On October 11, 2023, Farcaster opened its doors to everyone (a.k.a "went permissionless").
If you want to create an account, go here.
Farcaster is a lot like and a lot unlike other social networks. There's so much to learn and explore, but if you are new, this article will help you find your way around.
Warpcast is to Farcaster, what Firefox is to Web
Farcaster is a protocol, and Warpcast is a Farcaster client, much like Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Edge are clients for the WWW. There are many other clients and applications. You can find an (incomplete!) list of applications that use Farcaster here.
You own your Farcaster identity.
Everything you do on Farcaster (casts, likes, recasts, follows, etc.) is tied to your Farcaster Identity (fid). No one can take away, suspend or cancel your Farcaster identity: it is controlled by an Ethereum address only you have the keys for. Don't worry, if you loose your keys, there is a way to recover your identity.
Open, Decentralized
Farcaster is an open protocol. This means than anyone can build applications on top of it, without asking permission and without paying fees. Compare this to using Facebook, Twitter/X, or Reddit APIs: Each one of these companies has changed policies, requirements and pricing, often pulling the rug under developers' feet.
Farcaster is decentralized. At the core of Farcaster are the Farcaster hubs. Every hub keeps a complete copy of everything there is on Farcaster. Hubs talk to each other and sync their status to reach consensus. Anyone can run a hub. If you like experimenting, you can run your own hub, even from your home (hardware requirements are minimal, your previous PC or laptop is probably more than adequate).
Why do I have to pay?
Because there is no Twitter or Facebook to pay the costs.
In exchange, you own your Farcaster identity, data and network.
There are two costs to using Farcaster.
Storage space on hubs. For most users, this will be a cost between $0.6/month and $1/month, depending on the payment method. The easiest way to pay is through Warpcast's in-app purchase ($12/year including AppStore fees and USD-to-ETH conversion). But you can also use a service like caststorage.com, pay in ETH and avoid the AppStore tax.
The cost of identity-related transactions (remember, your Farcaster identity "lives" onchain, and onchain transactions have a small cost), such as the initial signup or giving permissions to apps. This cost is small, and in some cases apps may pay it on your behalf to make your life easier, but occasionally you may be asked to pay something like $0.99 (the actual cost is much less, and there will be ways and tools to pay much less in the future).
Where can I learn more?
farcaster.xyz, is the home of the Farcaster protocol.
thehubble.xyz is Hubble's homepage. Hubble is the software run by Farcaster nodes.
Farcaster Overview: short videos explaining the core concepts of Farcaster. (Keep in mind that the videos were created some time ago, and some of the details may have changed through Farcaster Improvement Proposals.)
Check out the articles on Purple Submarine.
Welcome new casters! https://paragraph.xyz/@purplesubmarine/welcome-to-farcaster
My friend (a high school teacher) asked me what's different about Farcaster vs. Twitter. I told her that she owns her data - as in when she deletes it, it's gone. In the case of Twitter, we don't really know if the data is gone. How would you explain Farcaster vs. Twitter to someone outside of web3?
I tell people to imagine if when someone follows them on twitter, that person can also automatically follow them on every other social app, and there are no more ads.
Ohh I like that!
Don't promise no ads... As much as we rather have platforms with no ads, we might still need them at some point in some circumstances to be sustainable.
yeah - "no more user attention being sold to advertisers as the default revenue model" is a better promise, but that is a lot more words. 🙃
If advertisers leaving X kills it, like Elon suggests, all your data and your follower graph go with it. On Farcaster, if Merkel goes away, your data and graph can live on and you can use it in many different apps. Unlike X where you can just use it there, even if you don't like it.
Good one!
https://paragraph.xyz/@purplesubmarine/welcome-to-farcaster
For me it’s about owning your audience, followers are tied to your wallet/user and can be ported to other applications For blockchain/crypto/nft users I would also mention that all your wallet info / assets are integrated or will be, thus creating a better experience (unlocking new services/use cases)
Uhhh. Is this true? I don't have an expectation that my data is private on Farcaster. The opposite, in fact. It's indexed in a bunch of places, including on Hubs, @neynar, and private apps like Searchcaster. Farcaster has a bunch of advantages over Twitter's model, but privacy isn't one that I normally espouse.
To be honest I definitely dumbed it down for my friend, theoretically you should have control over all your data. But you’re correct, our data is indexed in a bunch of other places out of our control
the data is portable
trying to think of the best meme, but to me, farcaster is the closest to a critical meeting place. data ownership, permissionless, intellectual, but the key to making social real are connections that build into QoL upgrades, pivotal decisions, & historic synthesis.
Mr. beast is worth billions He would be worth trillions if he Could takes his followers anywhere
Musk can do whatever they want with your content and monetise it as he wants, whereas in Farcaster users have opinion on this. Because Farcaster is not tied to a single company, it is expected that more diverse ecosystem will born, with more options for creators and authors.
However Farcaster is more than a decade behind Twitter and all this to happen will take some time.
I've said this: https://warpcast.com/nor/0x204f3e But I also think it might make sense to embed our values into the invitation. What are some FC values we want to pass on to the next generation?
To be honest I don’t think regular people think of social media that seriously I think most folks just want to meme. What do you think?
Regular people might not care but creators might. If creators migrate, so will regular people.
The Instagram and TikTok addictions are rampant among the non-memers and non-creators. They think of social media non-stop, just not in an especially participatory way
If I want to stop using Twitter because I don't like Elon, I leave behind my friends and data. If I want to stop using Warpcast because I don't like Dan, there are other apps that I can still use to talk to those friends and see my data.
New here? This may help you. https://paragraph.xyz/@purplesubmarine/welcome-to-farcaster