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Greetings, readers! (or Gm, as we say in crypto). This newsletter provides digestible breakdowns of complex protocols and products in the Ethereum ecosystem. You can expect quality substantive content (no hype pieces, shilling, or paywall) written for crypto-curious readers who are either newer to crypto or seasoned users who value refreshers on the fundamentals. You can learn more about this newsletter in the introductory post.
The potential of cryptocurrency is transformative: many of the online services we rely on today—such as banking, ride-sharing, and music streaming—are poised to shift to the blockchain, or “onchain.” Unlike traditional databases, blockchain operates on a decentralized network, eliminating control by any single entity. While blockchains don’t store files, they maintain an immutable record of transactions, offering unprecedented levels of transparency, authentication, and ownership.
The widespread adoption of crypto hinges on several factors, including market dynamics, regulatory considerations, and technological advancements. The good news? Early indicators suggest we’re on the cusp of a major shift.
2025 could very well be the year we see the first mainstream crypto consumer application and the breakout app may be a social media application.
In this post, I’ll explore the rise of onchain social media, tracing the evolution of social networks from early centralized platforms like Myspace and Friendster to today’s decentralized, non-crypto networks like Mastodon, to onchain networks like Farcaster and Lens, which represent the latest shift toward user control, data sovereignty, and creator monetization.
This is a lay of the land, breaking down how social platforms have innovated, scaled, and, in many cases, failed. By analyzing their strategies—what worked, what didn’t, and why—we can better understand the challenges and opportunities facing the next generation of social networks.
To wrap up, I’ve included a framework to help you evaluate decentralized social media platforms.
Before diving in to the meat of the post, let's align on three important definitions. You may find some of these rudimentary, so feel free to skip to the next section if you're already comfortable with these concepts.
*Note: These definitions are not absolute and are an amalgamation of my research. References and further reading are provided at the end of this post.
What is a Social Network?
A social network is a system for exchanging messages and information between users. Traditionally, this exchange has been facilitated by centralized servers. However, with the rise of decentralized social media, social networks now operate across distributed networks of servers.
What is Social Media?
While often used interchangeably with “social network,” social media has a broader meaning. It refers to platforms that enable users to create, share, and distribute content—whether for entertainment, personal expression, or building a brand.
What is Onchain Social Media?
Onchain social media refers to protocols, applications, and platforms that use blockchain as their backend for storing and verifying data. This approach grants users greater control and ownership over their digital identity, content, and followers. Developers also benefit from the freedom to build applications on top of existing protocols without the risk of centralized platforms altering the rules.
Friendster and Myspace were the first social networks to set the standard for online communication, connection, and self expression — ultimately paving the way for the future of social networking.
Launched in 2002 by Jonathan Abrams, Friendster gained widespread popularity, capturing the attention of both developers and users, with its structured approach to online connections and relationships.
Friendster pioneered early social media features that have since become the gold standard:
Profiles & Connections – Users could create personal profiles, connect with friends, and explore extended networks through mutual connections.
Social Graph – A visual map of connections, where users are “nodes” and relationships are “edges.” This concept enabled features like friend recommendations and optimized content delivery.
Between 2003 and 2004, Friendster’s user base exploded to millions. However, this rapid growth came with challenges. The platform’s infrastructure struggled to scale, leading to slow performance and user frustration. Meanwhile, competitors emerged with faster, more reliable experiences, enhanced functionality, and stronger cultural appeal.
One such competitor was Myspace.
Launched in 2003, Myspace was developed by Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, along with a team of developers, at eUniverse, a digital marketing and entertainment company.
By 2005, leveraging eUniverse’s marketing expertise and existing user base to accelerate its growth, Myspace became a household name and earned a reputation as a hub for musicians with bands like Arctic Monkeys using the platform to gain exposure and build fan bases.
Myspace innovated with the following features:
Profile Customization – Users could personalize their profiles with custom backgrounds, graphics, and music using HTML/CSS.
Top 8 Friends – A unique feature allowing users to showcase their closest friends on their profile.
At the height of its success, Myspace was acquired by News Corporation for $580 million—a massive deal at the time. However, mismanagement under News Corp, slow load times caused by cluttered profiles, and the rise of Facebook ultimately led to Myspace’s decline.
As social networks evolved, staying culturally relevant and providing monetization opportunities for creators has become increasingly more important. Today’s social networks prioritize not just connection but also status, recognition, and influence.
Launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook initially catered exclusively to Harvard students but opened to the public in 2006. By 2008, it had surpassed Myspace in monthly active users, marking the beginning of its dominance in social media.
Facebook innovated with the following features:
Exclusivity – Originally limited to Harvard students, Facebook created a sense of desirability before expanding to the public in 2006.
News Feed – A real-time, scrolling feed that aggregated updates from friends. This shift from profile-based browsing to a centralized stream of content fundamentally changed how users interacted with social networks.
