i’ve shipped a lot over the last 2 years, and basically all of it was built on
@farcaster, using farcaster + neynar + clanker rails. the one that surprised me the most, in a bad way, was farcnames.
farcnames was simple. it gives farcaster users a real ens name that matches their fname, like yourname.farc.eth, and it resolves directly to their farcaster wallet. one-time payment, no renewals, fully compatible with ens. each claim also generates a farcpage, a simple link-in-bio style page that aggregates identity, links, and presence.
it was basically basenames in spirit, with a few important differences:
* no renewals
* no name squatting
* no fcfs games
* no variable pricing by name length
* if your fname is “panik,” then panik.farc.eth is reserved for you. nobody else can grab it, even if you never claim it. equal treatment, clean logic.
when i launched farcnames, i didn’t even plan a token. the mini app literally said “no token needed.”
and for the first 15 to 20 days, that stayed true. it worked perfectly, was fair, respected identity, and still almost nobody claimed. two people. my wife, and one stranger.
so i did what degens do. i adapted distribution. i announced a token, added referrals, and started rewarding people who brought others in. i also built a cross-ecosystem discount model. holders of the most valuable clanker-native tokens got escalating discounts. some people claimed a farcname for $1 instead of $8 because they were long-time farcaster participants. it was inclusive, simple, and it worked. around 300 new claims came in.
then tge happened. liquidity dried up upon the launch. airdrops stopped being worth anything. and suddenly, a bunch of people started acting like they joined a presale and got “scammed” in return.
to be clear, farcnames did exactly what it promised. it never promised free money. wasn't a presale. i didn’t pull liquidity. i didn’t control the price. when someone comes in hot, i still explained it calmly and i offered a straight refund, delete the farcname, move on.
most people were great. i’m talking 85%+. supportive, kind, constructive. but that remaining slice is a reminder of how fast disappointment turns into 💩 in this space.
and one day, i even explained the whole thing, utility and the token, to a guy on farcaster who was calling himself something like “trader hospitality.” you’d think this is exactly his job but he just looked at a farcaster-native product, born via clanker, clearly beneficial for farcaster community, and he still went “i don’t get it.” apparently understanding ephemeral solana coins being dumped here is easier than understanding a farcaster service that actually ships. lmao.
anyway. this whole experience might be useful for
@rish and the team as they push farcaster forward.
note for the curious: i don't know yet whether i'll issue a new token for farcnames or what i'll do at all. i'm the last person who wants to RELIVE something that already went poorly even when markets were way better than today. and just always remember that nobody could possibly want farcnames to succeed more than i do. keep that in mind, please.
farc.io farc.io/panik
