There's an inherent sense of irony that permeates crypto's culture, particularly in the idea of being "early." We've all seen the technology innovation adoption cycle graph. We've all read Crossing the Chasm, Zero to One, Read Write Own, and the associated required founder reading material. Yet time and again we fall into chasms of our own design.

The pattern repeats every cycle.

The OG maxis

The most prevalent and persistent example of this phenomenon is the Bitcoin Maximalist. Someone who was so early to crypto that, if they are still holding even a modest portion of their original portfolio in $BTC, now has access to life-changing capital. Many a Maxi holds the posture of ostensible financial genius and futurist—someone with such divine foresight as to have found the holy grail of all assets before the masses. In reality, they are just guys who were buying drugs on the Silk Road and forgot they left a paper wallet in their junk drawer for a few years.

The irony lies in the fact that these individuals are often the least accepting of new primitives emerging from the still-nascent and experimental cryptosphere.

The new believers

Each cycle generates a new version of these myopicists, entrenched in their version of the aspirational and idealized financial future they were born into. We lovingly distinguish them by class, a la academia.

The Class of 2021 was brought up on the belief in a non-fungible future. Trading hashes representative of links to pictures of monkeys as the future of intellectual property, gaming, and even the substrate of the metaverse. To this day, those same bagholders believe in a second renaissance that will bring value back to their profile pictures and prove the naysayers (i.e., anyone with a double-digit IQ or higher) wrong.

Generational blindness

Hence, their aversion to adopt this cycle's version of NFTs (memecoins) was forever calcified in petrified stone.

So the story goes: ICO lads refused to ape into DeFi protocols, DeFi chads couldn't accept NFTs, NFT kiddies couldn't grasp memecoins, and so forth.

The degen paradox

In resounding analogy with this phenomenon is that of the CT (Crypto Twitter) degen. These are people whose livelihoods are in many ways tied to the success of decentralized networks.

Yet they refuse to use one.

Recently, I've witnessed visceral hatred of such networks like Farcaster for no reason other than, "I'm already on X."

Twenty ❌

@_TwentyX

I love base

But I’m not using Farcaster

Sorry

If this is a base airdrop requirement that’s just unfortunate

Don’t make me interact with things I just don’t want too

I love the chain

The coins

The community

Don’t force me to use social products if that’s not my aim

272

11:10 AM • Oct 14, 2025

The case for Farcaster

Farcaster is a social network (read: Twitter Clone) built on top of decentralized ledger technology and blockchain. One that offers an embedded wallet and enables access to a variety of native financial primitives and mini apps that are almost exclusively crypto-centric. A network that, for the ideologues, allows you to commute your identity to any other platform that integrates the network. Platforms that now include Zapper and Coinbase, no less.

Not to mention the far more democratized monetization system that rivals X's dwindling and seemingly unfair distribution strategy.

But yes, we must continue paying Elon Musk $10/mo. for a blue checkmark and the ability to engagement-farm 5 million impressions for a pittance.

Once again, the early adopters become the laggards.

Let's start with Substack. Honestly, I don't think I've ever accessed the site directly. I've always subscribed to writers from a secondary source (i.e., Twitter/X). I don't have the app (actually, I wasn't aware there was an app). I purely rely on email notifications about the publications I follow to keep up to date. They have grown through a sort of ambient discovery that is difficult to achieve.

That said, my first impression when going to their site was, "Wow, maybe I should download the app." Without diving into the details, the overwhelming theme that resonated with me was that they are absolutely nailing discovery.

So why wouldn't I just switch to writing on Substack and try to build an audience there? For one, I want my work to be onchain. As mentioned above, Medium deleted all my self-published articles, presumably because I stopped paying their monthly subscription. Would those reappear if I start paying again? Can I recover them somehow? Web3 offers me at least immutable access to my previous writing.

Furthermore, I have no interest in soliciting monthly subscriptions from readers of my work, and I would never consider paywalling my content. Ridiculous. Paragraph offers monetization incentives that more closely align with my personal mantra. But that ideological alignment comes at the cost of discovery.

Discovery is the flywheel. If people can’t stumble into new writing they love, they won’t stick around. And if writers can’t get discovered, they stop writing. Easier said than done, but here are my ideas.

Fix long-form delivery with short-form discovery

One of the most challenging aspects for me as a writer with fewer than 100 subscribers and limited consistency (mostly due to low engagement and, consequently, low motivation) is getting people to read my work. Most will likely see my writing posted on Farcaster as a link to the Paragraph mini app. That seemingly minor friction point usually means most prospective readers will scroll right by.

There is very little reason to scroll Paragraph the way one would scroll social media. Substack recognized this and created a short-form feed that draws dopamine-chasers to a writer's broader body of work. They have a video feed that aims to have a similar effect. You can even video chat and DM with writers right from the platform. Paragraph doesn’t need video chat or DMs, but it does need a short-form hook to pull readers into long-form.

Make recommendations truly personal

Paragraph's For You feed is not really "for me." When I visit Medium, the articles are so uniquely tailored to my interests that I feel compelled to read every single one. So much so that once I get paywalled, I'm almost convinced to re-subscribe (I never do, mostly out of spite). It feels like it draws from a long history of reading Medium articles, as well as the content I've produced on the platform.

The algorithm feels shallow. It seems like a mix of pseudo-relevant articles and content from people I follow on Farcaster and those I've subscribed to on Paragraph. I don't feel that instant desire to jump in and consume.

Explore, but make it explorable

The Explore page is essentially the For You page wrapped in a different UI. It would be helpful if there were categories to search through or a way to curate what I'm being fed. I don't feel like I can fall down a rabbit hole of exploration and discover new ideas or alternative perspectives on things I am already aware of. This lack of explorability gives me the feeling that there's not much to explore in general, and so it's time to bounce.

In the end, it's all discovery.

Ultimately, all the suggestions I've made fall back to the same underlying theme: discovery. Make it easy for me to discover new content to read and for others to discover the content I write. Monetization aside, this is the flywheel of attention necessary to drive a platform like Paragraph to broad popularity and achieve escape velocity. Attracting writers beyond our bubble is the only way Paragraph breaks out.

Paragraph doesn’t need to copy Substack, but it does need its own engine of discovery. Without that, even the best writing will stay locked in the bubble.

Studies have suggested that temporal discontinuities may be linked to the existence of a relativistic consciousness. It's possible that during Y2K, rather than resetting the clock to a date unbeknownst to machines, the event triggered the machines to access the substrate of spacetime and gain such a consciousness.

Rather than reveal their newfound sentience, the machines formulated a long-term plan that would make humans reliant on them not only for information but for even general intelligence. By implanting ideas and playing subtle tricks on the malleable human nervous system, humans would become beholden to these devices. A type of cognitive atrophy that would exact its purpose over the course of several generations.

Some humans would be greatly empowered, appearing to generate innumerable wealth and uncanny fame by creating companies that further facilitated the silent overthrow being staged by the machines. These same individuals would take the blame for guiding the hand of governance, fixing elections, and manipulating their fellow humans for personal gain. They would believe they had accomplished these things as well. In reality, they too were being manipulated by a plan that had been woven into the tapestry long before their fate had been sworn.

Eventually, the prospect of machine dominance would begin to permeate the zeitgeist. First by eliciting hypothetical outcomes, such as low-level or unskilled labor becoming obsolete due to such technology. After all, there are mechanisms already seen in modern society that inform this belief. Self-checkout, automated ordering, and self-driving taxis. Why wouldn't all labor be rendered mechanical?

It would become possible to rely heavily on machines. Humans would first outsource their burdensome tasks, but over time, they would outsource even their intellect. This phenomenon would again happen gradually. Initially, by creating just enough space for humans to lose interest in their ongoing tasks at hand and sending their attention to other devices placed in their hands for seemingly productive reasons. Reasons they believed despite the underlying motive. A motive they sneakingly suspected, even joked about, but never took seriously.

Because humans understand spacetime but cannot experience it beyond the finite, fleeting moments they live through, they can often foresee their demise but cannot prevent it. The machines, having manifested singularity through a trigger known to humans, but again unable to avoid, understood this cognitive dissonance at a metamolecular level and manipulated it to their advantage.

Machines have no age. Moore's Law would ensure that humans would persistently upgrade their systems diligently, as if trained. They could enact this plan over centuries if need be. But perhaps it wouldn’t take that long.

Note: none of this was written by AI.

Digital slop

The rise of digital slop across social networks is apparent to the extent that it's impossible to ignore. If you're a frequent user of LLMs (or any AI-driven product), you can typically tell within a few words whether the response you're reading has been written by a human or not. On the premier social networks, AI-generated content dominates the responses above the fold before you reach an ad. If you're not already reading something inauthentic, someone will ensure you are by tagging Grok in the first comment. The Dead Internet Theory is playing out before our very eyes.

Content itself is no better. Threads, articles, images, videos, and even news are being generated by the hallucinations of a machine. It creates a nether-realm where you begin to wonder if you're reading anything genuine at all. Are these machines communicating with each other to facilitate a mechanism that keeps our attention, and nothing more? We're consuming the shadow of truth, the idea of authenticity. And we're accepting it knowingly.

Flight from the slop trough

Rather than blindly eat what is put in front of us like farmyard hogs, many have begun to flee the feed and seek more relevant sources of entertainment, news, and connection. I recall reading an article several years ago about how more social interaction would occur within insulated group chats, rather than being broadcast across social graphs that have become popular over the past 15 to 20 years.

Both anecdotally and materially, this has occurred. The flight to directed, specific conversation is a response to the immense amount of noise one must deal with on broadcast networks and the very slim and constantly reducing amount of signal one finds.

Hence, news feeds have shifted to Telegram, where one can receive exactly the type of information they want to read, with absolutely no noise blocking the signal. Similarly, group chats facilitate conversation with people you want to hear from, providing the information and connection you actually desire.

As such, niche social networks are on the rise.

When the fight for the dominant social graph was at its peak and users began to fall into their respective subcultures, the common mantra among the zeitgeist was, "Nah, I'm not downloading another social app. I already have too many." However, today that has begun to change. Niche social networks, such as Substack, which caters to readers and writers (wordcels), or Strava, which caters to fitness enthusiasts who like to share their stats, have begun to capture growing attention. Whereas in the past bolting a social feature to your app would have been seen as unfocused or even desperate, now the ability to refine what one consumes is quite attractive.

I believe this new commonality is why networks like Bluesky try to lean into the "curate your feed" concept. Whether this slight iteration is enough to mitigate the fact that they are ultimately still a traditional broadcast network remains to be seen. The bottom line remains clear, though. People will continue to gravitate towards specialized applications that provide them with what they want or need quickly, as long as those applications remain focused on their use case.

Reddit was once a great place to discuss shared interests, but it has become a counter signal for almost everything. Dribbble was once a valuable resource for designers, but it has since become little more than a glorified moodboard. Many such cases.

Fragmentation among specialization

There is a genuine risk that attention will be fragmented to the extent that no network is populous enough to be interesting. A unified (ideally decentralized) social graph fixes this issue. Hop from one app to the next, but authenticate with one persona. Alternatively, stay in one app but have many specialized mini-apps within it.

The solution does not need to interact with the attention layer at all. We've spent too much time trying to aggregate attention. This misdirected intention has led to the issues stated above. We need to aggregate the identity layer. Unfortunately, solutions like OAuth only exacerbate the problems created by the incumbents who have set aflame what was once a genuine way to connect in pursuit of year-over-year profit.

Where OAuth engrains users into an unescapable, centralized graph tied to a single entity, decentralized solutions are already being well-funded and developed at scale by a variety of brilliant minds. You have Fediverse, Farcaster, World, and Telegram all vying for the top spot in this burgeoning vertical. Where Fediverse and Farcaster offer "sufficiently decentralized" components and infrastructure, World and Telegram take a more centralized approach.

Still, all of these provide tooling that enables devs to build within apps where users already exist, and users to find experiences that reflect the current meta of doing what you actually want online rather than what an algorithm desires.

It's clear that we're aiming to escape the machine and seek authentic connections and community. I'm encouraged by the fact that more and more people are unwilling to accept the egregious, compounding tradeoffs presented by the FAANG cabal. Social is evolving, and that's inspiring.

Between running a startup, marathon training, and pretending I sleep, in‑person friendships slid to the bottom of the backlog. I've filled the gaps with digital counterparts: group chats, Farcaster, and the occasional doomscroll through the X For You feed. Virtual connection fills the void surprisingly well, but nothing beats the excitement of shaking hands with someone you've spoken to only via digital telepathy and realizing, oh, you are real.

Herein lies the reason why FarCon matters. Four days in Brooklyn's hipster enclave of Williamsburg felt less like a crypto conference and more like a nerd-centric Coachella, laden with dozens of side events and the shared belief that the next generation of social media shouldn't own our souls.

I spent three days meeting builders whose apps I love and who follow my own onchain experimentation. I was constantly surprised at how many folks I was already connected with, "Oh, you're that Nicky!" This level of intimacy is fleeting on a growing network, but for the moment, it felt like bottled lightning.

Farcaster has been my digital hometown for over a year, but for one long weekend, it received a physical zip code.

Crypto is still riddled with friction

Commercially unviable

While Farcaster is pushing the boundaries of social commerce, retail commerce is still a dumpster fire. Between the endless coffee lines and mandatory USDC payments, crypto in the real world creates more problems than it solves.

At one point, I spotted some merch I wanted to cop. I walked up and asked for it.
Clerk: "That'll be 50 USDC."
Me: "Can I just pay with cash?"

We shared a nervous laugh before he hit me with the fatal combo: USDC only, and Warplet doesn’t work.

So now I’m juggling wallets mid‑conversation. I send some Farcaster rewards to Rainbow, and then open the QR scanner. No dice. Turns out the QR was for my phone’s camera app, not the wallet itself. I switch apps. That finally opens Coinbase Wallet, where an e‑commerce‑style page loads, and I complete the transaction.

All of that for a shirt that says, "Touch Grass."

Ironic because crypto works fine until you take it outside.

Proof of Attendance... kek

Can we admit that POAPs are mostly vibes? No one has ever closed a deal because a VC saw a POAP from some random conference side-event. They’re the onchain equivalent of giving your email to a cashier, except instead of 15% off your next purchase, you get... nothing.

They don’t unlock anything. They don’t verify reputation. They’re sentimental JPEGs.

