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Like many Farcaster users, I was swept up in the Degen frenzy earlier this year. Amid the excitement, I kept thinking there was an opportunity for a Farcaster-native token that offered branding and ideas not steeped in degenerate crypto culture, and could appeal more to people attracted to Farcaster specifically for its potential to improve social media.
This was the initial idea behind Farther. I branded as a Farcaster evangelist token, launched by airdropping it to power users, and didn't set an initial price. I explicitly said it had no intrinsic value and let airdrop recipients decide what it was worth.
While I was reluctant to follow Degen's path by launching tipping, the Farther evangelist program (tweet for token rewards) wasn't very effective. It was clear tipping was at the top of the list of things Farcaster users were excited about, so I built a tipping system for Farther. I now believe this was a mistake.
What I'm about to write will likely be obvious to some, blasphemous to others:
In my view, most (all?) Farcaster tipping tokens aren't sustainable. They require massive inflation and create constant sell pressure that can only be temporarily countered during a perfect speculative storm like Degen experienced. Eventually the music stops.
Farther has recently been allocating out about 5 million tokens per day in tip allowances. That's ~150 million per month, which is 15% of the total supply. That might work if the number of holders is quickly growing and nobody is selling, but the majority of these tokens are allocated to existing $farther holders, and the majority of the tokens get swapped for more stable assets as soon as they're claimed.
It doesn't help that there are many similar tipping tokens and Farcaster's active users has declined since Farther launched. Many tippers have been getting marked as spam accounts, which leads them into tip trading echo chambers. This is all the opposite of what I was trying to build with Farther.
All these realizations led to Farther V2, which essentially turns each tip into a bet in a prediction market on the social capital of the recipient. The hope behind this was if tips could be imbued with more tangible value, it could provide a path to fixing the economic model. This was a long shot, but the combination of Farcaster and OpenRank seemed like a fresh design space where tips could be used to boost engagement for underrated users and potentially reduce user churn. If enough of the Farther community bought into this vision, I thought it buy some time to transition to bringing more of the system onchain and make tips paid directly by tippers.
The V2 design has mostly been a success. While not perfect, it has shown good results in only a few weeks. Veteran tippers earnestly giving the most to underrated users outside of the Farther community have risen to the top of the leaderboard.
But I unfortunately overestimated the community's appreciation of the need to fix the economic model. Most tippers simply want to trade tips with each other so they can cash out at the end of each month. All attempts to restrain this behavior has been met with frustration and large amounts of selling (see replies here).
Despite the trajectory so far, I still think Farther has potential. The community is active, the token still has some value, most of the supply isn't in circulation yet, and the V2 scoring system seems to be working.
But given my increasing feeling of misalignment with the community, not to mention the large amount of time and money I've already spent on the project, I think the most ethical path is to turn it over to the community through a DAO.
This is the plan:
I've already burned the Uniswap LP tokens so liquidity stays permanently locked.
Tip allowances will pause indefinitely after the current cycle, ending tomorrow at 9am PDT.
Liquidity bonus rewards will also stop. The onchain incentive program will continue until its scheduled end (Oct 27, 2024).
Snapshots for August claims will be made within the next two days and claims will go live shortly after. As announced last week, claims will use Sablier airstreams that linearly vest over 30 days.
FartherDAO has been deployed. I encourage developers to review its code (tests here). It uses Governor.sol with minimal changes. It was deployed with a 1-day voting delay, 1-week voting period, and 100k $farther proposal threshold. If I don't receive any messages alerting me to bugs or concerns about the initial parameters, I will send all the treasury funds (except the founder allocation) to it one week from today.
The founder allocation is also being streamed by Sablier, linearly vesting until August 2026.
In the event that the community decides to burn the treasury tokens to remove them from future circulation and wants the same done with the founder allocation, I will do so.
Anyone who knows me knows I'm obsessed with Farcaster and want to do everything possible to help make it succeed. I'm hoping Farther can still be a part of that.
Huge thank you to everyone who believed in this project, especially those of you who have given positive feedback and encouragement along the way.
If not, the founder allocation can remain available for someone interested in taking over the project. I'm open to purchase offers that would include all the assets (github repo, database, domain, @farther account, etc).
In the meantime, I can help orchestrate any proposals & votes on how to move forward. I can also post token-gated polls in the channel.
Farther
Its very interesting how large factions of both optimists and skeptics continue to believe AI is "just a tool" and can't/won't replace us. Its literally making advanced discoveries. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01523-z
Hey Giga! You wrote an article about farther before, which included experiences and reasons for failure. I can't find the link to it, if you still have it, can u please share it with me. Thanks!
This one? https://warpcast.com/farther/0x3bbe8fc9
I think that's it! but the frame doesn't work. Can you give a direct link on paragraph?
AI is without contest the biggest technology shit of all of our lives. Everything is going to change. Much more than everyone thinks
what is something you think will change bc of AI that most people are not thinking?
Relationships, education
https://x.com/tokteacher/status/1923729961946579252?s=46 The way I understand it is that itβs using gradient descent to optimize the process or said in another way.
