原文作者:Geb Park
Original source: galaxy
原文标题：Exploring the Evolution and Growth of DeSoc Apps
编译：Luffy，Foresight News
DeSoc, short for "Decentralized Social Network," is a growing area in the cryptocurrency industry that uses blockchain technology to establish a new standard for sharing ideas and information digitally. These apps, like many in the broader cryptocurrency industry, are designed to promote the values of data ownership, transparency, and censorship-resistance. The birth of blockchain-based social media platforms dates back to 2016, when Steemit, the first blockchain-based DeSoc application, was launched on the Steem blockchain.
Unlike traditional social media apps, which typically require an email address to log in, DeSoc apps use the private key signature of a blockchain wallet to log in. After logging into the DeSoc app with a blockchain wallet, users can share content, follow other users, and collect digital goods in the form of fungible and non-fungible tokens. Ownership of user data is controlled by the user's wallet and is typically stored in a distributed file storage system, which is different from using centralized data hosting services such as AWS and Google Cloud, which are used by large social media groups like Facebook and Twitter. Some DeSoc apps also offer data portability, providing users with a unified experience across a variety of apps without the hassle of creating a new profile. Crucially, the technical architecture of the DeSoc application ensures a seamless connection between the user's profile data and the blockchain wallet.
This report analyzes the on-chain activity of the most popular DeSoc applications since 2021, including Farcaster, Friend.tech, DeSo, and more. The report also delves into the narrative and growth strategies driving the adoption of DeSoc applications, particularly the adoption of Farcaster, a relatively new DeSoc application that accounted for more than 30% of all DeSoc-related transaction activity in 2024.
Active users
In 2016, the first DeSoc app, Steemit, was launched on its own blockchain (Steem). Since then, the DeSoc app has accumulated more than 8.7 million users and completed more than 82 million transactions on Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, BSC, and other Layer 1 blockchains. As of April 6, 2024, the total number of monthly active users of DeSoc is approximately 550,000 (Note: Users here are defined as unique wallet addresses that have interacted with the DeSoc application's smart contract in the past month). For most crypto apps, it's not easy to distinguish between active and inactive users. The analysis in this report defines an "active user" as a user who has interacted with the app's smart contract at least once during the app's lifetime.
The top DeSoc apps account for about 0.15% of Twitter/X's monthly active user base. It's important to emphasize that the two DeSoc apps with the most cumulative users were launched between 2020 and 2021, so they have a longer user time than Friend.tech and Farcaster. DeSo is a Layer 1 blockchain released in June 2021 and has the largest number of user registrations among DeSoc applications, with a cumulative user count of 3 million. Launched in September 2021, CyberConnect is a decentralized social graph that supports all EVM-compatible chains and has the second-highest cumulative DeSoc user registrations, with 1.5 million users engaging with the app since its inception.
The top five DeSoc apps accounted for 85% of total enrollments. As of April 6, 2024, DeSo accounted for 32% of total DeSoc app registrations. Farcaster has seen a surge in users since late January 2024, and while it's a relatively new DeSoc platform, it's already accounting for 3% of total DeSoc registrations.
The distribution of DeSoc apps as a percentage of total enrollments
Different DeSoc applications have different user experiences and focuses. Here are the most popular DeSoc apps by category:
- Traditional social media: The user experience includes public posting, comments, likes, and private messages.
- Social finance: User experience involves the purchase of assets that can access gated content (Friend.tech keys) or represent fractional ownership (post.tech) of social media content.
- Collections: The user experience focuses on the collection of digital assets, primarily NFTs.
- Other: User experiences that don't fall into the three specified categories above.
Traditional social media DeSoc applications are the most common in the DeSoc space today, with users accounting for 67% of total registered users. There are four representations of this type of app, while the collection category represents only POAP DeSoc apps. Notably, the social finance sector only emerged in August 2023, and they ranked third in terms of user registrations. Although activity on social finance DeSoc apps such as Friend.tech has dropped dramatically, their rapid success and competitiveness over older DeSocs have been significant.
Distribution of total enrollments by DeSoc category
From September 1, 2023 to April 1, 2024, the cumulative number of users of DeSoc increased by 2.9 million, thanks in large part to the launch of Friend.tech, a social finance DeSoc app based on Base Rollup. Friend.tech added more than 800,000 users from August 10, 2023 to January 1, 2024, making a significant contribution to the total number of users of DeSoc. Although the success of Friend.tech was short-lived, the app clearly sparked a resurgence of other DeSoc apps. After the number of users in Friend.tech began to stabilize in late October 2023, there was a clear growth trend in new users from other DeSoc platforms such as Cyber Connect, Farcaster, POAP, and Lens, as shown in the chart below:
Friend.tech's explosive growth in 2023 has made DeSoc the focus of the year for Web3. Friend.tech's user base grew 620x in 3 months, and the app generated more than $27 million in revenue. The impetus for this event is the anticipation of the Friend.tech token airdrop. However, as of April 6, 2024, there is still no sign of an airdrop from the Friend.tech team, and user activity has since declined. In October 2023, the average number of daily active users for the month of Friend.tech was 22,700, while by January 2024, this metric dropped to 1,000.