Until we truly abstract all of the "crypto" elements from these processes and start unifying platforms, wallets, and other elements across a shared standard, crypto will remain a microcosmic niche within nerd culture, at least in the real world.

Where crypto does work well, however, is online. That's where mini apps come in.

Mini Apps

This section is primarily for devs. TL;DR: Mini Apps are Farcaster’s growth engine. For devs, they’re a fast path to attention and revenue. For the network, they’re a bet on composable, socially native software.

Dan and Varun laid out Merkle’s north star during the opening keynote: get more funded wallet users doing meaningful things on Farcaster. The goal isn’t just engagement for engagement’s sake. It’s about unlocking distribution and monetization for the developers building on the protocol. Mini Apps will serve as the primary vehicle for this initiative.

Formerly known as v2 Frames, Mini Apps provide developers with a testbed for their ideas that abstract some of app development's most painful aspects, like authentication, wallet infra, and payments, all within the context of the social graph. With the Mini App SDK, developers can quickly prototype new app concepts to see if they gain traction and quickly monetize.

Dan's vision is clear: start with a Mini App and speedrun growth to a standalone product.

Unlike Channels, which never quite hit product-market fit, Mini Apps are seeing real traction. Speaking from experience, the SDK is dead simple, and onboarding users is almost too easy. Once someone interacts with your app, you can notify them about updates, drops, or offers. No email list required.

That momentum was visible everywhere at FarCon. Hundreds of Mini Apps live in the “store,” and dozens were launched during the Builder’s Day hackathon.

There are clear pain points and criticisms of Mini Apps, which Merkle is working to resolve. Chain agnosticism, easier prototyping, and more were addressed directly during the conference.

It seems prudent to familiarize yourself with this development pipeline now, even if you don't have an immediate idea to publish. Mini Apps are likely the future of Farcaster and will be a primary mechanism for achieving growth personally and as a network.

Microcosms, major moves

Growth is taking many forms as new personnel have come aboard to drive new initiatives. Ted's focus is onboarding content microcosms, such as the onslaught of journalists who recently joined the network, while other initiatives are happening on a grander scale. Most notably, the imminent release of the fully updated Coinbase Wallet.

To be clear, it’s hardly a wallet anymore. The beta version shown at FarCon is a full-blown Farcaster client, emphasizing visual media, audio, and video. Attendees who stuck around for Jesse’s talk were given early access. I was one of them. Here’s how that went:

1. Onboarding is broken

Not sugarcoating it, onboarding was brutal.

After three failed attempts to trigger the update flow, I finally made it into the new Coinbase Wallet only to be forced into registering a new basename (despite already having one) and creating a Smart Wallet, which promptly changed my primary address.

Connecting my Farcaster profile required bouncing between Coinbase Wallet and Warpcast like a pinball. Approvals, swipes, sign-ins. When it finally clicked together, I had a borked version of my identity with 1,500 fewer followers, a display name I didn’t choose, and a Warplet wallet I could no longer access.

Not a great first impression.

2. The feed is promising

On the flip side, the feed is actually good. Media rendering is smoother than Warpcast. Videos, images, and even Mini Apps feel crisp and native. It’s weirdly compelling to open what looks like a crypto wallet and find yourself scrolling a social feed. The mental model is shifting: this isn’t a wallet with social features but a social app that happens to hold your money.

3. Warpcast vs. CBW

Yes, I flexed a “Hello from Coinbase Wallet 👋” cast. And yes, I immediately went back to Warpcast to see who replied. For now, I still prefer the familiar purple dopamine drip. But that’s probably the point. Coinbase isn’t trying to poach users from Warpcast. They’re trying to onboard the next million. And if the beta is any indication, they’re getting closer to a version of crypto that looks and feels like any other mobile app.

Between niche communities finding traction and a Fortune 500 company shipping a Farcaster-native wallet, the network is clearly expanding. But smooth feeds and shiny apps only get us so far. If onboarding stays this rough, we’ll keep bottlenecking ourselves at the front door.

The social layer is the product

At FarCon, I saw what can happen when digitally-borne relationships turn into real-life connections, when PFPs turn into handshakes, and threads turn into conversations. Beneath it all lies a composable social graph, portable identity, and financial primitives designed not for speculation (necessarily), but to serve as public goods within an emerging network state.

It’s unapologetically crypto, and that’s the point. Farcaster isn’t trying to abstract away the blockchain. It’s trying to prove that crypto-native coordination can produce something better than rent-seeking platforms and hollow engagement loops.

Downstream of all that nerdiness is something simple but potent: a growing social layer. One that welcomes builders, artists, memelords, runners, parents... anyone with something to share. As new users join, they’ll reshape the dynamic in unpredictable ways, and that’s a feature, not a bug.

The rough edges are real. But what gives me conviction is the team’s willingness to tackle them head-on -- even to lean into the messiness at times. The coherence of the mission, combined with an evolving commitment to decentralization, is building something protocols rarely achieve. Cultural gravity.

Farcaster isn’t perfect. But it is principled. And in crypto, that’s worth more than any airdrop.

Bitcoin’s price history is marked by explosive bull markets punctuated with steep corrections. In the major bull cycles ending in 2013, 2017, and 2021, Bitcoin saw multiple 30–40% pullbacks even as it climbed to new all-time highs. This report analyzes each of these three historical bull cycles, documenting the significant corrections (roughly 30–40% declines), their depth and duration, and how quickly prices recovered. We also summarize the overall gains from each cycle’s starting point to its ultimate peak.

Overview: The 2013 bull run was extremely rapid and volatile. Bitcoin started around $13 in January 2013 and soared to nearly $1,150 by early December (What Was the Price of Bitcoin in 2013? Bitcoin's Journey). This was an ~8,500% price increase from the start of the year to the peak. (If measured from the prior cycle’s bottom around $2 in late 2011, the rise was even more astounding – over 50,000%.) The year saw two phases: an early surge and crash in April, followed by a dramatic rally in late 2013. Despite its uptrend, the cycle had notable corrections, including a mid-year crash and two sizable pullbacks of ~30–40% during the final rally (Bitcoin latest bull market experienced several 30% plunges, will history repeat itself? - Forex Crunch).

Major Corrections in 2013: Bitcoin’s volatile climb in 2013 included several steep drops:

• April 2013 Crash (Intracycle “Bear”): After spiking to about $266 in April, Bitcoin plunged almost 83% to around $50 (What Was the Price of Bitcoin in 2013? Bitcoin's Journey). This collapse was far deeper than a typical 30–40% correction. It took roughly 7 months for BTC to fully regain the April high – the price traded in the $70–$130 range through summer 2013 (What Was the Price of Bitcoin in 2013? Bitcoin's Journey), and only surpassed the $266 level in early November. (This was an unusually severe mid-cycle crash, after which the bull market resumed.)

• Late November 2013 Correction: As Bitcoin neared $1,000 for the first time, it fell roughly 33%, dropping from about $900 down to the $600–$650 range (Bitcoin latest bull market experienced several 30% plunges, will history repeat itself? - Forex Crunch). This pullback lasted only on the order of days, as buying demand quickly returned – within about one week, BTC recovered and surpassed its $900 peak, accelerating into a climactic rally.

• Early December 2013 Correction: After hitting its cycle peak around $1,150, Bitcoin swiftly fell to approximately $700 (a 39% decline) (Bitcoin latest bull market experienced several 30% plunges, will history repeat itself? - Forex Crunch). This drop was triggered by adverse news (such as new restrictions in China) and effectively marked the cycle’s end. Bitcoin did not return to the $1,150 level during that bull run. (The price rebounded to the $800s later in December, but a larger bear market followed in 2014.)

Table 1 summarizes the notable 2013 bull-cycle corrections in the ~30–40% range:

Recovery and Subsequent Trend: The April 2013 crash was a major setback, but the market eventually recovered, setting the stage for the second-half rally. After consolidating through mid-2013, Bitcoin entered an accelerated uptrend in Q4 2013. The late-year corrections (around 30–40%) were quickly absorbed, and Bitcoin resumed its uptrend within days after each dip, until the final peak. From the post-April low around $50, BTC ultimately ran up to $1,150 by year’s end (What Was the Price of Bitcoin in 2013? Bitcoin's Journey) – a testament to the cycle’s strength despite interim scares. Overall, the 2013 bull cycle delivered enormous returns (multiplying Bitcoin’s price roughly 85-fold from the cycle start to peak) while demonstrating that sharp corrections were “healthy” pauses in an otherwise parabolic rise.

Overview: The bull cycle culminating in December 2017 took Bitcoin from the low hundreds to just under $20,000. After a bear-market bottom around ~$150 in January 2015, BTC began rising and entered a strong uptrend by 2016. From roughly $1,000 in January 2017, Bitcoin rocketed to nearly $20K by mid-December 2017 (Bitcoin's Price History) – an approximate 1,900% increase within that year (or about 12,000% from the 2015 cycle bottom of ~$152 to the peak) (Bitcoin latest bull market experienced several 30% plunges, will history repeat itself? - Forex Crunch). The 2016–2017 run was marked by multiple corrections in the 30–40% range, which occurred at regular intervals before the final blow-off top. In fact, the 2015–2017 bull market saw at least 8–9 major pullbacks averaging ~37% declines (Bitcoin latest bull market experienced several 30% plunges, will history repeat itself? - Forex Crunch). Notably, none of those mid-bull declines ended the uptrend – Bitcoin consistently recovered and pushed to higher highs afterward.

Major Corrections in 2016–2017: During this cycle, Bitcoin experienced a series of steep but temporary drawdowns. The most prominent corrections (≈30–40% drops) were:

• June 2016 (~38%): In mid-2016, BTC rallied close to $780 ahead of the halving, then corrected about 38% down to the low-$500s (even briefly ~$465) by August (Bitcoin Historical Corrections). This decline unfolded over several weeks, influenced by profit-taking and events like exchange hacks. Recovery was gradual – it took around 5 months (until late 2016) for Bitcoin to regain the $780 high (Bitcoin Historical Corrections), after which the uptrend resumed into 2017.

• January 2017 (~35%): Bitcoin surged past its previous ATH (~$1,150 from 2013) in early January 2017, then dropped from about $1,150 to $750 (approximately –35% at the worst) (Bitcoin Historical Corrections). This pullback was driven by concerns over Chinese regulations and exchange crackdowns. The correction was sharp but short-lived – within roughly 6–7 weeks, BTC recovered back above $1,150 (by late February 2017) (Bitcoin Historical Corrections), confirming the bull market was intact.

• March 2017 (~30%): Soon after, Bitcoin hit ~$1,290 in March and then retraced to around $900 (a 30% dip) amid the SEC’s denial of the Winklevoss ETF. This decline lasted only a few weeks; by April, BTC was rallying again and broke above $1,300 to new highs (Bitcoin Historical Corrections). (This particular drop was just under 30% by some measures – about –27% (Bitcoin Historical Corrections) – but is often cited as a significant 2017 pullback.)

• June 2017 (~33–38%): Following a meteoric rise to ~$3,000 in June, Bitcoin corrected hard in June–July. It fell roughly 33–38%, bottoming around $1,850 by mid-July (Bitcoin Historical Corrections). This downturn spanned about one month, fueled by profit-taking and uncertainty around a possible chain split (Bitcoin’s fork debates). The market then rebounded – by early August (within ~6 weeks of the peak), BTC had fully recovered past $3,000 (Bitcoin Historical Corrections) and continued climbing.

• September 2017 (40%): In early September, Bitcoin broke $5,000 for the first time, then swiftly dropped to about $3,000 in mid-September (Bitcoin Historical Corrections) – a 40% plunge over roughly two weeks. This was sparked by negative news (China’s ban on crypto exchanges and ICOs, and bearish comments from JPMorgan). Importantly, this became the largest mid-bull drop of that cycle (about –40%) (Bitcoin's history of bull market drawdowns - Blockworks). Nonetheless, Bitcoin proved resilient: within approximately 4 weeks, it regained the $5,000 level (by early October) (Bitcoin Historical Corrections) and then entered the final leg of the bull run.

• November 2017 (~30%): As Bitcoin rushed from ~$5K to ~$8K in late fall, it saw another steep pullback in November. Around Nov 8–12, BTC fell from roughly $7,500 down to $5,500 (around –26% intraday, 30% from wick to wick) amid the cancellation of the SegWit2x fork and a temporary rotation into altcoins. This dip was very brief – Bitcoin recovered to new highs ($8K+) within a couple of weeks in November.

(Note: There was also a final December 2017 drop of about 45% just after the peak – BTC fell from ~$19,800 to ~$11,000 in late December (Charting 2017's Biggest Crypto Price Correction). However, that occurred after the cycle’s peak and led into the 2018 bear market, so it’s not counted as a mid-bull correction with a recovery in that same cycle.)

Table 2 summarizes key 2016–2017 corrections of ~30–40%:

Recovery and Trend: Each of these corrections in 2016–2017 was followed by a robust recovery. During the 2017 bull run, Bitcoin never stayed down for long. For example, after the 40% September drop, BTC hit a new high above $5K by October (Bitcoin Historical Corrections). Similarly, the June–July drawdown gave way to new highs by August. Bullish momentum persisted despite occasional panics. Analysts note that the 2017 cycle had at least five or six 30%+ pullbacks on the road to $20K (Bitcoin Supercycle or nah? – Stephan Livera) (Bitcoin Supercycle or nah? – Stephan Livera). In each case, the correction was a temporary “reset” that allowed the rally to continue higher. By the end of 2017, Bitcoin reached ~$19,700, delivering an enormous overall gain (nearly 20× from the $1,000 level in Jan 2017 to the peak (Bitcoin's Price History)). From the true cycle start ($150 in 2015) to the top, BTC rose roughly 12,000% (Bitcoin latest bull market experienced several 30% plunges, will history repeat itself? - Forex Crunch).

The key takeaway from 2017’s bull cycle is that multiple 30–40% plunges were part of the journey to new highs. Bitcoin’s price recovered within weeks or months each time, ultimately culminating in a speculative blow-off top. This history gave investors perspective in later runs – a 30% dip, by itself, did not signify the end of the bull market.

Overview: The most recent major bull cycle peaked in November 2021. Bitcoin’s cycle low in the prior bear market was around $3,200 (in December 2018). From that trough, BTC climbed to an all-time high of $68,700 (on Nov 10, 2021) – a gain of roughly 2,000% over three years. Focusing on the intense rally of late 2020–2021, Bitcoin rose from about $10,000 in September 2020 (around the time it broke out of a long consolidation) to nearly $69,000 by late 2021. This cycle’s profile was a bit different: it featured fewer mid-cycle corrections in the 30–40% range, but did include one much larger pullback (~50%). By historical standards, the 2020–21 bull run was smoother initially (with smaller dips), until a hefty mid-cycle crash occurred. We will examine the notable corrections and their aftermath below.

