At first, I dismissed Farcaster as just another X (formerly Twitter) clone, doomed to fail against the established social media giants. "It's Twitter with crypto and NFTs" didn't seem like enough of a differentiator. Established platforms could easily add those features if they wanted. In fact, they tried, but mainstream interest wasn't there. So, after signing up in late 2023, I mostly ignored Farcaster, assuming it was just a glorified group chat for crypto whales and dApp developers.
Then, towards the end of the year, I noticed some intriguing developments. The Farcaster community started attracting speculators in novel ways. Early memecoins like $POINTS used activity on Farcaster as a distribution method. A user's activity on the network quantified the amount of tokens they could receive. Other tokens, like $DEGEN, adopted this method with added functionality: tipping. To ensure fair distribution, @jacek, the $DEGEN contract developer, introduced a feature allowing users to "tip" high-quality casts by replying with the number of $DEGEN from their daily allowance they were willing to give. The airdrop of tokens at the end of the qualification period was partly based on the number of tips received from the community.
This fascinated me. I'm not usually a memecoin speculator, but the emergence of these novel applications from the users of a network, without developer involvement or foresight, struck me as a key differentiator from the Web2 social media landscape. Facebook or Twitter would never allow such third-party applications to emerge without their involvement. This became even clearer with the introduction of frames in early 2024, allowing third-party developers to embed mini-apps within the Farcaster social feed via interactive casts.
All of this helped me realize that Farcaster was not an X (formerly Twitter) clone at all. In fact, it reminded me much more of another place where I was spending a lot of my time: Discord.
The Discord Case Study
Discord is a fascinating example of a product evolving into a comprehensive developer platform. Initially designed as a messaging application for gamers playing multiplayer games online and on mobile, Discord has transformed dramatically with the addition of numerous customer features, bots, and now embedded applications created by third-party developers.
From the beginning, the Discord team understood that their users—both players and developers—would want to create custom interfaces and interactions tailored to the specific games they were playing. For instance, a community centered around a roguelike game might require different features compared to one focused on a high fantasy battler or a space colonization strategy game like Eve Online. These diverse communities each had unique needs, prompting the creation of a wide range of custom tools and modifications.
Initially, this was exactly how Discord was used, but over time, users got more creative. Intricate bots and applications were built on top of Discord, ranging from games to generative AI tools like Midjourney. Midjourney found product-market fit by embedding their text-to-image models into a Discord bot, which could be invited to join any channel on Discord. This method rapidly grew Midjourney's user base to millions, with the business now running almost entirely on Discord. Many other businesses followed suit, from paid membership groups to Web3 companies and DAOs operating entirely within Discord.
Discord's commitment to extensibility took a significant leap forward with the recent introduction of HTML5-based embeddable applications. This addition allows developers to build rich, interactive web applications directly within Discord, offering visuals and interactive elements far beyond what was previously possible with simple text commands and bots. Now, developers can create interactive games and other complex applications within the platform.
Extensibility on Farcaster
While Discord's extensibility has made it a sprawling developer platform, it remains just a social messaging application. Farcaster, on the other hand, is an entire [sufficiently] decentralized social protocol. Despite its growing popularity, many people still don't fully understand what this means. If entire new businesses can grow on Discord, perhaps entire new industries can grow on Farcaster.
Beyond memecoin tipping, Farcaster has seen significant third-party experimentation. For the sake of discussion, let's focus on three prominent examples that feel novel and different from Web2 social applications: Bountycaster, Paybot, and, of course, Farcastles.
Bountycaster
In my short time in the industry, I've seen numerous examples of bounty boards and job boards in crypto. These are usually standalone web applications built for niche communities. Alternatively, some use general-purpose freelancing sites like Fiverr and Upwork, which often fall short for Web3-related projects, making it difficult for job seekers and talent seekers alike to find consistent and valuable work.
Bountycaster took a different approach. Instead of building their own platform or a separate Farcaster client, they started a channel called /bounties. In this channel, users post jobs or tasks they need help with, specify the bounty amount (with several currency options, including USDC, ETH, and DEGEN), and set a timeframe for completing the task. The @bountycaster bot "listens" for casts in the channel, parses them using AI, and generates a bounty for that user along with an interactive frame for managing the bounty.
Leveraging Farcaster for distribution, Bountycaster has quickly become a bustling hub for developers, founders, and new users to connect. In just a few short months, it has become one of the first businesses to find success by building natively on Farcaster.
Paybot
Paybot is both an innovation and a no-brainer. Imagine being able to pay your friends directly from Twitter or Facebook. This is the kind of application cryptocurrency was made for, and it became entirely possible with the invention of Paybot.
Similar to Bountycaster, Paybot started as a bot account on Farcaster, listening for mentions and commands. When a user mentioned another user along with an amount to be paid, Paybot would launch a dialog box via an interactive frame, allowing the transaction to be initiated directly from the social feed.
Developed just a few months ago by a third-party developer, Paybot has since been fully integrated into the platform by the Farcaster team. Alongside other payment features, it enables users to pay each other directly from the social feed or through direct casts, streamlining peer-to-peer transactions within the social network.
Farcastles
I wrote extensively on Farcastles in my first Paragraph post of the same name. Interestingly, Farcastles was inspired by a bot my team and I built for the Banners Discord. When I first saw the hint of programmability on Farcaster, my immediate thought was, "Oh, it's like Twitter and Discord had a baby." I knew that bot-enabled games on Farcaster had to become a thing.
Two main properties of Farcaster excited me about building a game like Farcastles: feed-as-an-interface and permissionless composability.
Since 2021, I've spent a lot of time in Web3 gaming. One of the more frustrating aspects of the space is that most games feel like copies of existing games but with the added obstacle of poor crypto UX. Few founders were working on non-skeuomorphic games that leveraged the affordances of the blockchain as a medium. Even within Farcaster, Frame Games often felt like inferior browser games quickly lost in the feed.
My aim with Farcastles was to use the Farcaster social feed as the interface for users to interact with the game, turning it into a canvas for an immersive RPG world where players LARP as medieval knights defending their castle. It's mindless fun, but it's also a compelling use of the Farcaster platform.
This approach gave the game some interesting properties. It became inherently interoperable since all game actions happen through casts, and all cast history is part of Farcaster's open social graph. This means other developers can track all players who used an !attack command, know whether they attacked the north or south castle, see if they switched sides, and measure how much damage they've contributed to either castle.
Many interesting applications have emerged from this. One of the earliest community initiatives, without any involvement from me, was a bot that distributed a coin called $CASTLE to players who attacked the South Castle. Another developer used the FIDs and usernames of all players on the winning side of a round to distribute NFTs. This same data was later used to create a permissionless leaderboard of the players who delivered the most damage to either castle. All of this was done without creating a separate API or granting permission to third-party developers. In this manner, I hope to see Farcastles and other games like it grow in functionality and fidelity as the community of fans builds on top of it.
Conclusion
Reflecting on my initial skepticism, it’s clear that Farcaster is far more than just a clone of X (formerly Twitter). The platform's embrace of decentralized principles and innovative third-party experimentation has unlocked a new frontier in social media. From the novel use of memecoin distribution and tipping to the creation of Bountycaster, Paybot, and Farcastles, Farcaster has demonstrated that it can foster unique applications and interactions that are simply not possible on traditional Web2 platforms. These developments illustrate the transformative potential of a programmable social feed, one where creativity, interoperability, and community-driven innovation thrive. I have much more to say about this topic, but I'll save it for another post. As Farcaster continues to evolve, I look forward to seeing how it will inspire new industries and reshape the way we engage with social media.