Like Button – Revolutionized social engagement, becoming the primary metric for measuring content popularity.
Tagging – Users could tag friends in photos, posts, and comments, increasing engagement and encouraging users to return to the platform.
Facebook outcompeted Myspace for several key reasons:
Better User Design – Facebook’s clean, unified design offered a smoother user experience compared to Myspace’s cluttered interface.
Targeted Advertising – Initially offering fewer, less intrusive ads, Facebook perfected targeted advertising, capitalizing on its vast user data.
Real-Name Culture – Encouraging users to adopt real-name identities created a platform that appealed to a more mature audience, in contrast to Myspace, which remained largely associated with teen culture and music. As users grew older, they outgrew Myspace, while Facebook evolved to cater to their shifting needs.
One year after Facebook’s launch, Twitter was introduced in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams. It revolutionized social media by becoming an online public town square—the go-to platform for news, trends, and public discourse.
Twitter innovated with the following features:
Character Limit – Originally set at 140 characters, this limitation was later expanded to 280 characters, encouraging concise and impactful communication.
Hashtags – Initially a user-driven concept, hashtags were later embraced by Twitter, turning the platform into a powerful tool for activism (#MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter) and viral trends.
Real-Time News – The news feed provided live updates on breaking news, sports, and cultural events, making Twitter the go-to place for immediate information.
Retweet Feature – Amplified content virality and allowed users—ranging from public officials and journalists to brands—to engage massive audiences.
Twitter reshaped how we consume news, entertainment, politics, and digital marketing, influencing how the modern world interacts in the digital age.
So far, we’ve focused on centralized social media companies, but there’s also a growing presence of decentralized platforms, primarily within the Fediverse. The Fediverse is a federated network of independent servers that communicate with each other, running on the ActivityPub protocol—a decentralized framework that allows different platforms to interact.
One prominent application within the Fediverse is Mastodon, which gained significant traction after Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Following the acquisition, many journalists, political figures, and brands migrated to Mastodon, attracted by its decentralized nature, which frees users from the control of any single individual or corporation.
Seeing this shift, Meta also seized the opportunity and launched Threads, which directly competes with X (formerly Twitter).
Mastodon was created in 2016 by Eugene Rochko, a German developer who, disillusioned with Twitter, sought to build a decentralized, open-source alternative. His vision was to create a platform that prioritized user freedom, privacy, and community governance, positioning Mastodon as a space free from corporate control.
Initially launched as a non-profit, open-source project, Mastodon gained early traction among tech-savvy and privacy-conscious users.
Mastodon innovated with the following features:
Decentralization – No single company controls the platform. Users can choose from different instances, each with its own content and moderation rules. If one instance shuts down, the network remains functional, and users can migrate to another instance, taking their followers with them.
No Algorithms, Ads, or Tracking – Posts appear chronologically, with no algorithmic feeds, ads, or data tracking.
Open-Source Community – Anyone can create their own instance, fostering transparency and trust, unlike corporate-owned social media platforms.
Unified Feeds – Users can see feeds from all Mastodon instances, creating a larger interconnected network.
In 2022, when Elon Musk took over Twitter, many users migrated to Mastodon. However, the platform faced growing pains. The decentralized structure, with its multiple “instances” (independent servers running their own websites), proved challenging for new users. Each instance operates with its own domain, rules, administrators, and community, meaning users must create a separate account for each instance they join. While users can migrate instances and take their followers with them, old posts do not transfer, and profile details must be updated for each new instance.
Meta saw an opportunity after Elon Musk’s acquisition of X, and Threads has since positioned itself as a more approachable, less contentious competitor to X. Unlike X, Threads lacks a real-time trending section or hashtags, which reduces the focus on political debates, viral content, and news-driven engagement.
Officially launched on July 5, 2023, just days after Twitter implemented rate limits and restricted access for non-logged-in users, Threads quickly gained traction. Within just five days, the platform reached 100 million users, making it the fastest-growing app in history at the time.
While Threads shares many features with X/Twitter, it also introduces several unique elements:
Instagram Integration – Threads is built on top of Instagram, allowing users to log in with their Instagram account. This creates an instant social graph, leveraging existing followers, profile pictures, and usernames. This approach helps avoid the “empty network” problem faced by new social platforms.
No Ads (For Now) – Threads offers a cleaner, ad-free experience compared to X and Facebook, which enhances user experience.
500 Character Limit – Threads allows up to 500 characters per post, surpassing Twitter’s 280-character limit for free users. Currently, there are no premium plans or subscriptions, so all users have the same features.
Threads, like Mastodon, is powered by ActivityPub, a decentralized protocol that allows data sharing across platforms built on the same protocol. This raises an intriguing question: why would a centralized company like Meta embrace decentralization?