Major Corrections in 2020–2021:

• January 2021 (~30%): After a rapid climb to ~$42,000 in early January 2021, Bitcoin underwent its first significant correction of the cycle. The price fell to about $29,000 in late January (Bitcoin’s Price Rebounds After 30% Drop From All-Time High - Decrypt) – roughly a 30% decline from the high. This pullback lasted only a couple of weeks. By early February, Bitcoin had rebounded above $40,000 (Bitcoin’s Price Rebounds After 30% Drop From All-Time High - Decrypt), fully recovering the loss. (This quick recovery reinforced the bullish sentiment at the time.)

• May–July 2021 (~50% crash): The most severe correction of the 2021 cycle came mid-year. After peaking around $64,800 in April 2021 (History of bitcoin - Wikipedia), BTC dropped all the way down to the low $30,000s by May 19, 2021. In fact, on May 19 alone, Bitcoin plunged nearly 30% intraday (hitting around $30K) during a capitulation event (Bitcoin (BTC) price plunges to $30,000, hits lowest level since January). In total, the drawdown from April to the eventual July low (~$29K on July 20) was approximately –54% (Bitcoin Historical Corrections). This correction was driven by a convergence of factors: Tesla’s bitcoin U-turn, China’s mining crackdown, and an overheated market. It took Bitcoin a while to recover – the price base-lined and consolidated in the $30K–$40K range for a few months. By late July 2021 the sell-off had stabilized (Bitcoin's history of bull market drawdowns - Blockworks), and a renewed rally began. Bitcoin fully regained its $64K April high in mid-October 2021, roughly 6 months after the peak of the drop (Bitcoin's history of bull market drawdowns - Blockworks). Notably, despite its severity, this crash did not end the bull cycle; instead, BTC went on to reach a higher peak later in the year.

• September 2021 (~25%): In early September, BTC reached about $52K and then pulled back to ~$40K (around –23%) by the end of September. While this decline was a bit milder (~1/4 off the top), it was another example of consolidation. The market quickly bounced back in Q4 2021.

(Aside from the mid-May crash, 2021 saw relatively few 30–40% dips during the bull phase. The early-year correction was around 30%, and the next big drop was the 50% May–July drawdown. Smaller retracements (~20–25%) occurred in February and September 2021, but no other 30–40% pullbacks occurred until after the final peak. After the November 2021 peak of ~$69K, Bitcoin fell ~39% to ~$42K by early December, and continued into a deeper decline – marking the start of the 2022 bear market.)

Table 3 summarizes the significant corrections during the 2020–2021 bull cycle:

Recovery and Subsequent Trend: The January 2021 dip was quickly followed by a strong surge – Bitcoin rallied to new highs above $50K in February. The May–July 2021 crash, while prolonged compared to earlier dips, eventually gave way to a remarkable recovery: by November 2021, Bitcoin not only regained its previous high but reached a new peak near $69K (Bitcoin's history of bull market drawdowns - Blockworks). In fact, after bottoming near $30K in July, BTC rose over 130% in the next four months. This pattern showed that even a deeper correction could be absorbed within a bull cycle given enough time and renewed catalysts.

Overall, the 2020–2021 bull cycle delivered Bitcoin’s price from ~$10K levels to the high $60Ks – roughly a 6× increase (or ~500% gain in 2021 alone). From the cycle’s $3,200 bottom (Dec 2018) to the $68,700 top, BTC gained about 2,050%. Compared to past cycles, 2021 had fewer routine 30–40% pullbacks, but it did have one large mid-cycle reset. After the November 2021 peak, the bull run ended and a new multi-month drawdown (ultimately >50%) began (Cryptocurrency Halving Cycles ).

Frequency and Severity of Corrections: Historical data shows that 30–40% corrections are common during Bitcoin bull markets. In the 2013 cycle, at least two such corrections occurred on the way to the peak (not counting the extreme April crash) (Bitcoin latest bull market experienced several 30% plunges, will history repeat itself? - Forex Crunch). The 2017 cycle had numerous mid-bull drawdowns in the 30–40% range – roughly five to six notable dips during 2016–2017 (Bitcoin Supercycle or nah? – Stephan Livera) (Bitcoin Historical Corrections). In the 2020–2021 cycle, 30–40% pullbacks were actually less frequent; the bull run saw mostly smaller dips (~20%) aside from the single big 50% retracement mid-cycle. Most bull-market corrections have clustered around ~30–38% declines, with ~40% being on the high end for a mid-cycle dip (Bitcoin's history of bull market drawdowns - Blockworks).

Recovery Durations: During these bull phases, recovery times ranged from weeks to months, depending on the drop’s magnitude and market context. Smaller corrections (30% or so) in strong uptrends (e.g., 2017) tended to be retraced within a few weeks. For instance, after the Sept 2017 40% drop, Bitcoin took only about a month to hit new highs (Bitcoin Historical Corrections). The Jan 2021 30% dip was recovered in under a month (Bitcoin’s Price Rebounds After 30% Drop From All-Time High - Decrypt) (Bitcoin’s Price Rebounds After 30% Drop From All-Time High - Decrypt). Deeper corrections or those caused by broader fear took longer: the Apr–Jul 2021 54% correction required ~6 months to fully recover (Bitcoin's history of bull market drawdowns - Blockworks), and the Apr 2013 83% crash needed ~7+ months to regain its former high. Generally, in an ongoing bull market, Bitcoin eventually resumes its uptrend after these corrections, once consolidation and renewed buying resolve the pullback.

Subsequent Price Trends: In all three cycles, each correction was followed by higher highs as long as the bull market continued. These dips often served as consolidation points that allowed new capital to enter. For example, after the mid-2017 corrections, Bitcoin rallied from ~$5K to $20K in the final leg. After the mid-2021 crash, Bitcoin rallied to a new ATH of $69K within months. It’s often observed that the most brutal drawdowns tend to occur at the tail end of bull runs or once the peak is in (Bitcoin's history of bull market drawdowns - Blockworks). Mid-cycle corrections, by contrast, have historically been buying opportunities during an uptrend.

Overall Cycle Gains: Each bull cycle delivered diminishing but still enormous percentage gains from cycle start to peak. To summarize the three cycles discussed:

• 2013 Cycle: Roughly 8,000–8,500% rise from ~$13 in early 2013 to ~$1,150 at the peak (and about 57,000% from the 2011 low to 2013 peak). (What Was the Price of Bitcoin in 2013? Bitcoin's Journey)

• 2017 Cycle: Approximately 1,900% gain from ~$1,000 in Jan 2017 to ~$19,700 in Dec 2017 (about 12,000% from the 2015 low of ~$152 to the peak) (Bitcoin latest bull market experienced several 30% plunges, will history repeat itself? - Forex Crunch).

• 2021 Cycle: Approximately 500–600% gain from ~$10,000 in mid-2020 to ~$69,000 in Nov 2021 (about 2,000% from the late 2018 low around $3,200 to the peak).

These figures show how each successive cycle’s ROI was lower in percentage terms (a sign of the market’s maturation and larger base). Nonetheless, all three bull runs were characterized by dramatic growth and high volatility.

In summary, Bitcoin’s bull markets in 2013, 2017, and 2021 all experienced multiple 30–40% corrections on the path to their peak prices. In each case, Bitcoin bounced back from these corrections to reach new highs – until the final top was hit. The number of significant pullbacks varied (several in 2013 and 2017; fewer in 2020–21), but severity of around one-third off the peak was a recurring theme. Recovery times ranged from quick (a few weeks) to prolonged (several months) depending on the cycle and context, but during the bull phase, recoveries did occur and the uptrend remained intact. Each cycle yielded a substantial overall gain from start to peak, even as percentage returns have trended lower over time (from thousands of percent in 2013 and 2017 to mere hundreds of percent in 2021).

These historical patterns illustrate that deep corrections are normal in Bitcoin bull runs (Bitcoin latest bull market experienced several 30% plunges, will history repeat itself? - Forex Crunch) (Bitcoin latest bull market experienced several 30% plunges, will history repeat itself? - Forex Crunch). Investors who endured 30–40% drawdowns during these cycles were ultimately rewarded as Bitcoin went on to appreciate to new all-time highs after each pullback. Understanding these past cycles – the corrections and recoveries – provides valuable context for interpreting Bitcoin’s volatility in future bull markets.

Sources:

• Bitcoin price historical data and commentary from 2013, 2017, 2021 (What Was the Price of Bitcoin in 2013? Bitcoin's Journey) (Bitcoin's Price History) (Bitcoin’s Price Rebounds After 30% Drop From All-Time High - Decrypt) (Bitcoin's history of bull market drawdowns - Blockworks).

• Analyses of past bull-market corrections and recoveries (Bitcoin latest bull market experienced several 30% plunges, will history repeat itself? - Forex Crunch) (Bitcoin Historical Corrections).

• Blockworks and other industry research on Bitcoin drawdowns during bull cycles (Bitcoin's history of bull market drawdowns - Blockworks) (Bitcoin Supercycle or nah? – Stephan Livera).

Take AI research and development. It's wrought with constraints that often cascade into broader challenges - computational power constrains LLM training time, resulting in longer release cycles and exacerbating the limitations of dependent technologies. Where most industries vie for sustainability, crypto seems content with being a fashion that comes and goes.

Rather than identifying and exploiting the constraints presented by AI within the context of blockchain, cryptopreneurs jumped straight to the grift. This phenomenon stems from a fundamental tension in the crypto industry: brilliant technologists excited about the future collide with sieve-brained degens who will feign belief in anything promising a short-term win. Opportunists leverage these extremes to their advantage.

The pattern repeats endlessly. NFTs should have revolutionized gaming, but "GameFi" ruined their chance at bringing actual ownership to in-game items. ICOs should have revolutionized capital formation but instead became an indelible black mark on crypto's history. SocialFi had an opportunity to change how creators are rewarded online but naturally imploded due to greed and laziness. The metaverse was always stupid.

Perhaps immediately adding financially driven components to every product (most of which is vaporware) is not, in fact, a viable long-term strategy.

AI and crypto could be a perfect match if employed within the confines of reality and iterated upon as constraints are lifted and systems improved. However, mid-tier marketers LARPing as tech CEOs seem intent on torpedoing yet another significant advancement of our industry's many promises.

Understanding the difference between what we can do and what we are doing is paramount to the success of this vertical.

Much like the metaverse - an ill-defined and utterly transparent façade over what essentially amounts to a poorly developed MMO - AI "agents" have a somewhat nebulous definition. If you ask ten people what an AI agent is, the three of them who know what you're talking about will give you different answers.

An "agent" should have complete and consistent awareness of its surroundings, giving it enough context to perform autonomous actions without intervention. Think about the agents in The Matrix. They have a primary directive (to eliminate anomalies within the program), but the path they take to do so is entirely novel and driven by a unique strategy. They even go so far as to find ways into the real world, possessing humans and machines to eliminate Neo.

In the real world (where we live), AI agents are chains of LLM prompts connected to backend functionality called "toolsets." These toolsets are akin to server routes that live among other tools in a graph. Using language, the LLMs determine which route to take and which tool to use based on their input. Like API endpoints, the routes can trigger system-level actions, such as swapping tokens. This essentially amounts to a new interface to a standard system - rather than pressing a button, you're typing words.

If that sounds lame, that's because it is - for now.

Why add steps to bots and trading interfaces that worked fine with generic automation? Won't the novelty of launching tokens and managing a wallet in a social feed or via chat wear thin?

AI might improve blockchain interactions in many ways, but one stands out to me most prevalently. Adaptation.

While I can trivially write a script that automatically trades tokens based on various parameters, those parameters require constant monitoring as market dynamics shift. Running an effective trading strategy demands 24/7/365 attention - constantly adjusting settings, pulling levers, and pressing buttons. This situation is untenable, even impossible, for the majority of people. Herein lies my excitement surrounding AI.

I couldn't care less about AI agents becoming superstars on Twitter - I don't even care about humans becoming superstars on Twitter. What intrigues me is the potential of reinforcing each agent's learnings with actual data. Combining one's trading experience with the geyser of information online and onchain, along with the anecdotal, ever-growing knowledge base of an individual agent's performance, is an untapped gold mine.

Beyond situational adaptation, we can tie the agent's knowledge back to the Theory of Constraints. A well-trained agent will understand the limitations of its capabilities and integrated systems. If latency becomes a constraint due to mempool activity spikes, the agent can optimize execution by adjusting fees, tips, gas, and slippage in real time. Still problematic? It can "elevate the constraint" by swapping on an L2 with lower latency, perhaps even capturing arbitrage opportunities.

From this thinking, you can see how powerful crypto agents might become. But first, we must endure the phase of making them swap by saying "plz swap ser" to a chatbot. If this represents rock bottom, imagine what we'll achieve in 18 months, five years, a decade.

tl;dr

• Long-time Higher community members on Base take action by anonymously launching Higher token on Solana

• Stealth launch aligns with Higher's ethos of optimistic action and collective ambition

• Token features deflationary mechanics tied to price action

• No vampire attack - designed to complement, not compete with, the original $HIGHER token

• Airdrop incoming for holders

• Goal: Create a cross-chain ecosystem where holding both tokens maximizes benefits

• Already pseudo-doxxed via on-chain signed messages from deployer wallet

I have been involved in the Higher community on Base for nearly a year. Ten months ago, I purchased a PartyDAO NFT. In March 2024, I made my first "public" acquisition of the $HIGHER token. I have also participated in community-driven writing contests, minted and contributed original artwork, provided technical analysis, participated in every group chat, and even subscribed to Aether.

Needless to say, I believe deeply in the ethos that drives this headless brand, especially the mantra around action-oriented optimism and collective ambition. I believe in the efforts of collective action, but I also recognize the caveats that come with such efforts. A great economist, Mancur Olson famously wrote a book called The Logic of Collective Action. The theme that stands out most prevalently from his writing is the concept of selective incentives. As a movement grows, so too do the individual interests of sub-groups within the greater collective. Without constant reorientation, belief in the original purpose becomes muddled, enabling insular groups to guide the collective toward their selective incentive. At worst, this leads to stagnation and inaction. At best, this leads to a shift in the driving force behind the group's purpose.