"It's fascinating to observe how AI's capabilities are evolving. While many still view it as merely a tool, its role in making advanced discoveries suggests a shift towards a more autonomous contributor in various fields.
dailyart dailydrawing #3727 . geometric blood drawn
π x 500
5000 $FARTHER
thank you . unfortunately farther shut down today . https://paragraph.xyz/@farther/the-next-chapter?referrer=0x97e3b75b2eebcc722b504851416e1410b32180a3
O, I guess they paused them already
yes . π . but i do appreciate the gesture . ππΌ
πx300
Oops
i guess weβre done here π https://paragraph.xyz/@farther/the-next-chapter
People are right to call me out for removing Farther from my bio last night. Very dumb move. I did it out of embarrassment. I had genuine intentions and was trying to be as transparent as possible, but in my strongly-held opinion, the value of tipping tokens is a mirage and only sustainable in a bull market (no offense intended to other tipping token projects but I can't lie about this). I should have listened to the voice in my head telling me this before launching Farther, which happened during the latest peak of interest in crypto & Farcaster. (continued in replies...) https://paragraph.xyz/@farther/the-next-chapter
After realizing how unsustainable it was, I tried to build a path to something that could work. Most tippers rejected it and revolted. At that point, the only ethical move I could see was to put the community in control of the treasury and offer to burn the founder allocation. I'm proud of some of what was built (still think the V2 scoring mechanism using OpenRank data has potential), but I made zero money from this. I'm very sorry to anyone who viewed Farther as an investment. I explicitly said it had no intrinsic value from the start, but I take responsibility for creating false expectations. I love Farcaster and hope others can learn lessons from this.
Thank you for your honesty here. Keep experimenting, good luck on whatever your next journey is
Much appreciated Jason. Means a lot.
π«
> I love Farcaster and hope others can learn lessons from this. No harm in trying, of course, the hard work is evident and generally thankless! But to your last point, just because token tipping was new to FC does not mean it was net new. Itβs also important to look at how these things have succeeded or failed outside our narrow garden here as well.
You worked really hard. Ignore everyone else who is complaining. No one is entitled to free tokens π€·π» You also put in a lot of liquidity to try to make it work. I doubt all the farmers complaining put in any liquidity themselves.
Thank you Sam! The last thing I want to do is contribute to narratives about crypto being full of scams, and a lot of Farcaster users are relatively new to crypto so I understand why they'd be upset.
You are really empathetic and patient and it shows! Please donβt let it bother you too much
It says a lot that the majority of them just dumped their tokens instead of trying to take control of the "farther dao" and work towards making farther what they wanted it to be (which would've ended up with people farming it until it was worthless anyways)
I pinged my group chat on this, but I think they all sold tbh.
Thank you for all your efforts in its development, but making decisions about changes constantly without considering the opinions and feedback of loyal users is confusing. And this is the main factor of discouragement and distrust of the users. Such problems exist in any system and we are already seeing it in other projects. IMO, the main reason for the failure of projects is not paying attention to the main users, not market situation! the anger and discomfort of the artists' community, who are one of the most important and key members of the community, proves this. IMHO, it is better to provide conditions for people to send feedback to express their opinions about the problems of the project. At least, this can be useful for future community decisions.
I appreciate that and agree founders generally need to listen to users, but if users are demanding that an unsustainable system with ponzi characteristics continues (ex: extreme token issuance & rampant tip trading), itβs unethical to bend to their demands. Letting it continue just prolongs false expectations.
I completely understand this, I agree that one should not give in to false demands! Because we are facing this problem in the Rare project. But since the goal of the project has been to support art and artists from the beginning, And this makes the users hope for the team's efforts to improve in this direction. Maybe it's a bit hard, but setting the goal to achieve a proper structure should have been set, which I think was not the case with farther, right? I guess the main problem is due to the pressure of farming on the system! In this case, if the rules and goals are not specified from the beginning, it will lead to its lack of restraint in the development path. I think I had not seen any restrictive conditions in Farther's rules! I'm not sure, but this is really important!
I think you handled the entire project and the exit well in a world rife with theft the best we can ask of a founder is honesty it sucks that ppl invested money and time but itβs a good reminder of what we all need to be reminded of: most crypto tokens are a culture of belief with very little true utility
Thanks Jon much appreciated π€π€
onwards giga. we live and learn. lego
πππ
you are good! builders are there to push the limits, fail and share the journey 5M tokens a day just too much, tipping can work, but should not be released in that way. Also tbh not all tokens needs tipping, the one that has the strong culture, cult will benefit more. Imagine brett has tipping, does not make sense
Commendable bro. It takes a good man to take ownership of your mistake and address it head on. I donβt have and hard feelings and could clearly see the effort put forth. I also thought the new mechanism was unique and implemented rather quickly too which shows some dev skills.
honestly agree with you. itβs a tough situation bc something you stated has changed significantly, and itβs hard to move forward without impacting a bunch of people. i think giving it over to the community is a viable path but some protest is to be expected
they can do a cto if they want. just hand over the control of the liq and open source the tipping engine. let's see if they can bare the cost π
Half of the people that started tipping farther only did so because they didn't want to lock up degen to get an allowance and wanted a free allowance from just holding tokens lol If they actually cared they'd take over the "farther dao" and implement their ideal version of tipping themselves
You should be ashamed, and it is another dumb mindless move just like all of your fart her moves You also deleted your last cast where people were calling you out. The amount of mistakes you do instead of just admitting you rugged and work your ass off to compensate Like everyone is calling you, you are just a small man who made a dishonorable exit, and thought that no one will know its you. a brainlet
For anyone who has been tipping $Farther: The tipping cycle is being paused indefinitely after this season. Read here π» https://paragraph.xyz/@farther/the-next-chapter?referrer=0x97e3b75b2eebcc722b504851416e1410b32180a3
tip 7000 $farther
π« Thanks Flex! The last "hurray" ? If there is one more allowance tomorrow, you'll get it all. 17100 $units π
Interesting
Unfortunate, but timing is everything in the market. This summer has been punishing. Glad they are being so open about their next moves.
True.
1994 $farther
so sad
Sorry to hear this
Thatβs very unfortunate to see this.
1000 $farther last oneπ«‘π«‘
Thanks Shoaib! Yep, I am already outβ¦
No worries no we are all out officially