Much of what drives success on social media today depends on feeding algorithms that don’t have our best interests in mind. These systems focus on harvesting attention, not rewarding genuine value creation.

This traps creators and builders in a relentless loop — chasing engagement while their true potential remains ignored.

Decentralized social media promised to change that. But so far, it hasn’t delivered. The centralized, attention-driven algorithms of Web2 still dominate Web3.

There is a crucial difference, though: in Web3, we don’t have to be slaves to extractive algorithms. We have the power to shape our destiny.

If platforms choose to remain stuck in the past, we will forge forward.

If they care only about the attention our content generates, we care about the impact it creates.

And if they focus only on attention-based rewards — leaderboards, creator coins, and the like — we will reward creators and builders based on their real impact.

This is exactly what Impact 2.0 was designed to do.

Impact 2.0 isn’t just another algorithm. It’s an economic engine for a new kind of platform — one centered on user alignment, not aimless competition for attention.

It’s a platform where creators and builders are fairly rewarded for their impact on the network, so everyone is motivated to contribute their best and benefit from this fair system.

Impact boosts and rewards users based on their contributions to Farcaster — the impact of their casts.

But there are challenges:

Users must proactively curate impactful content, rather than passively boosting what the algorithm already serves.

They need to value content based on how it benefits the network — whether text, art, code, or more.

Users must trust that bad actors are filtered out, encouraging them to contribute funds and boost truly impactful casts.

Here’s how Impact 2.0 meets those challenges:

Curators start with a weekly allowance of 69 impact points and an Impact Score of 100. They use points to nominate impactful casts, staking on the cast’s impact in the network.

Nominations go through a decentralized validation — randomly selected curators vote on whether a nomination is accurately valued.

If validators find a cast overvalued, the nominator’s future allowances are slashed.

There’s also an option to challenge validations, creating a system that incentivizes good faith from curators and validators alike.

When a curation is validated, the system boosts that cast with “likes” proportional to its impact from users who opt in.

To motivate curators, the system rewards them with 10% of all contributions to the content they curate. Passively boosting popular content means missing out on rewards.

Users who boost impactful content receive rewards based on their contributions.

Both curators and validators grow their Impact Scores for quality contributions and lose points when acting in bad faith.

Curators who promote friends unfairly or inflate impact risk having their Impact Scores — and allowances — slashed to zero.

Curators can increase their weekly allowance by multi-tipping creators and curators in the ecosystem. The higher the Impact Score, the cheaper it is to gain more points via tipping.

To qualify for allowance increases, a portion of multi-tip contributions goes to the Impact Fund, used to grow the system and reward validators and contributors.

This design aligns curators, validators, and contributors around boosting impact on Farcaster while effectively filtering out bad actors.

Impact 2.0 is a proof of concept for a new economic model for social networks — one that puts users at the center, fairly rewards value creation, and aligns user and platform interests.

This is our chance to declare independence from centralized algorithms and build platforms that prioritize your interests.

Let’s get on the Impact rocket!