The answer lies in strategy. By adopting ActivityPub, Meta can present Threads as a more open platform, distancing itself from the “walled garden” model of its other platforms (e.g., Facebook and Instagram). This move helps alleviate antitrust concerns and makes Threads more appealing to users who are drawn to decentralized networks.
Additionally, embracing decentralization allows Meta to tap into an existing ecosystem of applications, the "Fediverse", positioning itself as a supporter of open social networking. However, despite this decentralized front, Meta still controls key elements like discovery, account linking, and notifications. While ActivityPub allows posts to be visible across platforms, Meta is likely to impose restrictions—for example, only allowing interoperability with select Mastodon instances and prioritizing Threads posts over Mastodon posts.
Farcaster was founded by former Coinbase executives Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan with the vision of creating an open social network on Ethereum, free from control by any single entity.
The platform prioritizes user sovereignty, enabling individuals to own their identities and content while maintaining a familiar social experience. It shares similarities with Reddit by allowing users to join interest-based channels. Unlike ActivityPub, which is not built on a blockchain, Farcaster operates on Ethereum, leveraging its decentralized infrastructure.
Farcaster innovated with the following features:
Sovereign Identity – User identities are tied to Ethereum Name Service (ENS) names, granting full ownership and control, similar to a website domain but entirely user-owned.
Permissionless Social Graph – An open social graph allows developers to build diverse applications on top of Farcaster without restrictions.
Hybrid Architecture – Combines on-chain and off-chain elements: identity and authentication are on-chain, while posts, likes, and interactions remain off-chain for efficiency.
Built-in Monetization – Encourages new monetization models, providing opportunities beyond traditional ad-driven revenue.
Developer-Driven Evolution – A strong developer community contributes to protocol changes through Farcaster Improvement Proposals (FIPs).
While Farcaster focuses on sovereign identities, an open social graph, and sufficient decentralization, another notable player in the decentralized social space, Lens Protocol, takes a different approach to redefining online interactions.
Lens Protocol, developed by Avara—the company behind Aave, Lens, and Family—was launched in 2022 under the leadership of founder Stani Kulechov.
Kulechov describes Lens as a decentralized social network that flips the traditional model, empowering users over platforms. This shift opens the door for transparent revenue-sharing models and better rewards for creators.
Lens innovated with the following features:
Built-in Monetization – Provides multiple ways for creators to earn, fostering a more sustainable ecosystem.
Collect, Mirror, Subscription & Tipping – Users can collect posts as NFTs, mirror (akin to sharing), and engage in direct monetization through subscriptions and tipping.
Fully On-Chain – Unlike hybrid models, Lens ensures all social interactions—including posts, comments, follows, and likes—are recorded on-chain for full transparency and ownership.
With its strong focus on decentralization, monetization, and user empowerment, Lens offers an alternative vision for social networking, further expanding the possibilities of Web3-powered online communities.
In this final section, I want to provide you with a social media evaluation framework that can help you make informed decisions that align with your values, needs, and goals.
Important factors to consider include whether the application is open source, on-chain, has built-in monetization, data sovereignty (e.g., identity), is interoperable with other applications, and has on-chain governance.
Mastodon | Threads | Farcaster | Lens | |
Open Source | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
On-chain | No | No | Hybrid | Yes (fully) |
Built-in monetization | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Data Sovereignty | Partial (instance based) | No | Partial | Yes |
Interoperability | Yes (ActivityPub protocol) | Partial (limited ActivityPub) | Yes (Ethereum) | Yes (Ethereum) |
On-chain Governance | No | No | No | No |
As we stand on the brink of cryptocurrency's mainstream adoption, the rise of onchain social media presents an opportunity to reshape how we connect, communicate, and create online. The evolution from centralized platforms like Myspace and Facebook to decentralized alternatives such as Mastodon, Farcaster, and Lens highlights a growing demand for user sovereignty, transparency, and new monetization models.
While challenges remain—ranging from adoption hurdles to regulatory uncertainty—the potential for on-chain social media to redefine digital interactions is immense. By understanding past successes and failures, we can better navigate this transition and make informed decisions about which social media platforms we use.
While "social" is often generalized as a single monolithic category, there's actually a ton of variance in today's landscape of social apps.
A protocol for building sufficiently decentralized social networks.
A design pattern to reduce centralized control and change incentives in social networks.
Editor's Note 1 : I have no editor. Editor's Note 2 : I would like to assure new subscribers to this blog that most my posts are not as long as this one. Or as long as my previous one .
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Mark Zuckerberg said Threads is testing ActivityPub support that will make its posts available on Mastodon and other interoperable services.
From BBS to Facebook, here's how messaging platforms have changed over the years.
Feel free to reach out to me directly with questions, suggestions, or feedback. You can also drop me a message on Twitter. My DMs are open.
-Rika
Rika
