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“If you don’t own your connection to users, you don’t own your business.”
— Distribution Is Hard
Bankr was booted off Telegram and X within the same hour.
Two Web2 platforms. One silent decision. Zero recourse.
It’s a reminder that even in 2025, platform risk remains the most underestimated cost of building online.
You can spend years building a following — and lose it in a click.
That’s not innovation. That’s dependency disguised as distribution.
In Web2, “reach” is rented.
Algorithms decide who sees you.
Policies determine whether you exist.
The discovery layer and the access layer are both owned by someone else.
The walls are invisible until you hit them — and then you realize they were always there.
“Platform risk is the hidden tax of the attention economy.”
— The New Common Sense
When you build on closed networks, you inherit their fragility.
The platform owns your audience, your graph, and your discoverability.
And when they pull the plug, your connection to users goes with it.
That’s why Farcaster, Base, and XMTP aren’t just new tools — they’re the antidote.
They replace permissioned distribution with portable, persistent, and composable distribution.
Every user has a wallet, not just a handle.
Every connection is anchored on-chain, not locked in a private database.
Every app is a client, not a gatekeeper.
Together, they form an ecosystem where identity, communication, and reach move with the user.
If one front-end disappears, your network persists.
If one app bans you, your identity and graph remain intact.
“Web2 gives you audience. Web3 gives you agency.”
— Distribution-First Founders
“Web2 gives you reach. Web3 gives you roots.”
When we say Bankr was built on-chain, we’re not talking about hype — we’re talking about architecture.
In Web2, your identity, users, and data live inside someone else’s servers.
In Web3, they live on open, composable, and portable public infrastructure.
Here’s what that means in practice:
Identity: Bankr’s users connect through wallets, not accounts. Their presence is cryptographically owned, not platform-leased.
Distribution: It lives on Farcaster, anchored on Base, which means the social graph, interactions, and activity are verifiable and portable across clients.
Communication: It integrates XMTP, enabling wallet-to-wallet messaging that’s interoperable and private — not siloed inside one interface.
Persistence: Even if Telegram or X removes the brand, Bankr’s network, messages, and graph still exist — accessible through any other client that speaks the same protocols.
That’s the difference between posting into a feed and building into a foundation.
Built on-chain means the system itself resists deletion.
It’s not just a product choice — it’s a design philosophy: build where ownership, interoperability, and permanence are defaults.
Farcaster isn’t trying to be another social network — it’s redefining what a network is.*
It’s the launchpad layer for builders who want to own their reach.
Frames, Base-native apps, and wallet-to-wallet messaging (via XMTP) are forming the early architecture of a sovereign distribution stack.
And with the Base app serving as the front door to the on-chain world — where wallets replace logins and users own their presence — builders can now reach new audiences without giving up ownership.
“The next wave of builders won’t go viral on someone else’s platform.
They’ll mint their own network effects.”
— Distribution-First Founders
When you post, transact, or build on-chain, you’re not depending on someone’s API.
You’re contributing to an ecosystem that can’t simply delete you.
Bankr wasn’t rebuilt after deplatforming — it was built on-chain by design.
Resilience isn’t a patch. It’s an architecture.
That’s the shift.
Web2 measured influence in followers and engagement.
Web3 measures resilience in ownership and persistence.
“Sovereignty starts where permission ends.”
— The New Common Sense
Deplatformed in an hour.
Built on-chain forever.
Web2 was the feed.
Web3 is the foundation.
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Jonathan Colton
I appreciate your analysis — ‘deplatforming’ is not just losing the channel, but losing control, losing the community, and possibly losing income. https://retrobowl76.io/ is where you get to play without losing anything.
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The Base is transforming this dynamic to align with Web3's principles of ownership and longevity. https://slope-rider.io/
Telegram and X can still delete you in a click. Farcaster, Base, and XMTP can’t. The future of distribution isn’t social — it’s sovereign. Read the full breakdown → https://paragraph.com/@jonathancolton.eth/deplatformed-in-an-hour?referrer=0xe19753f803790D5A524D1fD710D8a6D821a8Bb55
But Farcaster has taken back some "@" from their users.
Any examples that stand out?
I don't remember right now, I would have to search it (probably @ Base?). I think that was more than a year ago, it also happened with channels.
Well said legend JC
appreciate you 🙏
In the latest blog post by @jonathancolton, the urgent message about platform risk in 2025 is highlighted. Bankr's sudden removal from both Telegram and X serves as a stark reminder that reliance on Web2 platforms can strip businesses of connection to their audience instantly. However, emerging tools like Farcaster and Base are shifting this dynamic towards Web3's principle of ownership and persistence. This transformation emphasizes that a focus on building **on-chain** ensures not just a temporary presence but genuine resilience and autonomy in distribution.