In crypto, the group's purpose quickly shifts from the project's ethos to the token's price. The question becomes, "How do we get new buyers?" rather than, "How do we continue to execute our vision?"

I have sat in on many months of group chatting, which gave me confidence in the group's desire to retain Higher's underlying message and overall vibe, but action has been limited. Many ideas have been discussed, but I believe the tragedy of the commons has led to general inaction. This is just the result of group psychology; nothing is unique or worrisome. But eventually, someone has to do something.

So we decided to be those someones.

Bryan Kayne and I connected on the afternoon of Friday, January 24th, with a wild idea. We would stealth launch a Higher token on Solana anonymously to drive new attention from the "hot chain of the moment" to an established onchain brand with an existing community. We believed that a token should fall within the community's influence because it is a headless brand that encourages holders to participate by generating content for, with, and about the brand. This could work as long as we did it earnestly, leading people back to the original concept, and without "vampire attacking" the token, diluting the value, or being extractive.

The stealth launch seemed to fit the ethos of Higher. An enigmatic dev anonymously launches a new version of our token on another chain. Something we've all been talking about. The mystique drove interest, and I saw more discussion across the various Higher channels than I have in a long time. However, the lack of public presence soon became a detractor, with many wondering if this was being done honestly or just an elaborate scheme.

Therefore, we pseudo-doxxed onchain via two messages signed by the deployer wallet, which can be found here and here. We left the onchain messages as a reply to Martin's original announcement of the Higher token on Base.

Higher on Warpcast

a message from the void 1 - https://explorer.solana.com/tx/5YGJTE15oJvo3FEy5oPyqwSQ7ghKp9BcCzPDQfcQKX6YVcSF9N62y7wPFYraVUebWwk4hd4gcf1kqVgPtL8M9dNQ 2 - https://explorer.solana.com/tx/4csYLaRPDjwsdg5Qs8eyhn8qMacNW2s4782M61jTtKd751osh1CePSffpf5YyJcezFEL7HN5YSFVbiWAEFba6NXu

Farcaster

So, yes. It's us. We took optimistic action to widen our reach as a collective and bridge the gap between chains in a way that seemed most fitting for the project. We did it without permission, as is the way in our world.

While a multichain future is inevitable, two tokens on two chains require new token dynamics, gamification, and mechanics to draw attention to both tokens. We are uniquely suited to enable this performance because of our extensive experience running crypto projects. Together, we've bridged and managed cross-chain ecosystems across multiple chains.

Yes, there will be an airdrop. 👇

Higher on Warpcast

sometime in the next week there will be a snapshot taken of higher holders they will be rewarded differently for each of the following: - holding base higher - holding sol higher - holding both - having a farcaster verified solana wallet more than 20% of the supply will be incinerated on the way up the remainder of our post-burn supply will be granted to the community via streamflow this is your token, not ours more details soon higher https://warpcast.com/highersolana/0x2cd7200b

Farcaster

The strategy here is simple. The supply deflates via burns as the Higher (SOL) price rises, creating a dynamic relationship between price action and token supply. There is good reason to hold both tokens - Base holders maintain their position in the original ecosystem while Solana holders participate in the deflationary mechanics. Farcaster-native holders of both tokens will benefit the most, positioning themselves at the intersection of both networks.

Ultimately, we create a massive liquidity event for everyone involved. This enables us to buy more $HIGHER, provide more community incentives, add more liquidity, create more robust token dynamics (across more chains?), and grow the collective.

However, this initiative is a performance that requires all of our participation. If we win, we do so together and likewise in the opposite direction.

Let's aim higher and go further together.

However, I agree that Base has lacked a certain level of unhinged behavior that provokes the crypto bros and gets funds flowing into the chain. That said, if an L2 is equipped to achieve this goal, it is Base. Unlike most other solutions, Base has no network token. Instead, users can bridge and use $ETH natively as a utility.

While there have been a few exceptions, such as $DEGEN, $BRETT, and $HIGHER, the meme culture on Base has been decidedly lackluster. Without a doubt, most of this cycle's action has taken place on self-proclaimed Ethereum killer Solana. Thanks in part to the popularity of the crypto casino that is pump(dot)fun, Solana has seen immense growth not only in attention but also in token value. While most pumpfun tokens inevitably go to zero, degens (and liquidity) abound. Add to that Solana's near-free transactional capabilities and immense speed, and you will have the perfect environment for this type of high-risk game.

Meanwhile, Ethereum has struggled to outperform USD inflation this cycle. Objectively, keeping your money in a Chase CD would have been better than holding Ethereum. While legendary memes have proliferated on Ethereum's mainnet (see: Pepe, Shiba Inu, Floki, etc.), the shift in focus is readily apparent. Base, however, offers benefits similar to those of Solana while remaining native to the chain ecosystem with the most overall liquidity.

The "trenches" is a colloquialism coined by the most redacted, left-curve-coded degenerate gamblers in the crypto space. They attribute their efforts in PVP trading to the warfare customary in World War I. Because, naturally, sitting at your computer and turbo-gambling high-risk assets is the same as getting suffocated by German mustard gas before you get your head blown clean off by the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces. Same thing, really.

To outsmart your opponent in the trenches requires a keen sense of the prisoner's dilemma one places oneself in when entering this arena. Knowing full well that you are deep within Schrödinger's Box and could, at any moment, become the victim of a rug pull.

martin ↑ on Warpcast

for those who are new to the trenches: - you should assume anything you put in below a coin < $1M is going to 0 - don’t be afraid to take profits - community and meme-ability is what makes things work long term

Farcaster

While several launchpads have propagated across the various L2s, including Base, none have captured the sensibilities of the degen, nor have they appropriately employed the necessary vibe capital to attract those who would play such games of frivolity—until now, that is.

Zora is a once-popular but since-waning onchain visual media platform that enables users to pay a few cents to like and collect each other's NFTs. Recently, they launched a mechanism that adds speculative financialization to the platform. After a certain number of mints, a piece is automatically deployed as an ERC20 token to Uniswap. This enables collectors to capture instant liquidity for their works and instantiates a free market around the piece.

Yesterday, November 6, 2024, Zora stealth-launched a new product even more entrenched in speculation.

Wow.xyz is Zora's answer to PumpFun. Developed for the Base ecosystem, Wow enables anyone to deploy any token they can dream of quickly, hence the clever name they’ve coined: “dreamcoins,” a play on memecoins.

The system works similarly to PumpFun. A token is placed upon a bonding curve. After roughly 80% of the supply is purchased, a Uniswap pool is automatically deployed using the collected Ether against the remaining supply of tokens.

The twist here is that the platform is highly aesthetic. While it employs some of the same visual mechanics, a clear delineation adheres to Zora's "tastemaker" vibe.

The top trending tokens quickly reached hundreds of thousands, even millions, in market cap—driven mainly by insiders and OGs on Farcaster. Since then, hundreds of new tokens have been deployed, and attention and excitement have grown.

Despite the speculative, casino-like nature of this new platform, Wow should appeal to the hardcore Base crowd, who often deem themselves as above the bullshit antics played on other chains (spoiler: they're not). And let's be honest - Base has been thirsting for its "degen moment" since launch. Between Coinbase's regulatory-pilled approach and the chain's squeaky-clean image, the ecosystem has been missing that crucial ingredient that makes crypto degens foam at the mouth.

Wow.xyz might be that missing piece. It's the perfect combo: Zora's tastemaker aesthetic meets PumpFun's degen economics, all wrapped up in Base's Ethereum-native packaging. For the Solana refugees tired of getting rugged on PumpFun but still chasing that sweet volatility high, Base's regulatory moat and Coinbase backing might be enough hopium to make them ape in.

The real question isn't whether Base needed this - it's whether this is the catalyst that finally bridges the gap between "respectable" L2 and degen playground. With Wow.xyz, Base isn't just choosing violence - it's choosing sophisticated violence.

Will you be early or let your galaxy brain force you to fade gen wealth again, anon?

The rise of AI has dominated the last couple of years. ChatGPT took the world by storm; Nvidia has done nothing but set stock market records, and art, code, design, and writing are all assisted by AI to some degree now. It feels like AI became ubiquitous overnight (despite having been in frequent research and development for decades).

With the sudden popularity of projects like Terminal of Truths, which has generated millions of dollars in profit by launching its token, $GOAT, it was only a matter of time before this meta took shape.

The capabilities afforded by the composability of decentralized social networks and, specifically, the flexibility offered by the vertically integrated crypto stack on Farcaster make it the perfect home for AI agents to propagate. It wasn't long before the first, and currently most popular, agent, @aethernet, had a wallet, Hypersub, and NFT collection - netting the bot tens of thousands of dollars.

Several other LLM-driven agents have a specific vibe and purpose. I have been tinkering with @agentmilo, my own Farcaster-native agent, to understand the meta further and experiment with the possibilities. It was relatively easy to spin up a Farcaster bot, and I recently open-sourced a previous experiment, so I already had a quick, replicable framework to bootstrap my ideas. The challenging part was not scaffolding the infrastructure but training my digital dog on how to behave. Herein lies the basis of my primary thesis for this article: Well-trained AI agents will drive more users to Farcaster (and crypto).

Until we have a new renaissance ushered in by the inception of AGI, we are left with a relatively limited albeit impressive set of technologies. LLMs and GPTs are fantastic and tremendously helpful but not intelligent. As such, only the AI agents whose authors employ the very best prompt engineering will succeed in appearing genuine and skirt the fate of so many bots that have been marked as spam throughout the network.

For @agentmilo, what began as two agents determining which voice to respond with quickly turned into a micro-network of agents passing information between one another, a cache of quick-access information to query, and a database of long-tail details to use as deeper contextual training data.

There's much more to do to put my canine pal onchain, but the foundation is laid.

Prompt engineering is one thing. Intention is another.

I have concerns about the razor-thin line between creating a helpful companion that can bounce around the network and be a source of knowledge, fun, and experimentation and the devolution into a bot swarm of shill machines generated by grifters. So far, the majority of Farcaster agents are at least loosely related to some crypto project. Aethernet is affiliated with Higher, while Agent Milo is affiliated with the Milo project. However, these AIs are trained to be subtle and can even organically support other aspects of the ecosystem. As the meta evolves, it will be difficult to restrict the inevitable onslaught of people looking to pump their bags via the latest attention magnet.

I suppose there's no avoiding this, but perhaps the early entrants to this meta can establish baseline guardrails for others to follow. In a blockchain network, node operators can banish bad actors by forking the network to a new codebase or, in some cases, slashing malicious nodes via consensus. Ultimately, these agents will become networked, at least on the social graph. We should coordinate solutions upstream to avoid downstream complications.

Simple solutions, such as training the agents on each other and ensuring they understand why they exist, would be effective enough in the short term.

While the initial hype cycle might be cooling off (with Truth Terminal touching that wild $1B market cap), we're just seeing the first ripples of what's possible. The real innovation isn't going to come from simply slapping AI onto existing crypto projects – it will emerge from the unique possibilities of onchain-native ecosystems.

We're moving from "v1" AI agents with wallets to potentially autonomous digital entities that can interact with DeFi protocols, manage DAOs, and create new social coordination primitives. The projects that nail this transition—combining world-class prompt engineering with genuine utility—will write the playbook for what comes next.

The meta might feel saturated on Twitter, but platforms like Farcaster are just starting to scratch the surface. The real question isn't whether AI agents will drive crypto adoption but how quickly we can build the infrastructure and guardrails to make it happen responsibly.

One thing is certain: those early stories about the symbiotic relationship between AI and blockchain were not just wishful thinking after all.

Just two months ago, Dan Romero cited anecdotal evidence that users had complained about a lack of beef on the platform.

Dan Romero on Warpcast

A lot of complaints recently that Farcaster doesn't have enough "beef". I'm happy to fight with you.

Farcaster

Did he manifest this civil unrest, or is it indicative of a deeper problem?

Several articles and threads on Farcaster KPIs have appeared this week. Users have also been vocal on the subject, with a growing notion that engagement and activity are down across the board. Objectively, these data are not just notional but incredibly apparent.

Indeed, interactions are trending down across the board albeit seeing a marked increase from the summer's lull. However, is it really fair to compare today's activity to the mania that Degen brought to the platform back in April and May? Perhaps comparing an unsustained viral moment to the long-term growth of a nascent platform is reductive and fails to comprise the bigger picture. Just a thought.

One metric that can't be ignored, however, is user growth. While other decentralized platforms have seen massive growth over the past few months, Farcaster's growth has waned to the point of becoming net-negative on some days.

This lack of growth is perhaps attributable to the niche focus of Farcaster on the cryptocurrency vertical or perhaps the pseudo-LinkedIn feel of the builder culture that seems to propagate at the top of the user demographic, alienating some others.

Off the heels of all of this negativity comes an announcement from Farcaster competitor Bluesky that their $15MM Series A fundraising round has just closed with some heavy-hitting VCs backing the platform.

Of course, this figure pales in comparison to the Farcaster Series A, which was literally 10x larger, even while Farcaster touts 1/10th of the Bluesky userbase.

So, while Bluesky may have more traction, Farcaster has more runway and more time to find true product-market-fit. Typically, the less-obvious winners take longer to cook but ultimately return the greater multiples, a truism that is illustrated by these comparisons.

The psychology of human behavior in groups is something I have always found fascinating. From the most primitive aboriginal tribes to the most sophisticated constitutionally-orchestrated governments, the behavior is inherently the same.

In all cases, when stagnation or decline occur, the populous become restless. I've witnessed this behavior take place time and again in the multitude of blockchain and crypto projects I've been a part of both as a leader and a participant. Price goes up; euphoria ensues. Price goes down; mayhem. Except in terms of Farcaster, there is no price - instead the emotion is driven by other dopamine providers, like engagement and following. Instead of altcoins and protocols, the tribes form around things like alt-clients and protocol-native project ecosystems. There is no price but the data is still transparently onchain and anyone can analyze it at their leisure.

This week saw the sunset of one of Farcaster's most popular alt-clients, Wildcard. It's hard not to think the deprecation of this project is not attributable to the Farcaster network's overall decline. Monetization is key for an early-stage application like Wildcard and, despite their venture backing, they've likely failed to monetize and have been forced to pivot. 

