A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a controversial article about why I was leaving Twitter/X for Warpcast. It was the most-read article in the history of the newsletter (in all its incarnations). I received a wide range of responses from, "Why would you do that?" to "Me too!" All said, it did do one thing across the aisle: spark curiosity.
Some of you are now on the Farcaster side, so the question is, "What are the apps I can use on Farcaster?" But before we go there, just a quick primer on Farcaster, and if you're already familiar, you can skip ahead.
What is Farcaster?
Most of you reading this article have an X account, a TikTok account, an Instagram account, and/or all of the above. Each of them operates completely independently, meaning your X followers are different than your TikTok followers than your Instagram followers. If you intended to build an audience for any of them, you had to put a lot of effort into each platform.
Suppose I told you that you could build your following, and that following would always be yours, and carryover on any app you use? That is what the Farcaster social media protocol is. I'll show you how that plays out. One of the apps running on it is called Warpcast which is functionally very similar to X. Personally, I have built a follower list of about 1,300 at the time of this writing and follow 200 over the past couple of months. Yesterday, I installed an app called "Jam" which is functionally very similar to Instagram and also runs on the Farcaster protocol.
You want to know what was cool? As soon as I logged in with my Farcaster login credentials to Jam, all my followers I built up on Warpcast carried over, all my casts, all my posts (presented in an IG-type manner), as did the comments to said casts. Build once and lasts forever.
The underlying technology is built on the Optimism blockchain technology stack. Your followers, your follows, your messages, are all stored on a peer-to-peer network of nodes. We don't need to get into the technicalities; the key takeaway, again, is that you own your data, and you can take it wherever you want.
Without further ado, let's get into the best apps sitting on the Farcaster protocol!
Warpcast
Warpcast is built by the Farcaster team and serves as their flagship app. It closely resembles X -- as you can cast (post), re-cast, quote cast, and like casts you come across. There are a couple of significant draws, one is they have "channels" which essentially are groups you can join tied to a specific subject. I am a fan of the show "Curb Your Enthusiasm," so I'm a member of the /curb channel. This helps with feed curation. Additionally, while not a construct of the core Farcaster team, there is this concept of tipping with the $DEGEN token. For the sake of brevity, I will not go too deep into it, but essentially it allows Warpcast users to tip in $DEGEN (currently denominated at $0.02) to other users for content they like. It's an interesting mechanic incentivizing good content on a decentralized platform.
Drakula
Drakula is functionally very similar to TikTok, but it does not contain the breath of in-app production tools. Additionally, insofar as I can tell, there is not too much in the way of an algorithm capturing your habits and using it to curate content you would become addicted to. All major advantages! Perhaps the biggest advantage is unlike TikTok, you can get paid for your content. This can help in one of two ways. One is through the Drip system which is an in-house point system where you can earn for posting & sharing content, and from other users who like your content. There's some speculation about whether this will turn into a currency, akin to $DEGEN. Another method is people can trade you as a content creator, and as a creator, you get a cut of the trading fees based on a bonding curve. There have been some surprises with a $GOAT token claim, and it likely won't be the last surprise. We'll see how these creator incentives combined with impending legislation in the US regarding TikTok will help usher in wider Drakula adoption.
Paragraph
Paragraph has been around for 2 years, and is a platform where you can start and host your newsletter. We use Paragraph ourselves. It's easy to use and built onchain -- the articles published are stored on a decentralized storage service (Arweave), and they're collectible by the readers as well. This adds an additional revenue funnel for the creator. They have a bot that announces on Farcaster when you have published an article which helps with reach. Token-gating, communities, and subdomains are all also supported. Paragraph is a must-have for any creator who wants to write onchain.
Jam
One of the newcomers in this article is Jam. Their messaging suggests they're styled after Instagram. Something that stands out about Jam is the ability to buy and speculate on specific casts. Typically the ones being purchased are from notable people on the Farcaster protocol and/or ones announcing milestones, which makes sense, since presumably, these can be historical collectibles. Jam is certainly on to something with regard to collecting casts. At the time of this writing, it's a newer app, so they're working on ironing out small bugs, but it's certainly an app to keep an eye on.
Unlonely
Similar to Paragraph, you don't need a Farcaster account to use Unlonely, but the app still sits adjacent to it, and you can use your Farcaster socials. It is the streaming server of choice for many Farcasters, including myself. Built on Base, actions you can take are buying/selling $VIBE token (which is similar to what it sounds; it fluctuates in price based on buys/sells so it captures the vibe of the moment), launching your own token during a stream, and NFCs which are 30-second non-fungible clips. Although not specifically geared toward gaming, it does have a Twitch-like feel to it.
AlfaFrens
AlfaFrens is the newest player in town. It's not open to the public, and you'll need a referral code to access it. Admittedly, I have not used it myself, so most of what I will share is extracted directly from their website. They're a SocialFi app built on Farcaster for gated alpha chat subscriptions powered by Superfluid and $DEGEN on Base. As you spend more $DEGEN, you earn $ALFA, and you can stake $ALFA on creators. The more $ALFA staked on a creator, the more $ALFA is issued to subscribers. The name of the game is to stake $ALFA on the right creators so you can earn more than you've spent. It currently has a lot of attention, so we will see how well it can stand the test of time.
This list is not exhaustive; there will be more apps added and some may become less relevant. Based on my observations so far, app adoption at this stage is primarily driven by opportunities for the end-users to make money. A lot of this has been back-stopped by grants or other sources of funding. Clearly, this is not sustainable in the long-term, and what remains to be seen is which of these apps can maintain their daily average users once the well runs dry. Ultimately the app will need to do one of two things: a) continue to organically attract revenue so it can self-sustain or b) it has usage/applicability extending monetization so it will remain sticky, even once users are not incentivized financially.
We will see how it all pans out!