Number of transactions
Users on DeSoc apps often need to sign transactions on-chain in order to post topics, comment on other users' posts, retweet posts, and complete other actions. As a result, transactions that interact with the DeSoc app's smart contract reflect the app's usage.
From November 2023 to January 2024, user trading activity and the number of daily active users of the DeSoc app are at a standstill. The number of daily transactions on DeSoc did not begin to show encouraging signs of growth until February 1, 2024, with a 3x increase compared to the previous two weeks. The uptick in trading activity is partly due to the resurgence of Farcaster users, who are looking to claim airdrops from the subcommunity.
Farcaster is a traditional social media DeSoc app based on Ethereum L2 Optimism, launched in September 2022. A channel is a forum on Farcaster with a specific topic. For example, the Bitcoin channel is a place where Farcaster users who are interested in Bitcoin can share and discuss ideas about Bitcoin. On January 28, 2023, Degen, Farcaster's fastest-growing channel, announced an airdrop of their $DEGEN tokens to all channel participants. It is important to note that the creators of the Degen channel and token $DEGEN are in no way affiliated with the Farcaster team.
The spike in Farcaster's transactions in mid-February 2024 was also aided by the launch of Frames, a new feature that allows users to embed web-based applications in Farcaster posts. Through Frames, users can create token minting launchpads, interactive games, and polling surveys in Farcaster posts. Building on the momentum of Farcaster, there was also a slight recovery in user transaction activity on other DeSoc applications (Lens and X-Connect). As of April 6, 2024, Farcaster has more than 6 million daily unique transactions.
Leveraging exclusive access to users and social media content to drive user growth strategies has resulted in the highest initial return for DeSoc applications. Friend.tech amassed 820,000 users in 2 months, while it took 3 months for Instagram and 2 years for Twitter to reach similar levels. However, with or without financial incentives, DeSoc apps struggle to retain users in the medium to long term, which we will discuss in the next section of the DeSoc narrative cycle.
DeSoc 叙事周期
Historically, surges in DeSoc activity tended to follow a power law, where one application represents the majority of activity across all DeSoc applications. These boom and bust cycles of DeSoc applications highlight the stickiness of DeSoc users and the ease of jumping on to the next popular DeSoc application. The last three activity spikes from 2022 to 2024 are convincing because they prove that DeSoc activity is driven by cyclical narratives.
The first meaningful surge in DeSoc activity took place in March 2023 and was largely driven by Lens, a traditional social media DeSoc app on Polygon, and X-Connect, another traditional social media app on Binance Smart Chain. At that time, decentralized social media apps that mimicked Web2 social media apps took a share of the DeSoc market. The second surge in DeSoc activity in September 2023 was attributed to Friend.tech, which introduced a new DeSoc category called "Social Finance." As mentioned earlier, social finance involves buying access to gated content and purchasing fractional ownership of user content.
In February 2024, the third surge in DeSoc activity was due to the resurgence of user interest in Farcaster. The recent rise of Farcaster represents a revival of the decentralized traditional social media movement, the last of which was in March 2023, when Lens and X-Connect also saw the same phenomenon.
If history repeats itself once again, Farcaster's on-chain activity could decline after 3 to 4 months, just as other leading DeSoc apps in the past faded after a surge in activity. However, thanks to its modular architecture that encourages channel creators to keep innovating, Farcaster stands out from the crowd and has the potential to sustain its high level of user activity.
Similar to Lens and X-Connect, Farcaster makes it easy for third-party developers and social media creators to build and launch their own DeSoc applications. Existing users of Farcaster can connect to Farcaster-based DeSoc applications without having to create a new account to try out the apps. In addition, by introducing Frames, Farcaster channels and apps outside of the Farcaster ecosystem can increase flexibility in engaging with users by building their own tokens, voting, and interactive games. This programmability gives the user experience on Farcaster great potential to drive sustainable user growth and activity for DeSoc.
conclusion
Signs of mass adoption of DeSoc are yet to emerge, but the industry's recovery over the past 12 months cannot be ignored. In about four years, the DeSoc app grew by 8.7 million registered users. Inevitably, as global crypto holders grow over the next decade, we expect the number of DeSoc users to increase as well. Along with NFTs, gaming, and DeFi, DeSoc is a sub-sector of the crypto industry that has the potential to drive mainstream adoption of blockchain-based technologies and cryptocurrencies. Going forward, Farcaster stands out as a DeSoc app because of its focus on engaging users and developing sustainable growth strategies through creator-led features and content generation.