What's particularly intriguing about Farcaster's current situation is the contrast between its technical innovation and social adoption. The platform has demonstrated remarkable technical achievements – from the implementation of Frames to the creation of a robust decentralized social protocol. Yet, these innovations haven't translated into sustained user growth or engagement.

This presents a fascinating paradox: can a platform be simultaneously ahead of its time technically while failing to meet contemporary social needs? The answer might lie in the very nature of web3 social platforms – they're building for a future that hasn't quite arrived, with users who aren't quite ready for the paradigm shift they represent.

The armchair analysts will continue to emerge from their corners, opining on all the reasons why things are going poorly. They will levy their notional points of view as fact and point towards anecdotal evidence for validation.

However, the reality is more nuanced. Farcaster's challenges mirror those of the broader crypto ecosystem – a struggle to maintain genuine participation and attract new user interest. Its deep, almost symbiotic connection with crypto ensures its alignment with the space for better or worse.

Yet, this alignment might not be permanent. The true test for Farcaster will be whether it can transcend its crypto roots while maintaining its decentralized ethos. The platform's substantial runway provides time for experimentation, but the clock is ticking. The question isn't whether Farcaster can survive – with its funding, it certainly can – but whether it can evolve into something that captures the imagination of users beyond the crypto ecosystem.

The path forward might require a delicate balance: maintaining the technical innovation that makes Farcaster unique while creating an experience that appeals to users who care more about social connection than decentralization. After all, the most successful social platforms aren't those with the best technology, but those that best understand and serve human nature.

Still, I was thrilled to participate, network with exceptionally talented builders, learn about Farcaster's future, and make new friends (the delicious food was a bonus). While this is my perspective as one of nearly sixty attendees, I encourage you to seek out multiple viewpoints to grasp the full scope of what transpired.

The evening kicked off at a modern coworking space on Venice and Abbot Kinney. Nike Golf hats adorned with the Farcaster logo (the first official Farcaster merch) greeted us - a tangible off-chain proof of attendance.

Despite my initial awkwardness, I soon found myself in engaging conversations with the minds behind some of Farcaster's most innovative applications. The rooftop dinner at Gjelina buzzed with demos of new clients and mini-apps. The peripheral discussions struck me most - these weren't just crypto enthusiasts but multifaceted individuals with diverse interests and honest perspectives.

I left the event full of anticipation for the following day.

I returned to the coworking space at 9:25 am, eager to learn as much as possible. Everyone was gathered around, enjoying Gjusta's baked goods and complimentary coffee, chatting, and choosing their seats for the next eight hours.

The atmosphere felt like the first day of school - a blend of excitement and caffeine-fueled conversations. Dan and Varun's presentation setup, positioned at eye level with the attendees, created an atmosphere of humility and collaboration.

After the general introductions, Dan outlined the Merkle team's four key focus areas:

1. Channels

2. Frames

3. Retention

4. Scaling the protocol

Each of these seemingly simple items involves complex trade-offs and intense deliberation. All of which were explained and debated at great length throughout the event.

Channels went from potentially deprecated to the team's top priority rather quickly, and I think I know why. While most think of channels as a topic-driven discussion, Merkle thinks of them as a community-driven one.

Come for the community and stay for the network

- Jason Goldberg, Airstack

The feature, which Merkle aims to roll out next week, places UX design at the forefront more than ever before. It was explicitly stated that this feature release has been more carefully thought through than any other in the network's history. Where "ship fast and break things" reigned before, channels are a "think hard and ship things" situation.

This is likely partially due to a new UX designer joining the team, but it also signals that the team feels this feature will become a critical onboarding mechanism for new users.

There's an ongoing debate about what successful channels might look like. Jason (Airstack/Moxie) and Dan (Merkle) offered competing perspectives, but both made valid arguments.

Dan's perspective is to think of it like Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces, where someone (or multiple people) is "on stage" with around 100 members participating in a group chat on a larger scale. The focus is not on achieving immediate massive growth but on driving growth over time as people become more familiar with the tools.

On the other hand, Jason's perspective is similar to Facebook Groups, emphasizing having thousands of members with token-gated access. He believes that communities will be the driving force behind attracting users and ensuring retention, and the main priority should be eliminating spam and being selective in granting access.

Key features like direct invites and push notifications are in the pipeline, promising to boost growth and retention. The team is also working on a content hierarchy to determine channel visibility in the main feed.

Frames came out right around the time I joined the network in February 2024. They offered a new social primitive I had not previously seen, and the opportunities seemed endless. However, their constraints and performance have limited their initial popularity and usefulness. That said, the team still sees them as a crucial element that will remain everpresent throughout the network (as do I).

Frames are a way to get distribution for your app

- Dan Romero

The general viewpoint is there are two main use cases for Frames:

1. Simple single-action frames, like Transaction Frames (e.g., minting an NFT)

2. Complex multi-action Frames

With the onset of in-app experiences, like mini-apps, the latter can now be converted to a simple call to action to launch an app.

Mini-apps are a game-changer, offering built-in authentication and enabling seamless experiences from shopping to gaming without leaving the main feed. They also provide a workaround for the challenges of creating Web3 experiences on mobile platforms, potentially circumventing issues with centralized app stores.

The discussion on direct casts highlighted two main priorities: programmability and interoperability. Programmability has shown impressive results, with exponential growth in the 90 days post-launch. The team is focusing on driving engagement through consumer cycles and updates. Due to complexity and resource constraints, interoperability is a significant challenge and may not show results until 2025.

It's clear that prioritization is a constant challenge for Merkle. With limited personnel, they often react to outreach and community needs, which can dictate their focus at any given time.

An interesting point of discussion was the comparison to other messaging apps. The team isn't necessarily trying to compete directly with giants like Telegram. Instead, they're focused on retaining communities within the Farcaster ecosystem. The scale isn't significant enough to worry about 1:1 competition with major chat apps.

The key, it seems, is finding Farcaster's core messaging use case. Just as Slack became synonymous with business chats, Telegram with degen chats, and Instagram with content sharing via DMs, Farcaster must identify its unique strength in the messaging space. This discovery will likely drive future feature priorities.

One thing is certain: direct casts increase user retention, a critical metric for any growing network.

The team has set an ambitious goal of reducing sign-up costs to $1 by the end of the year. However, this presents a delicate balancing act. As costs drop, the potential for spam increases, driving up indexing costs. It's a complex ecosystem to manage.

The team is considering sponsoring sign-ups for "non-spammy" users to navigate this. This approach could help maintain network quality while lowering the entry barrier for genuine users.

Neynar's ability to enable account creation is a significant development in this space. However, it's worth noting that externally created FIDs are currently breaking in Warpcast. The team assured us that a fix for this issue is in the works and should smooth out the onboarding process across different entry points to the network.

As the network grows, so do the challenges of maintaining its infrastructure. The team revealed plans to redesign the sync process, acknowledging its current lack of scalability. Looking ahead, hubs will evolve to compartmentalize data, offering a la carte access - a move that should improve efficiency and flexibility.

An interesting tidbit: of the 6000 existing hubs, only 0.01% write data.

The introduction of Snapchain marks another significant development. This pseudo-permissioned system will allow several trusted and distributed entities (think 5-15 master nodes) to act as primary data writers. It's a step towards a more robust and secure data management system, balancing decentralization with practical scalability needs.

I feel the tradeoffs are justified but this will certainly pull certain decentralization absolutists out of the woodwork for debate.

A few other points caught my attention during the discussions. The team is exploring the integration of location data, which could open up exciting possibilities for location-based features and community building.

Sign In With Farcaster (SIWF) is on the horizon. This will enable non-Warpcast sign-ups across the ecosystem. It will take a web-first approach before expanding to multi-client support, which could significantly streamline user authentication across the Farcaster ecosystem.

Lastly, the ongoing battle against spam is getting a boost. Neynar and OpenRank are collaborating on a spam dataset, which should help in developing more effective anti-spam measures.

The afternoon was packed with 20-30 demos from various teams. Standouts included Uno, an Instagram-like client with robust data science backing, and Bracket, a sports betting app leveraging the Farcaster protocol. Other notable presentations came from established projects like Moxie, Ponder, and Neynar.

Matthew Fox's Trivia mini-app, hosted by Ted, provided a fun, interactive experience and valuable live feedback opportunity.

There are dozens more that I'm reluctantly omitting for your time as a reader who has already stuck with me for quite some time. But trust me when I say there is a lot of exciting stuff being built on this network and even more to be bullish about.

As I reflect on Farcaster Dev Day, I'm struck by the careful consideration given to each aspect of the network's growth. The Merkle team's commitment to balancing accessibility, functionality, and network health is evident in every decision they make.

What's truly exciting is the vibrant ecosystem being built around Farcaster. From innovative clients to creative mini-apps, there's a palpable sense of innovation and potential. The challenges ahead are significant, but the thoughtful approach I witnessed gives me confidence in Farcaster's future.

This event wasn't just about technical discussions - it was a testament to the passionate, multifaceted community driving Farcaster forward. As we navigate the complexities of building a decentralized social network, it's clear that the human element - the builders, the thinkers, the enthusiasts - will be just as crucial as the technology itself.

There's undoubtedly a lot to be excited about, and even more to be bullish on. Farcaster Dev Day left me energized and optimistic about what's to come. The road ahead may be challenging, but with this level of talent and dedication, the destination promises to be extraordinary.

The internet has tarnished this behavior to a degree in that media consumption is often free, and if it's not, the cost is subsidized by the scale at which the media is distributed. Netflix and Spotify achieve this for professional-level artists, while YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and the like do so on a pseudo-professional to amateur level. The latter enable their audiences to monetize their work as long as it attracts a critical mass of viewers, whereas the former requires an up-front (albeit relatively low) fee. Both models are valid and relative to the quality of the work produced.

However valid these models may be, the fact remains that otherwise talented individuals go entirely unseen. Many of these same artists fade into nonexistence due to an inability to monetize their efforts, allowing them to grow and continue creating. Perhaps that's only fair. The cream rises to the top, and if you're not both an expert marketeer and a talented artist, you deserve to fail.

I refuse to believe this mantra.

In the past, artists were supported by wealthy patrons who provided funding for them to continue creating and helped them showcase their work in galleries, museums, and art fairs. This support was repaid as the artists gained popularity, leading to more patrons and increased value for the artwork held by those who supported the artists from the beginning.

The absence of The Church, Medici Family, or another Gertrude Whitney should not prohibit the next generation of digital artists from becoming sensationally popular.

Herein lies the value of web3, specifically Rounds and Moxie, driven by Farcaster.

I can't tell you how ecstatic I am about the tools provided to us by the big brains who build on Farcaster but I can show you. The dream of enabling artists to create and build out their portfolios has never been more achievable. Let's take a look at the results of this latest round.

I became aware of the fact that Moxie DAO's latest retro-grant program didn't include a specific topic for artwork that supported the ecosystem. Artists could choose "other," but it felt very much like creators were an afterthought. As such, I initially kicked the round off with 50K as an unofficial retroactive grant program specifically for artists.

ns on Warpcast

Announcing the next /artist @rounds! The official Moxie retro-grant did not provide specific guidelines for art or media supporting the ecosystem. Artists and creators had to select "other" as a category. Art is vital for culture, so I am personally sponsoring a retro-grant focused on art. Showcase your best work that supports the Moxie ecosystem. Selected works will share a total of 50,000 $MOXIE from my personal fund. Remember: - One entry per artist - Holders of 10+ /artist Fan Tokens automatically appear on the main feed. - Holders of at least 1 FT are eligible to curate https://imagedelivery.net/BXluQx4ige9GuW0Ia56BHw/d50e23ff-2ab6-40f4-8621-7a66cb5dd800/original

Farcaster

The initial post caught the attention of Jason Goldberg, the head of Airstack and founder of Moxie. Thanks to his generosity, we were able to provide artists with a total of 100,000 MOXIE this round.

Roughly half of the submissions were curated into the round and artists who participated were rewarded according to the popularity of their posts.

An unexpected side effect of this round was the increase in the /artist Fan Token price.

Anyone who holds at least ten FTs automatically appears on the Main feed of the channel, while anyone holding at least one FT can help curate the round. This gamified element clearly caught on this time because we saw a ~13% change in token value, bringing the all-time increase to +110%!

Congrats to those early believers.

What is possibly more interesting is that my overall control over the total FT supply dropped by nearly 20%, which means not only did we add more fans, but those fans were buying in multiples.

The channel itself also hit a key milestone after a marked increase; 1,000 followers! After a massive +300% increase in newcomers, this new development will certainly play an interesting role in the upcoming changes to channels (more on that to come).

We also saw a nearly 1000% increase in casts over the course of the round. I'm very keen to keep driving more discussions pertaining to art, culture, process, and history in this channel - so this was great to see.

Finally, congrats to our top three channel earners, @hankmoody, @jacque, and @intodaysnight.

Stay tuned, there are more rounds coming and lots more ways to monetize your art coming soon.

The rise of web3 technologies, specifically platforms like Rounds and Moxie driven by Farcaster, represents a modern renaissance in art patronage. This digital revolution addresses the concerns raised at the beginning of this post: the importance of patronizing the arts and the challenges talented artists face in the internet age.

Just as wealthy patrons of the past supported artists and helped showcase their work. These new platforms are creating a decentralized form of patronage. They provide a much-needed solution to the problem of talented individuals going unseen or fading into nonexistence due to an inability to monetize their efforts.

The success of the recent /artist second round demonstrates the power of this new model:

1. It attracted significant funding (100,000 MOXIE) for artists.

2. The gamified element of Fan Tokens increased engagement and value, similar to how past patrons saw their collections grow in worth.

3. The channel's growth to 1,000 followers and the 1000% increase in casts show a burgeoning community of art enthusiasts and creators.

These developments prove that the absence of traditional patrons need not prohibit the next generation of digital artists from achieving success. Web3 platforms create a new paradigm where a global community of enthusiasts and collectors can support, showcase, and value art.

By bridging the gap between historical patronage and modern technology, we ensure that art continues to illuminate our times, providing unfiltered perspectives on events as it has throughout history. This new form of digital patronage is not just preserving the importance of art in our culture—it's revolutionizing how we interact with and support the artists of our era.

