Today’s FVIP subject is not just "Very Interesting" but also "Very Early" to Farcaster… early enough in fact to grab the coveted username @matthew. And as one of the first 500 users on the platform (FID 473 to be exact), Matthew has been an integral part of the community since the early days, bringing his passion for building to the purple app with Eventcaster and his knack for inspring thoughtful conversations as one of the founding hosts of the weekly Latenight Crew show on Tavern FM. 

The story of @matthew begins in small-town Massachusetts, where he grew up with what he himself calls a “mild streak of mischief” (though he also insists, nothing too rebellious). As a kid, he and his siblings would build epic Lego creations, only to use them as makeshift weapons to play fight against each other (perhaps the perfect training ground for Crypto Twitter?)

After diving deep into the classics in high school, Matthew developed a love for the "logic puzzle" of translating Latin and Greek to modern English. Oddly enough, it was deciphering these ancient languages that helped lay the groundwork for his later love for coding and building in tech.

Fast forward to college and Matthew found himself at NYU’s Stern School of Business, right in the heart of New York City. But while his classmates were dreaming of investment banking and consulting gigs, Matthew had his eyes instead set on startups. Interning at many of these, working on his own side projects, and even dabbling in venture capital, he became the guy in his cohort who zigged while everyone zagged. In 2020, during the pandemic, he started a successful virtual coaching company focused on helping men be more vulnerable—an emotionally intelligent business with a unique mission.

Matthew’s introduction to crypto was, as is often the case, a series of rabbit holes he found himself falling down over the years. From initial dabblings with Bitcoin way back when Minecraft servers accepted it as currency, to witnessing the ICO boom during his VC days, and then finally to building on top of an Ethereum-based social network in Farcaster.

As someone who had always been intrigued by the cutting edge of tech, he was drawn to Farcaster’s decentralized, onchain-first ethos. That’s why he joined so early, immersing himself in a community that, at the time, was still very small, but intensely passionate. In those early days, Farcaster was a much more intimate space, with users primarily consisting of early adopters, builders, and a few curious onlookers exploring this new take on decentralized social networking.

Matthew’s decision to build on Farcaster wasn’t just about being early to a new platform though; it was driven by his long-standing passion for creating tools that foster community and connection. Farcaster’s unique blend of decentralization, ownership, and onchain interaction offered him the perfect canvas.

I just had this feeling,” Matthew says, “that Farcaster wasn’t just another social platform. It was a chance to build something where users truly owned their data and their interactions.” 

This belief, coupled with the platform’s modular architecture, made Farcaster an ideal space for launching Eventcaster, a tool that quickly evolved from a simple event coordination bot into a comprehensive platform for organizing meetups, podcasts, and dev calls.

“Everything is an event,” he says, and that framing has been a game-changer for how he thinks about what Eventcaster can do. Want to gather a crew for a Latenight Crew discussion? Eventcaster’s got you. Hosting a podcast or dropping a mint? Planning a virtual book club? Whatever you or your community might be up to, Eventcaster now has the infrastructure to turn it into a seamless experience on Farcaster, and beyond.

Of course, being an early mover in an experimental space like Farcaster isn’t without its challenges. Matthew admits that building for such a small but passionate community can sometimes feel like an uphill battle. 

“But I have this irrational optimism around Farcaster,” he says, laughing, “I just assume it’s going to work and be huge. That’s what drives me to keep building.”

It’s that kind of optimism that’s driven him to keep iterating on Eventcaster, even while Farcaster remains relatively niche. Matthew is playing the long game, building tools that not only work for today’s user base but are designed to scale as the platform itself grows.

It’s not just his work on Eventcaster that makes Matthew a beloved figure on Farcaster. His role as one of the founding co-hosts of Latenight Crew, a popular weekly audio hangout on Tavern FM, has also helped cement his place as one of the key voices in the community. The show, which he co-hosts with a group of friends including Zinger, YB, and Brian Kim, is a space for candid, real conversations that often go deeper than the surface-level chatter you might find on a typical social platform. 

Like a mix between a builder stand-up, a cocktail hour, and maybe a little bit of group therapy, Latenight Crew has quickly become a popular venue for Farcaster fans to show up, unwind and chat about the meta. There’s something about the informal, off-the-record nature of the show that brings out the best in the Farcaster community—honest, thoughtful discussions that wouldn’t necessarily happen in a public cast. As a bonus, it has also been a great opportunity for Matthew to dogfood his own product Eventcaster, and experiment with ways to engage the social graph and build community via recurring events. 

But Matthew’s commitment to building on Farcaster also extends far beyond his own projects. From everything I have seen, he’s quick to collaborate with others and has a strong desire to see the entire ecosystem grow. He’s already thinking about how Eventcaster can integrate with other tools and products on the platform, whether through mini apps, better UX for creators, and making it easier for builders to get their work in front of a larger audience. His vision for Farcaster is one where coordination happens naturally, where the tools make it so easy that creators can focus on creating, rather than getting bogged down by logistics.

“I’ve seen the power of building in this space, and I’m here for the long haul,” says Matthew. “As the platform grows, so does the potential for what we can create together.”

As Farcaster continues to evolve, so does Matthew’s work. He’s constantly thinking about how to improve, how to make the platform more useful, more engaging, and more accessible to new users. In the coming months, he plans to roll out more recurring events features on Eventcaster, a feature that’s been in high demand among users who want to schedule regular meetups, podcasts, or community calls without the hassle of manually creating new events each time. 

“The idea is to make everything as frictionless as possible,” he explains, “so you can focus on what matters—connecting with your community.”

Whether he’s coding, casting, or corralling the late-night crew for a chat, Matthew has been shaping the culture of Farcaster from the inside out since early days. And unless his unbridled optimism for the network is completely misplaced, it sounds like the Farcaster of the future will be an amazing place to hang out for builders and creators alike… so don’t forget to RSVP!

If you made it this far, thank you for reading! And if you are enjoying this series, please drop a comment and share it with your network on Warpcast and X. Help spread the word that there is no shortage of Very Interesting People on the purple app.