and loquacious types who invest and reinvest in Farcaster, creating a sustainable, fair, and fun social-fi economy. With hats.
At launch, approximately 37 billion $degen tokens were minted in total. From this total, 70% will be distributed among community members; 15% was allocated to a now locked Liquidity Pool; the remaining 15% will be used to support the $DEGEN team, developers, investors, and the broader $DEGEN ecosystem. Beginning in 2028, $DEGEN will have a perpetual 1% inflation rate.
What is Farcaster?
Farcaster is a decentralized social media protocol that was established with the goal of transforming how social apps are built and interconnected, providing a censorship-resistant environment where users have complete autonomy over their data and interactions. Developed to operate on the Ethereum layer-two scaling solution, Optimism, Farcaster enables a network of social applications where users can maintain their identity across various platforms within the ecosystem, essentially allowing for a more integrated and user-controlled social media experience​.
Long and short, Farcaster is crypto social and $DEGEN is it's money. Farcaster is, essentially, a distributed database of users and their followers. Warpcast is the current most popular client (app).
What are channels?
Farcaster has a feature called "Channels," which allows users to organize conversations based on specific topics, similar to groups or subreddits on other platforms. Users can create themed channels by paying with the WARP token. Think of channels as a cross between Reddit's user created subreddits and Twitter's hashtags. They're topically centered and moderated. At present, channels are off-chain and Warpcast controlled, but will migrate on-chain as the technology and vision matures.
What are WARPS?
WARPS are Warpcast's off-chain money, used variously for rewards, to rent channels, pay for Farcaster data storage, and more. WARPS are not a cryptocurrency and cannot be traded.
In contrast, $DEGEN is an ERC-20 on Base, an Ethereum Layer 2, that can be permissionlessly traded and spent on-chain.
Summary
$DEGEN token is an ERC-20 on Base. There are 37 Billion total. It is being released on the Farcaster network in order to reward creators, developers, and contributors.
Contract address: 0x4ed4E862860beD51a9570b96d89aF5E1B0Efefed