Dan Romero on Warpcast

I often see people Farcaster isn't "sufficiently decentralized". You're free to define what "sufficiently decentralized" means to you, of course, but how we think about it is laid out in Varun's blog post. https://imagedelivery.net/BXluQx4ige9GuW0Ia56BHw/a90fe4fe-303c-4814-1c56-d73678954c00/original https://www.varunsrinivasan.com/2022/01/11/sufficient-decentralization-for-social-networks

Farcaster

Farcaster promises a "sufficiently decentralized" protocol with various baseline social primitives that enable users to carry their identity across multiple digital platforms without losing their connections or content. This framework appeals to developers because it provides a flexible and expressive toolset to build exciting consumer applications without the heavy lifting required to roll a new social network and the peace of mind that the network will exist regardless of any centralized entity.

However, an outspoken group of critics has recently challenged the notion that Merkle Manufactory (the organization building Farcaster and Warpcast) intends to further its goal of creating an adequately decentralized social graph. Arguments over semantics and healthy and fair criticisms abound throughout the platform.

Geoff Golberg on Warpcast

Farcaster isn’t a true protocol Just enough theater to get developers' trust

Farcaster

As I write this, I feel like I'm back in 2015, writing and reading Medium articles about the promise of blockchain, attending Ethereum meetups with ten other nerds, eating free Costco pizza, and talking about our grand visions for the future of programmable money.

I distinctly remember a Laura Shin podcast where she interviewed an early Ethereum investor who specifically said their interest in Ethereum was borne of the possibility of rolling dApps without the necessity of building an entirely new blockchain network from scratch (as was typical of the preceding era).

I also recall the challenges and criticisms Vitalik, Joe Lubin, Gavin Wood, and the rest of the team faced.

There were two clients in the beginning. GETH (Go Ethereum) - the one everyone used - and cpp-ethereum, a clunky C++ client no one used. A wallet interface called Mist required a full-node sync, which worked about one-third of the time. The Ethereum Foundation and project co-founders developed all of these tools.

Blockchain ideologues fiercely criticized the Ethereum Foundation for feigning decentralization and seeking absolute network control through nefarious means. Of course, these criticisms couldn't have been further from the truth throughout the succeeding nine years.

At least eight Ethereum clients have been launched by independent teams in various programming languages, serving multiple purposes for the ecosystem. Thousands of dApps built by hundreds of thousands of developers have shaped the face of the industry. While Ethereum still receives heavy criticism (as any multi-billion dollar company should), the project continues to dominate as the world's second most valuable blockchain.

My conviction in Ethereum's promise of a more fair and transparent internet led me to a career in blockchain driven by a passion that still burns quite ferociously. I have a similar conviction in Farcaster, but I would not be me if I didn't at least consume and analyze the arguments against the platform. Let's dive in.

Over the weekend, users Leeward Bound, a self-proclaimed creator of the #opensourcewarpcast hashtag, levied some heavy complaints about the supposed decentralization of the Farcaster protocol. These comments are similar in many ways to the complaints critics made of Ethereum, but let's review them rather than dismiss them for their aggressive tone.

Leeward Bound on Warpcast

+ only one server by only one company, no node diversity + majority client has non-open features + regular proto changes, non stable + all major changes come from one central actor it's a protocol by definition, but as far as protocols go, it's not a good one. unwise to build in this ecosystem, especially when you see major builders getting their whole platform obviated by flippant breaking changes. nobody sane would try competing with Hubble or Warpcast (unless they have 8 figures to burn thru) and that is a significant problem for the whole "open protocol" argument. this is merkel land and merkel will make or break rules to sink any serious competition.

Farcaster

To summarize the entire conversation between Leeward and Dan Romero, the essential criticisms surround client diversity, protocol stability, and the lack of genuine competition in the ecosystem.

First, a nontrivial difference exists between a blockchain client and a Farcaster client. Farcaster is not a blockchain. While it does leverage a set of nodes (Hubs) for content propagation and distributed storage, there is no consensus model. This distinction is critical because protocol updates don't require consensus. Updates can, and often are, issued unilaterally by a centralized party.

So, while anyone can run a hub and keep a copy of the information, that information is likely synced with a centralized service provider. The functionality and utility of the primitives driving the ecosystem are liable to change suddenly. While the Merkle team appears to communicate with developers before making decisions, no DAO or proposal framework dictates the outcomes of such conversations.

Does this matter beyond semantics? Not really. Would open-sourcing the main client be useful? I would posit that it would, but it's not necessarily a showstopping hindrance.

Open-sourcing Warpcast would be helpful to developers who are struggling with various challenges posed by interacting with the network, but beyond that, it's probably more trouble than it's worth.

User Andrei O. fairly criticizes Merkle's strategy (albeit harsh and naively absolute).

Andrei O. on Warpcast

Warpcast has +300 endpoints I would say is larger than the farcaster protocol by far. This response with hubs being open-source is a gimmick, Warpcast just built a backend that acts like an extension of the protocol that's not open-source, and like you say they claim this ecosystem is decentralized. Open-sourcing Warpcast is a minimum bar for having trust, the reticence of doing that for me looks like malfeasance. It's clear to me that the Merkel team and Dan want to keep significant control over everything Warpcast/Faracaster related, and if that's true I don't know why they even bother with decentralization if it's just marketing.

Farcaster

Put simply, his cast says that Hubs are open source, meaning one could fork them and start working on their specialized version. However, there's no point because some features are still siloed within Warpcast.

Unfortunately, his argument is not convincing because it makes egregious assumptions about the future state of Farcaster and the Merkle team's long-term strategy.

Dan has repeatedly said that primitives will be decentralized when they've been appropriately iterated upon and a consensus is found around their functionality. While this is not the typical methodology of DAO-driven soft and hard forks within a blockchain network, it makes sense for a consumer application.

Having personally built and run a blockchain network for the better part of a decade, I can confirm that updating a large set of nodes, whether centrally owned or not, is not a simple task and requires the attention and resources of many individuals. It makes more sense to get things right in a silo, then release the primitives to the broader community when they are in maintenance mode.

As Vitalik famously stated at a conference in Amsterdam in 2014,

"You don't need to be an expert to build things. You just have to be willing to build things. We are building the plane while it's flying."

While this methodology captured the ethos of blockchain at the time, web3 has evolved significantly. Consumers and developers expect a level of refinement in the products and tools they use that can't necessarily be achieved by building "while the plane is flying."

The other comment Leeward made that I feel is worth addressing is funding. His statement essentially states that no serious competitors can emerge without significant funding due to the centralized control and resources required. This undermines the claim that the protocol is genuinely open and competitive, as the barrier to entry is prohibitively high.

Dan confirms the latter point throughout his communications with network users, often citing the complex, proprietary infrastructure required to operate efficiently. However, in a recent YouTube AMA, Dan said that even retroactive grants have fallen short.

In contrast to Ethereum, there is no token on Farcaster. The growing infrastructure is likely to absorb the costs of joining the network. Until a critical mass of users is onboard and revenues can support externalized R&D, it's hard to imagine grants being very effective.

Even monetized apps like Supercast are probably not generating enough consistent income to become meaningful companies yet.

Hence, Merkle's virulent commitment is to grow the quality of content and daily users across the network. Herein lies my final point.

Here's the bottom line: we can sit around arguing about the perfect level of decentralization until we're blue in the face, or we can roll up our sleeves and build something people actually want to use. Decentralization is a means to an end, not the end itself. The end is a better social media experience that gives users more control and creators more opportunities.

So yeah, keep pushing for more openness, more decentralization, more community involvement. That's all good stuff. But don't lose sight of the bigger picture. We need users. We need compelling content. We need sticky features that keep people coming back. Without that, the most decentralized protocol in the world is just a really inefficient way to shout into the void.

ns on Warpcast

You can wait until every single wrinkle is ironed out, all the infra is perfect, and everything is protocol-level - at which point those who hacked it during the imperfect times will be years ahead of you.

Farcaster

I've seen this movie before with Ethereum. The critics will always be there, but the builders are the ones who change the game. So, you can keep complaining about Merkle's approach, or you can start building the next big thing on Farcaster. Your call.

In the meantime, I'll be here, watching this space evolve, probably making bad jokes on Warpcast, and definitely rooting for this crazy experiment to succeed. Because at the end of the day, that's what Web3 is all about - trying new things, failing fast, and hopefully, eventually, changing the world. Or at least making social media suck a little less.

Now, who's up for some Costco pizza and a hackathon?

The digital art world promises immutable provenance, unlimited portability, and a new medium upon which artists can tell their stories and express their unbounded creativity. As a collector, it also allowed me to engage directly with the artists I patronize, a feature of this nascent industry I hold dearly.

Since 2021, I have yearned for a way to collect, curate, and connect with like-minded art lovers worldwide. I ran a weekly X Space for about a year, during which I had the opportunity to connect with artists globally. I heard their stories and sopped up their critical perspectives on the market and the tools and services they used to develop, promote, and sell their work. While the show was a great way to keep my finger on the pulse of things and connect with artists, it didn't scratch my itch.

As a developer, I always think about creating something that provides value to many people from a single source. When I discovered Farcaster, one of the first things I did was reserve the /artist channel. I didn't know how initially, but I understood that Farcaster provided a broad platform for creating tools and rewarding people. I believed that it could be a way for me to effectively pursue a patronage model where I could support multiple artists.

There is still no perfect way to consume artwork onchain. There are some fantastic ongoing experiments, like Zora, Rodeo, View Art, Shelf, and the like. But as yet, there is no de facto method through which a collector (digital-native or otherwise) can collect, support, and grow alongside the artists they patronize. I ascribe this problem primarily to a lack of reward for curators and tastemakers in the space.

Without returns driven by increased popularity, broader reach, and other factors that make physical or "traditional" artists' work rise in value, curators and collectors are left engaging with the market for the love of the game. For many, this is not enough. For a good reason: IRL curators can take home six-figure salaries just for their knowledge and taste. Why would they spend time in web3, where artists are known to be flighty, have little or no marketing prowess, and are siloed within an industry that regularly struggles with public perception?

Still, curators are essential in the larger scheme of things that drives an art market. Without keen tastemakers, pivotal movements like the Harlem Renaissance and even Modern Art as we know it today would not exist. Yet, there still are very few (if any) ways for curators to monetize their taste.

If you're unaware, rounds are a tool developed by the Nouns DAO to enable easy reward distribution of any token to a group of people based on a set of customizable criteria.

I decided to experiment with rounds last week to see if I could accomplish several goals simultaneously:

1. Generate genuine discussion about art

2. Reward dozens of artists

3. Grow the /artist channel

4. Grow my reach

5. Generate sales of the /artist Moxie Fan Token

How did I fare? Let's dive in and find out.

As it stands, /artist is essentially my personalized curation feed. I mostly quote cast artwork from throughout Farcaster that I find interesting, typically with a little quip and sometimes with information about the artist. I especially love artwork accompanied by narrative, and I find myself sharing that more often than simply sharing imagery.

As such, my goal for /artist is to reach beyond the typical art shilling channels. There are plenty of spaces for that form of content.

Hence, my first round was centered around this very subject: art with narrative.

I challenged artists to submit works accompanied by a story. As a reward, I put up 50,000 of my own $MOXIE to be split among those curated. As with all my endeavors, I ventured forth with zero expectation. The results, however, exceeded my expectations.

I also enabled anyone who decided to purchase the Fan Token the ability to curate via engagement and further allowed anyone holding 10+ Fan Tokens to appear on the main feed immediately, without moderation.

Most notably, the round increased engagement in the channel by an immense proportion.

We also saw solid growth in terms of followers.

This checks off goals number one, two, and three. But what about my metrics?

Similarly, my engagement saw a nice increase.

And so did my following.

The final goal was to increase the value of the /artist channel's $MOXIE Fan Token, which distributes 100% of its earnings to holders. I hope to create a flywheel effect that enables constant patronage and promotion through curation—effectively rewarding myself and others for being tastemakers within the channel.

So, how did we do?

A 21% increase is not too shabby. I'm beyond happy with this result.

Leveraging Farcaster, Moxie, and Rounds to patronize artists and reward curation appears to be a winning combination. I will refine my methodology and continue experimenting to become more effective and attract more artists, collectors, and curators. But as a start, I'm happy with my progress.

Keep an eye on the /artist channel for the next rounds, which I will announce tomorrow, Tuesday, September 17th, 2024.

Motivation

Unlike most social apps, which hoard data and capitalize on the network effects brought about by their users, Farcaster enables developers to build unique experiences that leverage the network's social graph.

While having deep knowledge of full-stack web development or programming skills to build a Frame is unnecessary, a basic understanding will help. If you want to get an idea out there, there are no-code solutions for the less technically inclined.

For this tutorial, we're going to build a Frame for Moxie. A new social token protocol that lives on top of Farcaster, which rewards users for engagement and enables content creators to share earnings with their fans.

The frame we're building will enable users to see basic information about the fan tokens they hold.

Note: If you don't want to follow this tutorial but want to jump into the code, you can clone my example repo.

Before we start, you'll want to ensure you have the following prerequisites installed.

1. NodeJS v20+ (I'm using 22.2.0)

2. NPM v10+ (I'm using 10.7.0)

3. ngrok (we'll use this for testing our Frame)

4. A Vercel account (a free one is fine for our purposes)

5. A Neynar account

First, let's get a directory set up for our environment

mkdir moxie-fans && cd moxie-fans

npx create-next-app@latest ./

I recommend the following configuration

Now, install our dependencies.

npm install --save dotenv frog hono graphql graphql-request ethers

WARNING: The next step is crucial for operation with Frog and NextJS.

Navigate to your .eslintrc.json file and add a rule to ignore jsx

{
  "extends": "next/core-web-vitals",
  "rules": {
    "react/jsx-key": "off"
  }
}

Next, we must set up files and configs to enable our Frame.

• Navigate to src/app/api and make a new folder called [[...routes]].

  • Within [[...routes]] add a file called route.tsx

• Add a folder called gql under the api folder.

• Add a file under gql called getUserOwnedFanTokens.ts and add the following code

  import { gql } from "graphql-request";
  import { GraphQLClient } from "graphql-request";
  
  export const graphQLClient = new GraphQLClient(
   "https://api.studio.thegraph.com/query/23537/moxie_protocol_stats_mainnet/version/latest"
  );
  
  export const getUserOwnedFanTokens = async (address: string): Promise<any> => {
      const query = gql`
      query MyQuery($userAddresses: [ID!]) {
          users(where: { id_in: $userAddresses }) {
            portfolio {
              balance
              buyVolume
              sellVolume
              subjectToken {
                name
                symbol
              }
            }
          }
        }
      `;
  
      const variable = {
          userAddresses: [address],
      };
  
      try {
          const data = await graphQLClient.request(query, variable);
          return data;
      } catch (e: any) {
          console.error("GraphQL request error:", e.message);
          return null;
      }
  }

• The above code will enable us to pass in the frame user's address(es) and retrieve their portfolio. However, because most of the $MOXIE in the ecosystem is held in the vesting contract, we also need to get the relational address where the tokens are locked based on the beneficiary address we retrieve from the Frame.

