Dear crypto writers,
We are organizing a writing contest with Purple called “Farcaster 2026”.
The goal is to look at different paths that Farcaster can take this year to reach the next level in 2026. The writers will be able to win 2 ETH in prizes and receive distribution from the Kiwi & Farcaster communities.
Purple has been the OG Farcaster community, with their main goal being to proliferate and expand the Farcaster protocol and ecosystem. They have been supporting Farcaster builders, onboarding new users, and organizing and sponsoring meetups since 2022.
Kiwi has a lot in common with Farcaster. Our Co-Founders (Tim and Mac) have been Farcaster power users since 2022, and met in the Farcaster comments section. Farcaster is where we got our first users. And we were also supported by Purple with two grants in 2023, plus received a grant from the Warpcast team.
So we are excited to finally run a project together.
Here’s how it’s going to work:
How does the contest work
The contest is called “Farcaster 2026” and its goal is to explore different paths that Farcaster can take today to grow as a decentralized social network.
The submissions to the contest start on the 20th of January and end on the 10th of February.
Here’s how you can take part in it:
1) Write a post answering the prompts.
The prompts for the contest are:
What updates, tweaks, or features could Farcaster clients do to become better for OGs and newcomers?
Which Farcaster frontier—agents, games, mini-apps, alt clients, memecoins—has the highest potential to grow the ecosystem?
How can crypto social legos create experiences that can’t be found on web2 social networks?
How can Farcaster amp up its marketing and growth activities to bring more new users?
How could Farcaster go big without losing its soul?
In this contest it's better to dive deeper into one prompt than touch a few more shallowly, so please choose only one prompt for your work. Also, remember that we want to focus on a mid-term future, so things that are doable until 2026.
The contest is generally leaning into essays, but we are open to different forms: you can write an essay, a report, a short story or even a poem. What matters is the quality of the ideas and how easy to digest they are.
Also, for this contest we prepared a separate groupchat for writers, so if you needed some peer support or just had any questions, feel free to join it here.
2) Add a line about your post taking part in the contest.
Link to this contest announcement with the words: “This post is taking part in the Farcaster 2026 writing contest” at the beginning of your post.
Thanks to that we will know you're taking part in the contest and your readers will understand a wider context.
3) Share your post on the platform of your choice.
The contest is platform-agnostic, so you can post on apps such as Farcaster, Paragraph, Mirror, Substack, X, Zora, private websites, and so on.
4) Submit your post to Kiwi.
After you share your post, you need to submit your link to Kiwi.
To do so, you need to have a Kiwi Pass. It is now essentially free (minus gas fees).
5) Remember about the deadline.
To qualify for the contest, the author must submit their post to Kiwi between the 20th of January 00:00:01 CET and the 10th of February, 17:59:59 CET.
6) There will be four prizes in two tracks.
The contest will have two tracks, with 2 ETH split equally to their prize pools.
The first track is called “Popular Vote” and its winners will be determined by the number of upvotes received on Kiwi.
The second track is called “Jury vote” and its winners will be determined by the jury from the Purple & Kiwi teams.
The prizes will be divided as follows:
1st place: 0.5 ETH
2nd place: 0.3 ETH
3rd place: 0.2 ETH
The "Jury Vote" track is meant to reward posts that we consider good but didn't receive too much attention, so we are leaning into having 6 different winners in these 2 tracks. But if we see some outstanding work, it is not impossible for an author to win prizes in both tracks.
(The jury team is still being determined - if you’re a Purple member and would like to join it, please let us know)
7) On the 17th of February at 18:00:00 CET, the voting concludes, and we reveal the winners in the next few days.
For the "Popular Vote" track we will only count upvotes from Purple owners, Farcaster Power Users and most active Kiwi community members.
Purple owners are people who owned a Purple NFT before the 15th of January.
Farcaster Power Users are those with Neynar score above 0.9.
Most active Kiwi community members are those who before the 15th of January collected at least 5 Kiwi karma points. You can check the user's Karma score, just bear in mind that this is a real-time board, not the timestamped one.
For the “Jury Vote" track we will let the jury decide which posts they liked the most.
If you end up being one of the winners, you will just have to send us a receipt/invoice and the wallet address to which you want the ETH to be sent.
All writers are also welcome to share their posts on X and Farcaster. Our profiles will repost the best submissions.
If you want a retweet on X, you should tag @KiwiNewsHQ.
If you want a repost on Farcaster, you should tag @kiwi, and @purple.
Also, thanks to our great partners for spreading the word about the contest far and wide: Paragraph, GM Farcaster, bountycaster, trpplffct & ted. If you wanted to join this crowd and help us in any way, feel free to DM Mac on Warpcast or Telegram.