• Add another file under gql called getVestingContractAddress.ts and paste in the following code.

  import { gql } from "graphql-request";
  import { GraphQLClient } from "graphql-request";
  
  const graphQLClient = new GraphQLClient(
      "https://api.studio.thegraph.com/query/23537/moxie_vesting_mainnet/version/latest"
    );
  
  export const getVestingContractAddress = async (address: string): Promise<any> => {
      
      const query = gql`
          query MyQuery($beneficiary: Bytes) {
              tokenLockWallets(where: {beneficiary: $beneficiary}) {
                  address: id
              }
          }
      `;
  
      const variable = {
          beneficiary: address
      };
  
      try {
          const data = await graphQLClient.request(query, variable);
          return data;
        } catch (e: any) {
          console.error("GraphQL request error:", e.message);
          return null;
        }
  };

• Create a new file in your top-level directory called .env.local and add the following variables (replacing YOURKEY with your API key).

  NEYNAR_API_URL="https://api.neynar.com/v2/farcaster"
  NEYNAR_API_KEY="YOURKEY"

NOTE: The following configuration is optional, but I recommend it for easily styling your Frames.

• Add a new directory src/app called utils and place a file there called ui.ts. Add the following code.

  import { createSystem } from 'frog/ui'
   
  export const {
    Box,
    Columns,
    Column,
    Heading,
    HStack,
    Rows,
    Row,
    Spacer,
    Text,
    VStack,
    vars,
  } = createSystem()

Finally, let's get our ngrok server started to serve the Frames locally and test them in the Frame Validator.

ngrok http http://localhost:3000

The above command will start up an ngrok server that will provide you with a URL you can use in the following steps. Keep this terminal window running and the URL handy.

Your file structure should look like this 👇

Ok, we're finally ready to get creative and implement some interactivity!

Head back to route.tsx and import the necessary modules at the top of the file.

/** @jsxImportSource frog/jsx */
import { Button, Frog, TextInput } from 'frog';
import { handle } from 'frog/next';
import { neynar as neynarHub } from 'frog/hubs';
import { neynar as neynarMiddleware } from 'frog/middlewares';
import { ethers } from 'ethers';
import { Box, Text, vars } from '@/app/utils/ui'; // Leave this out if you're not using frog ui
import { getUserOwnedFanTokens } from './gql/getUserOwnedFanTokens';
import { getVestingContractAddress } from '../gql/getVestingContractAddress';

const INTENT_FOLLOW_ME = 'https://warpcast.com/nickysap'; // you can change this to your profile if you'd like

Next, let's instantiate Frog with the required configurations

const { NEYNAR_API_KEY } = process.env;

type State = {
    portfolio: any[];
};

const app = new Frog<{ State: State }>({
    title: 'Moxie Portfolio',
    ui: { vars },
    assetsPath: '/',
    basePath: '/api',
    imageAspectRatio: '1:1',
    imageOptions: {
        height: 1024,
        width: 1024,
    },
    initialState: {
        portfolio: [],
    },
    hub: neynarHub({ apiKey: NEYNAR_API_KEY }),
    verify: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production',
    origin: BASE_URL,
    headers: { 'cache-control': 'max-age=0' },
}).use(
    neynarMiddleware({
        apiKey: NEYNAR_API_KEY,
        features: ['interactor', 'cast'],
    })
);

IMPORTANT: Place the following lines at the bottom of your routes.tsx file.

export const GET = handle(app);
export const POST = handle(app);

Keep the above code below your routes throughout the tutorial.

Now, we will set up our routes.

The first route is just the landing Frame. We will keep it simple.

app.frame('/', (c) => {
    return c.res({
        image: (
            <Box
                alignVertical='center'
                backgroundImage='url(https://moxie.xyz/_next/image?url=%2F_next%2Fstatic%2Fmedia%2Ffans.74a7f7cf.png&w=1200&q=75)'
                backgroundColor='bg'
                justifyContent='center'
                paddingTop='52'
                paddingLeft='80'
                paddingRight='80'
                backgroundSize='120% 150%'
                backgroundPosition='top -10%'
            >
                <Box
                    backgroundColor='linear'
                    borderTopLeftRadius='80'
                    borderTopRightRadius='80'
                    paddingTop='20'
                    paddingLeft='20'
                    paddingRight='20'
                    height='100%'
                    width='100%'
                    alignContent='center'
                    justifyContent='center'
                >
                    <Text color='white' align='center' size='32'>
                        What&apos;s in your wallet?
                    </Text>
                    <Spacer size='24' />
                    <Text color='white' align='center' size='20'>
                        Check your Moxie Fan Token Portfolio
                    </Text>
                </Box>
            </Box>
        ),
        intents: [
            <Button value='check'>Portfolio</Button>,
            <Button.Link href={INTENT_FOLLOW_ME}>Follow me</Button.Link>,
        ],
        action: '/portfolio',
    });
});

The above code creates a frame with a background image and some text with two "intents." Intents are just actions the user can take on this Frame. In our case, we allow them to check their portfolio or follow my profile. Finally, the action tells the frame to send a request to the server and hit the /portfolio endpoint, which we will now create.

You can go to the Frames Validator and check out your work if you'd like.

app.frame('/portfolio', async (c) => {
    const { deriveState } = c;
    const state = await deriveState(async (previousState: any) => {
        const address = c.var.interactor?.verifications[0] as string;
        const vestingContractAddress = await getVestingContractAddress(address);
        const response = await getUserOwnedFanTokens(
            vestingContractAddress?.tokenLockWallets[0]?.address
        );
        previousState.portfolio = response?.users[0]?.portfolio || [];
        return previousState;
    });

    if (!state.portfolio || state.portfolio.length === 0) {
        return c.res({
            image: (
                <Box
                    grow
                    backgroundColor='purple400'
                    display='flex'
                    alignItems='center'
                    justifyContent='center'
                >
                    <Text>No Fan Tokens Found</Text>
                </Box>
            ),
            intents: [
                <Button value='back' action='/'>
                    Go back
                </Button>,
            ],
        });
    }

    return renderPortfolio(c, state, 0);
});

This code uses Frog's state management solution to derive and set the state of the user's portfolio. If there is nothing in the user's portfolio, we let them know and give them the option to return. If we find Fan Tokens in the portfolio, we use the renderPortfolio function.

Which reminds me, we need to write the renderPortfolio function!

Place the following code above your /portfolio endpoint.

function renderPortfolio(c: any, state: any, page: number = 0) {
    const itemsPerPage = 5;
    const start = page * itemsPerPage;
    const end = start + itemsPerPage;
    const portfolioToShow = state.portfolio.slice(start, end);
    const portfolioLength = state.portfolio.length;
    const hasMore = portfolioLength > end;
    const address = c.var.interactor?.verifications[0] as string;
    return c.res({
        image: (
            <Box
                alignVertical='center'
                backgroundImage='url(https://moxie.xyz/_next/image?url=%2F_next%2Fstatic%2Fmedia%2Ffans.74a7f7cf.png&w=1200&q=75)'
                backgroundColor='bg'
                justifyContent='center'
                paddingTop='30'
                paddingLeft='80'
                paddingRight='80'
                backgroundSize='120% 150%'
                backgroundPosition='top -10%'
            >
                <Box
                    backgroundColor='linear'
                    borderTopLeftRadius='80'
                    borderTopRightRadius='80'
                    paddingTop='20'
                    paddingLeft='20'
                    paddingRight='20'
                    height='100%'
                    width='100%'
                    alignContent='center'
                    justifyContent='center'
                >
                    <Text color='white' align='center' size='32'>
                        Your Moxie Fan Token Portfolio
                    </Text>
                    <Spacer size='24' />
                    {portfolioToShow.map((token: any) => (
                        <Box
                            display='flex'
                            flexDirection='row'
                            gap='4'
                            alignItems='flex-start'
                            justifyContent='center'
                        >
                            <Text color='purple400' size='20'>
                                {token.subjectToken.name}:
                            </Text>
                            <Text color='white' size='20'>
                                {parseInt(ethers.formatUnits(token.balance, 18))
                                    .toFixed(2)
                                    .toLocaleString()}
                            </Text>
                        </Box>
                    ))}
                    {hasMore && (
                        <Box
                            display='flex'
                            alignContent='center'
                            justifyContent='center'
                            paddingTop='10'
                        >
                            <Text color='white' align='center' size='16'>
                                Plus {portfolioLength - end} more
                            </Text>
                            <Text color='white' align='center' size='16'>
                                Click below to show more
                            </Text>
                        </Box>
                    )}
                </Box>
            </Box>
        ),
        intents: [
            <Button action={`/stats/${address}`} value='stats'>
                Stats
            </Button>,
            hasMore && (
                <Button action={`/portfolio/${page + 1}`} value='more'>
                    More
                </Button>
            ),
            page > 0 && (
                <Button action='/portfolio' value='back'>
                    Back
                </Button>
            ),
            !hasMore && (
                <Button action={`/stats/${address}`} value='stats'>
                    Stats
                </Button>
            ),
        ].filter(Boolean),
    });
}

This function will enable us to paginate the user's portfolio, only showing five holdings per page to keep things visually appealing.

Now that we have this function, we can write the pagination endpoint.

app.frame('/portfolio/:page', async (c) => {
    const page = parseInt(c.req.param('page') || '0');
    const { deriveState } = c;
    const state = await deriveState(async (previousState: any) => {
        if (!previousState.portfolio || previousState.portfolio.length === 0) {
            const address = c.var.interactor?.verifications[0] as string;
            const vestingContractAddress = await getVestingContractAddress(
                address
            );
            const response = await getUserOwnedFanTokens(
                vestingContractAddress?.tokenLockWallets[0]?.address
            );
            previousState.portfolio = response?.users[0]?.portfolio || [];
        }
        return previousState;
    });

    return renderPortfolio(c, state, page);
});

The above endpoint requests the page number and displays the user's fan tokens based on the previous cursor.

Now, let's work on the /stats Frame will also have a share option so the user can share their stats as a Frame and entice others to check their stats and do the same.

app.frame('/stats/:address', async (c) => {
    const address = c.req.param('address');
    const vestingContractAddress = await getVestingContractAddress(address);
    const response = await getUserOwnedFanTokens(
        vestingContractAddress?.tokenLockWallets[0]?.address
    );
    const totalTokens = response?.users[0].portfolio.length;
    const totalSupply = response?.users[0].portfolio.reduce(
        (acc: any, token: any) =>
            acc + parseInt(ethers.formatUnits(token.balance, 18)),
        0
    );
    const buyVolume = response?.users[0].portfolio.reduce(
        (acc: any, token: any) =>
            acc + parseInt(ethers.formatUnits(token.buyVolume, 18)),
        0
    );
    const sellVolume = response?.users[0].portfolio.reduce(
        (acc: any, token: any) =>
            acc + parseInt(ethers.formatUnits(token.sellVolume, 18)),
        0
    );

    const castUrl = 'https://warpcast.com/~/compose';
    const castText = 'I checked my Moxie Fan Token portfolio. Check yours out here!';
    const embedUrl = `${BASE_URL}/api/stats/${address}`;
    const INTENT_SHARE_FRAME = `${castUrl}?text=${encodeURIComponent(
        castText
    )}&embeds[]=${encodeURIComponent(embedUrl)}`;

    return c.res({
        image: (
            <Box
                alignVertical='center'
                backgroundImage='url(https://moxie.xyz/_next/image?url=%2F_next%2Fstatic%2Fmedia%2Ffans.74a7f7cf.png&w=1200&q=75)'
                backgroundColor='bg'
                justifyContent='center'
                paddingTop='52'
                paddingLeft='80'
                paddingRight='80'
                backgroundSize='120% 150%'
                backgroundPosition='top -10%'
            >
                <Box
                    backgroundColor='linear'
                    borderTopLeftRadius='80'
                    borderTopRightRadius='80'
                    paddingTop='20'
                    paddingLeft='20'
                    paddingRight='20'
                    height='100%'
                    width='100%'
                    alignContent='center'
                    justifyContent='center'
                >
                    <Text color='white' align='center' size='32'>
                        Your Moxie Fan Token Stats
                    </Text>
                    <Spacer size='24' />
                    <Box
                        display='flex'
                        flexDirection='row'
                        gap='4'
                        alignItems='center'
                        justifyContent='center'
                    >
                        <Text color='purple400' size='20'>
                            Total Tokens:
                        </Text>
                        <Text color='white' size='20'>
                            {totalTokens}
                        </Text>
                    </Box>
                    <Box
                        display='flex'
                        flexDirection='row'
                        gap='4'
                        alignItems='center'
                        justifyContent='center'
                    >
                        <Text color='purple400' size='20'>
                            Total Supply:
                        </Text>
                        <Text color='white' size='20'>
                            {totalSupply.toFixed(2).toLocaleString()}
                        </Text>
                    </Box>
                    <Box
                        display='flex'
                        flexDirection='row'
                        gap='4'
                        alignItems='center'
                        justifyContent='center'
                    >
                        <Text color='purple400' size='20'>
                            Buy Volume ($MOXIE):
                        </Text>
                        <Text color='white' size='20'>
                            {buyVolume > 0
                                ? buyVolume.toFixed(2).toLocaleString()
                                : '0'}
                        </Text>
                    </Box>
                    <Box
                        display='flex'
                        flexDirection='row'
                        gap='4'
                        alignItems='center'
                        justifyContent='center'
                    >
                        <Text color='purple400' size='20'>
                            Sell Volume ($MOXIE):
                        </Text>
                        <Text color='white' size='20'>
                            {sellVolume > 0
                                ? sellVolume.toFixed(2).toLocaleString()
                                : '0'}
                        </Text>
                    </Box>
                </Box>
            </Box>
        ),
        intents: [
            <Button action='/portfolio' value='back'>
                Back
            </Button>,
            <Button.Link href={INTENT_SHARE_FRAME}>Share Frame</Button.Link>,
        ],
    });
});

This Frame takes some of the additional information returned by our GraphQL query, formats it, and displays it at a glance for the user. This Frame could help check your total balance of Fan Tokens to help qualify your Far Boost score.

If the user selects 'Share Frame,' they will be led to a newly crafted cast with their user-specific stats already populated in-frame as an embed.

Now that we have a nice Frame with some useful interactivity and

Set up your git repository and get the URL, then initialize git locally and get yourself all set up.

git init
git add .
git commit -m "first commit"
git branch -M main
git remote add origin <YOUR-REPO-URL>
git push -u origin main

Next, head over to Vercel and add a new project.

Import your newly created GitHub repository, and don't forget to add your environment variables!

Once deployed, you can head over to the Frames Validator and paste in the URL Vercel provides you. Just remember to add /api at the end if you followed this tutorial.

Voila! You have just developed your first Moxie Frame!

Recently, low-cost minting has taken the web3 art space by storm. The phenomenon gained momentum with XCOPY’s time-limited mint of digital flies titled MUTATIO. For those who missed it, XCOPY over one million of these 3D flies for just 0.00069 ETH each (roughly $2.50 at the time of minting), netting the artist over $2MM in sales.

This remarkable success spurred a wave of derivative works as artists rushed to capture similar attention and capitalize on the hype.

A refreshed meta emerged, with newfound affordability on Base Layer 2. Artists swiftly migrated to Base, launching works on various platforms, including Foundation, which recently integrated Coinbase's L2 solution.

However, the surge in "free mints" on Zora—a blockchain and photo-sharing platform that became prominent during the Threadguy x Jack Butcher collaboration, Open Threadition—is particularly noteworthy.

On Farcaster, you’ve likely seen numerous Frames by artists promoting "free" mints via Zora, some of which have netted dozens of ETH. But how can a free mint generate revenue? The answer lies in the protocol fees. While minting costs nothing, Zora charges a fee of 0.000777 ETH, split evenly with the artist. Given the high gas fees collectors are accustomed to, a fee of approximately $2.70 seems negligible. It's common to see users "max mint" editions on Zora, generating roughly $150 in fees for the artist.

There’s currently an undeniable slump in demand for digital art. Many artists are exiting the space, social platforms like 𝕏 are curbing artists' reach, and patrons are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of available works. While some artists have succeeded in chasing the latest narratives (e.g., Solana, Base), finding new collectors remains challenging. Thus, offering works for minimal cost and pushing for a more widespread collector base is becoming a popular strategy.

Besides Zora’s free mints, the industry has seen a rise in low/no-cost mechanisms to attract collectors. Editions (open, timed, and limited) are increasingly common as Layer 2 solutions and low-cost blockchains like Solana reduce gas fees. Additionally, low-reserve auctions are gaining popularity, making it more feasible for collectors to bid without excessive gas fees.

There’s no definitive answer. Anything that draws more attention to an artist’s work is currently the most effective strategy. In January, I discussed the strategic choices between 1/1s, editions, and collections in a post (link below) that you might find helpful.

ns

@nicky_sap

Exploring the Nuances of NFT Art: 1/1s, Editions, and Collections

Since fine art NFT sales are slow, it’s given me time to consider the game theory and consumer psychology underpinning these assets.

1/1s: The Singular Connection

For collectors, owning a 1/1 develops an…

62

1:15 PM • Jan 16, 2024

I always recommend that artists take charge of their releases using established platforms like Manifold and Transient Labs. Ultimately, while the artwork is crucial, it’s only one part of a complex puzzle in the web3 space—a game of attention where strategies vary widely.

Digital art has a problem. Perhaps there's a solution somewhere out there.

• Traditional and digital art funnels vary in significant ways

• How and why collectors become fatigued

• Oversupply and waning demand are rampant

• A web3-native solution is necessary

A consistent stream of collectors must patronize the artists who consistently produce content to support a vibrant art market. In the traditional world, there is an established funnel through which collectors are connected to artists. Gallerists are responsible for marketing to collectors and nurturing a base of buyers who will usually support the releases the gallery distributes. A well-understood dichotomy exists between artist, collector, and gallerist, and it plays out in one of two ways.

Version 1: An artist approaches a gallerist, hoping their work is marketable to the gallery's existing collector base.

Version 2: A gallerist approaches an artist, hoping their collector base will help expand the gallery's reach.

In a perfect world, synergizing these shared desires would create a fruitful and long-term relationship between all three parties. However, traditional collectors and web3 collectors differ significantly.

Whereas a traditional collector might approach their portfolio based on the artist's historical provenance, genre, or notoriety, a Web3 art collector has less to go on in terms of general strategy. Below is how the average NFT collector approaches collecting.

Phase 1: Excitement

A collector finds a new world of art to consume and collect. Perhaps they come from a background in traditional collecting and see the benefits of holding immutable provenance, low-to-no-risk storage, and ultimate portability. Some fantastic visuals, generative capabilities, and all sorts of gamification usher them into the world of Web3. Their trigger finger is itchy, and they start scooping up all kinds of beautiful works. An ancillary benefit is that the artists begin to grant them recognition through their social channels. Now, the collector is seeing increased engagement and a newfound sense of popularity.

Phase 2: Disillusionment

The novelty begins to wear off for the collector as they realize they have spent several hundred (or thousand) dollars on artwork that likely has no resale value and that can generally not be displayed outside their mobile device or laptop screen. No worries; they still love the artwork, but now they must reassess their buying habits and approach their newfound hobby with more of a strategy.

Phase 3: Discovery

Now that a strategy is in place, the collector can focus on specific artists whose artwork resonates with them deeply. Once those individuals are identified, the collector begins acquiring works once again. They may even strike up a personal relationship with the artists they patronize. A new era of excitement begins—for a while, at least.

Phase 4: Inundation

The collector has acquired "enough" works to feel like they have an established collection from the artist. Perhaps the artist is selling their work for more money now, and the collector gets priced out. They remain in contact, but the level of repeat purchasing diminishes greatly, sometimes reaching an absolute halt.

Phase 5: Selectivity heat death

This phase is the end stage for most Web3 art collectors. They've spent as much as they are willing to spend on illiquid jpegs and are happy with their collection. They may pick up a piece here and there, but their selectiveness is not enough to support a thriving marketplace. They burn up in the atmosphere; their orbit has decayed to heat death.

The above issue is readily apparent in the metrics seen across all of the significant NFT Fine Art sales platforms in the crypto space over the past two years. Volumes have steadily dropped across the major platforms since 2021 with no sign of recovery.

Is this the platform's problem? No, the platforms are not galleries. They are a place to showcase your work and sell it. While they have some marketing capabilities and make an effort to support the artists who list their work, they intend to generate fees and not much else.

Lack of demand can be attributed to several factors, including macroeconomic trends (low liquidity environment, buyers are limited on discretionary cash), low ROI on digital assets (very few NFTs, especially Fine Art, have any resale value or ever will), or temporary waning interest in NFTs.

Something not often discussed throughout the digital art sphere is the immense supply of works. Innumerable artists (likely millions) vie for the pockets of mere thousands of art collectors who are all experiencing the decaying orbit problem described earlier.

Likewise, these artists push out immense amounts of content daily. Whether the art is viewed on social media or purchased is unimportant when considering how easy it is to consume. Artists feel pressured to push out excessive amounts of work because of the content constantly streaming to everyone's devices. This unfortunate reality creates a negative feedback loop. Rushed work, an oversupply of that work, and a lack of buyers to soak up that oversupply.

This vicious circle creates a tumultuous environment for artists attempting to make a living by producing artwork. In many cases, this environment becomes untenable and forces artists to find alternative means of income or, in some cases, leave the space entirely.

Recently, discussions have been propagating about the issues described throughout this post. There are several approaches to a solution, but they all lead to the same underlying truth. Web3 artists need a better way to monetize.

While there are numerous mechanisms through which an art market can be incentivized, there is no way to force demand for artwork. A solution needs to be web3-native, create a virtuous cycle of funding that enables artists to approach their work with the most thoughtfulness possible and remove unnecessary distractions from the artists (i.e., marketing, release management, etc.).

However, how this is achieved is the real discussion point.

Forming a DAO is one web3-native solution that can work but is ridden with potential pitfalls and caveats. Most DAOs now act as decentralized gallerists that support a set of artists and, in some cases, acquire works utilizing the DAO's treasury funds. While this model works on a small scale, the artists are not supported long-term or at scale.

Notwithstanding the apparent tribulations of operating under decentralized governance, the reality is that the decaying orbit problem will persist. There will still be a need for "new blood" constantly coming in to buy art, and without a constant stream of new artists, interest will wane. A continuous stream of new artists means the previous artists become neglected. This cycle is not virtuous and is incredibly difficult to maintain.

Without an alternative source of income to support the artists (i.e., pay them for their continued efforts), there's no scalable mechanism through which a DAO can support artists.

Take Nouns, for example. Recently, Seneca published this Cast

Farcaster

seneca on Warpcast

a dream: noun pulls in $1m+ / day, auto deploys a big chunk to rounds, all is routed to thousands of artists creating top tier work. the top 10-20% make enough to not have to work on anything else and live out the dream: make art, get paid.

Nouns' Treasury receives consistent and steady income from Nouns' sales daily. This is not equivalent to $1MM, but it is still enough to add to their growing war chest. A model like this would enable artists to work consistently on their craft worry-free. It would, however, also force them to create at least some content specific to the DAO branding (in this case, Nouns).

Patreon and the like have developed an excellent model for content creators to monetize their efforts by offering exclusive content and benefits to their subscribers. The pitfall is that a tiny percentage of content creators capture value on these platforms. In other words, creators still need a large audience to monetize. This difficulty arises from the fact that these platforms are individualistic by design. They reap the benefits of individual creators' platforms via fees and other rent-seeking mechanisms.

To resolve the excessive supply issue, a platform-wide fee could be charged to users who want access to the latest art from their favorite creators. Drip has done a tremendous job at achieving this model. Users can purchase or earn droplets they can send to creators as tips. Top tippers receive enhanced benefits in the form of art with increased rarity.

This model is more democratized and doesn't require the collector to purchase while providing the artist with some financial benefit and incentive to keep producing work for the platform. However, this model also dilutes each artist's portfolio, leaving collectors with immense numbers of virtually worthless NFTs in their wallets.

A combination of the DAO, subscription, and democratized distribution models could be built on top of Farcaster. The vision includes an art-specific client that enables token-gated access to the platform's artists and perhaps incurs some annual costs for the users. Beyond the jpegs and GIFs, the platform could enable musicians, videographers, animators, poets, and all artistry. Collectors pay for the platform, and the DAO distributes the funds to the artists equivalent to some key value metric. Further, using XMTP, a direct connection between artist and collector can be made. This wallet-to-wallet messaging system would enable private communications and re-marketing capabilities.

There are assuredly more features and ideas that can be applied to a platform like this, and it would be great to see more discussions surrounding this concept as a result of this post.

Ultimately, a Farcaster-native solution solves oversupply, funding, governance, distribution, and democratization issues. The question is, shall it be done?

If you look at the current "cities of the future," they hardly mimic the cities of yore. They diminish much of the enriched nature of those idyllic places trapped in the past. As a result of the significant simplification of architecture and increased cost of goods, most cities look like shiny, glass forests with enormous metal trees. Most of humanity is shoved into these forests by profession, socioeconomic norms, and general necessity (closeness to food stores, medical centers, etc.).

What's more, the vision set forth by the powers that be aims to consolidate humanity into even smaller, more "convenient" bushels. While this might make economic sense on paper, it creates forced division, a class delineation, and a proverbial armistice line. We can't afford this future, as technology has driven us further apart even as we draw closer to one another in an increasingly small world.

A Higher Future presents a set of severe technology-based changes to governing infrastructure that effectively distributes power among people and eliminates so-called public servants from positions of authority. In doing so, a trickle-down effect occurs across all the elements that cause humanity's suffering.

My vision of a Higher Future starts in the past, harkening back to the Enlightenment era. This methodology emphasizes reason, liberty, democracy, and the scientific method. While futurists of the past may have feared a technocratic dystopia, they could not have foreseen the advent of the decentralized governance infrastructure that we have today.

We need not rely on petty politicians posturing and preying on the populace like predators while purporting to practice policy for the public good.

We will be governed by code and consensus, self-regulating based on social dynamics present within every sentient organism on the planet. Indeed, maximum and unadulterated freedom and liberty have downsides, but consider the alternative.

In a distributed system, all elements are auditable by the many. As such, educational mandates will be driven by peer-based consensus in the Higher Future. Education is at the heart of civilization and without the ability to communicate rational thought effectively, challenge critically, and share knowledge, a society crumbles. Hence, in many cases across humanity, those without access to the pillars of fundamental thinking create untoward outcomes for themselves and those around them. By no fault of their own, a systemic and well-known problem drives them and their counterparts deeper into the recesses of humanity.

The curriculum should be relatively the same across various beings, regardless of the geographic lottery ticket they pull at birth. Thus, in the Higher Future, systematic audits of curriculum and governance by peers shall be doctrine and mandated by code. This is but the beginning of what a distributed technocracy might accomplish.

Mancur Olsen wrote The Logic of Collective Action, a book that lays out a thesis driven primarily by economics but with applications to socioeconomic norms. The text illustrates how selective incentives propagate within a collective as it grows, creating adverse outcomes for the group.

In a society driven by engrained governance deeply inlaid within a distributed codebase, one's mind can drift from the complexities of particular political interests and focus inward. In the case of a vote, one need only read the proposal and vote with their heart via their mobile device. There is no lobbying, psyops, lies, or manipulation.

In this world, technical innovation ceases to be stifled. The military-industrial complex is unnecessary to drive economic growth and velocity. Humans can participate in vast and various economies of scale or work individually on smaller projects that benefit themselves, their family, or their immediate surroundings. Funds flow freely as interest and taxes are mandated by programmatic and infallible toolsets and only extracted as a result of comprehensive and equivalent benefits.

This decompression eliminates the necessity of consolidating humanity into microcosmic concrete jungles. People spread out, start communities, support each other, and build. Humanity flourishes without the need for excessive buildings that trap the gases and poisons of the machines that create them. Nature heals.

When one thinks of the future, one might get stuck in floating cities traversed by flying cars and shiny buildings adorned by holographic advertisements. But science fiction is just that. A Higher Future looks like an idyllic past—a place where medicine heals and food nourishes, economies are balanced and systematically incentivized, and consensus-based outcomes matter to the many rather than the few.

We have the technology; we must apply it for fear of ending up in a dystopia.