Summary
We hope this contest will serve as a Schelling Point for writers who want to explore the future of Farcaster - both for those who use Farcaster every day as well those who can give us some external perspective.
And if you have any questions related to this contest, feel free to DM Mac on Warpcast or Telegram.
PS: Authors can use AI for brainstorming or editing but please don't share fully AI-written essays.
lfg
Results of the “Farcaster 2026” writing contest 3 upvotes, submitted by @macbudkowski
we know which essays won 2 ETH in our contest! thanks to all authors, everyone who voted, and helped us spread the word about the event! congrats to the winners: @183aaros.eth, @p-e, @abundance, @bradq, @pierrepauze, @mkkstacks, abhijithg & @tombeck.eth and special thanks to our jury members: @six, @jihad, @ccarella.eth & Mac. https://paragraph.xyz/@kiwi-updates/farcaster-2026-writing-contest-results
Thanks for running a great contest!
congrats!
Really great initiative and congrats to not just the winners but all participants ✨
Amazing news! Thank you—and thank you for hosting this contest. It was a ton of fun!
Yayy! 🎉 This is great news to start the week! Thank you so much for organizing and supporting these ideas and writers on the purple app. I enjoyed reading the articles and appreciate all the effort to give voice to these topics. BRAVO Everyone!
🫡
congrats!!
Congrats, well done 💐🥳
Thanks so much fren! 🥳🥰
Congratulations @mkkstacks 🥳
Thank you so much!! It's a huge win! 🥳
The contest was a huge success, with record-breaking numbers of both submissions and voters! Thank you so much to everyone involved in organising this contest!
Congratulations to the winners 🥳🔥
Congrats to winners We go again next time
🫡
gm gm the submissions to our contest officially closed yesterday, but... you still have time until the 17th of February 18:00 CET to vote and decide who is going to win the contest. we received 40 submissions overall, from authors such as @p-e, @pierrepauze, @bradq, @vova, @pichi, @tombeck.eth, @itsbasil, @papa, @abundance, and many more! just click our link in bio, open the top bar, and start reading.
PS: Here are the rules regarding votes that are going to be counted towards final results. You can read more here: https://paragraph.xyz/@kiwi-updates/farcaster-2026-writing-contest
Appreciate you guys running this. Thanks! 👊
thanks for throwing hat in the ring 🥝
https://warpcast.com/jacque/0xc8d3d3ac
gm happy to share that @jihad joined our 'Farcaster 2026' writing contest jury! he will pick the winning essays in the 'jury track' together with @six, @ccarella.eth, @timdaub.eth & @macbudkowski. PS: there's still some time to share your take on Farcaster and compete for 2 ETH, sponsored by @purple! You can learn more about the contest in the cast below.
https://paragraph.xyz/@kiwi-updates/farcaster-2026-writing-contest
Trying my hand at this @kiwi contest writing about Farcaster for 2026. https://mirror.xyz/sgtslaughtermelon.eth/4DYgrHp7K0M7rF0VNKgWd-NcqlVOSdXumPb16YkeVYE See the contest details here: https://paragraph.xyz/@kiwi-updates/farcaster-2026-writing-contest
Thread: Bridging the Gap – Making Farcaster Work better for Everyone 1/ This post is taking part in the Farcaster 2026 writing contest https://paragraph.xyz/@kiwi-updates/farcaster-2026-writing-contest Farcaster as an open-source, decentralized social network, represents a significant departure from traditional Web2 platforms. It provides users with true ownership of their data while integrating Web3 functionalities such as Ethereum-based identities and decentralized storage. However, as Farcaster grows, ensuring a seamless experience for both OGs (longtime users) and newcomers is crucial. To achieve this, Farcaster clients should implement targeted updates, tweaks, and features that lower the entry barrier for new users while enhancing advanced functionalities for OGs.
2/ 1. Strengthening Decentralization and Security As Farcaster continues to grow, maintaining its censorship-resistant and secure nature is essential. This means making it easier for users to participate in decentralization while also implementing stronger cryptographic protections to ensure message authenticity. Proposed solutions: End-to-End Encryption for Private Messaging: While Farcaster is primarily public, enabling encrypted DMs or group chats using zk-proofs or threshold encryption would be a valuable addition. A practical example of this limitation is the inability to send a secure message between different Farcaster clients. For instance, if a user on Warpcast wants to send a private message to another user on Recast, there is currently no end-to-end encrypted messaging mechanism that ensures message confidentiality across clients. Implementing robust encryption standards would not only provide seamless interoperability between clients but also enhance user privacy and security.
3/ Better Spam and Sybil Resistance Mechanisms: To combat bot-driven spam while preserving user anonymity, Farcaster protocol itself could integrate proof-of-humanity solutions such as Gitcoin Passport or World ID. Additionally, refining follower metrics by filtering out bots from follower counts would provide users with more accurate engagement statistics and ensure a more authentic experience. This would not only improve content integrity but also enhance the credibility of user interactions.
4/ 2. Enhancing Discoverability and Engagement For OGs and newcomers alike, discovering relevant content and communities remains a challenge. The decentralized nature of Farcaster means there is no algorithmic feed like those found on centralized platforms. Proposed solutions: Personalized Feeds and Recommendations: Implementing user-configurable ranking mechanisms (such as Most Engaged, Trending, or Following) can improve discoverability without compromising decentralization in the Farcaster protocol itself. Hashtag and Channel Discovery Improvements: Enabling auto-suggestions for channels and hashtags would allow users to find relevant discussions quickly. Content Curation via Community Moderation: Implementing reputation-based content curation, where community-vetted moderators can highlight valuable content, can improve content quality.
5/ In Conclusion, Farcaster has the potential to revolutionize social networking by prioritizing decentralization and user ownership. However, to truly bridge the gap between OGs and newcomers, thoughtful UX improvements, advanced features for power users, stronger security measures, and an expanded Frame ecosystem are necessary. By implementing these updates and tweaks, Farcaster can maintain its ethos while fostering mass adoption, ensuring that both OGs and new users find lasting value in the network by 2026. - SUPER BULLISH on FARCASTER!
well written! 🙌
Thankyou💜
Thanks for sharing. I like your insight on end to end encrypted messages. It's gonna be a big win to have interconnected messaging system.
new vibe check drop with @timdaub.eth and @macbudkowski of @kiwi !! https://pods.media/vibe-check/vibe-check-17-tim-and-mac-of-kiwi-news Banger episode of 3 old men yelling at cloud talking about tribe aesthetics, @farcaster_xyz as a GTM tool, and the Farcaster 2026 writing contest with a 2 ETH prize pool courtesy of Purple and the homie @ccarella Thanks so much to the guys for coming on, and for Mac to be the first farcaster to ever ask me for product feedback starting me down a very different life path than I once imagined <3 Thread....
First off - make sure to check out the writing contest! - https://paragraph.xyz/@kiwi-updates/farcaster-2026-writing-contest On to other things... Topics notes Vibe Check Origins Whats up with the warpcast feed Attracting the wrong audience with the wrong narrative Aesthetic in community movements Finding out who your real friends are in PvP speculation The unique challenge of money being transparent in crypto LARPing on Instagram and plausible deniability as a healthy function Standing as the outgroup for user acquisition - Bluesky vs. X Don’t be evil vs. can’t be evil Airline status vs. real status Find people to converse with on the internet Farcaster as GTM GMfarcaster alpha What is kiwinews? Farcaster 2026 Writing contest ideas
last but not least, shout outs @gmfarcaster and @pods for the platform, and @purple / @ccarella.eth for the grant to propel @farcaster forward into a new and interesting future
Follow Tim: https://x.com/timdaub https://warpcast.com/timdaub.eth Follow Mac: https://x.com/MacBudkowski https://warpcast.com/macbudkowski Follow Kiwi: https://x.com/kiwinewshq https://warpcast.com/~/channel/kiwi-news https://warpcast.com/kiwi https://news.kiwistand.com/
What are some essays/casts/discussion you should read about Farcaster in order to better understand current FC growth challenges? Looking for food for thought for writers taking part in our "Farcaster 2026" contest. (example of a cast below)
If you're interested in the contest, you can read more about it here: https://paragraph.xyz/@kiwi-updates/farcaster-2026-writing-contest
well, that thread aged like kiwis left on the counter > email is antiquated, cumbersome, and poor ux. there are stories of being locked out of google and icloud. > there's an opportunity here for farcaster as protocol to be the new identity layer for the internet (with social graphs built on top). the interoperability with payment rails is a huge plus" It looks clear to the outside world that Farcaster has lost its way. Including a high-profile hack via open email vuln that reeks of 20 year-old web2 monopoly tradcorp policiies. It could have been closed with less than a week of eng work (and was! to their credit) plus subsequent comms. But the founders have allowed themselves to take their eyes off the ball for at least 5 months. Serious internal game-planning on a token drop would focus minds and attract North Star growth like no other possible "feature". Why are we even doing this, if not to participate, build, and shape the best possible Read-Write-Own outcome that crypto can enable? Token 2025
The "Future of Farcaster" essay contest is now open for submission. 2 ETH in Writing Rewards. https://paragraph.xyz/@kiwi-updates/farcaster-2026-writing-contest
watching this space... the future is being written 👀
Farcaster 2026 Writing Contest. https://paragraph.xyz/@kiwi-updates/farcaster-2026-writing-contest