UNCHAINED: How Decentralized Social Network Farcaster Hopes to Eventually Get to One Billion Users

Dan Romero, the co-founder of the decentralized social media network, discusses why Frames has become so popular, the central ideas behind Farcaster, and what’s in store for Farcaster’s future. 

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Fountain, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

In the two weeks since Farcaster introduced its Frames feature that allows developers to easily add mini apps to users’ posts, the decentralized social network has become the talk of Twitter, now X, and increased its user base by ten times, according to co-founder Dan Romero. 

Romero joins Unchained to discuss why Frames has become so popular, the philosophy behind Farcaster and its client Warpcast, why the crypto component behind Farcaster is being kept to a minimum, how Apple’s new Vision Pro could lead to the creation of a 3D social network on Farcaster, how he and his fellow co-founder’s background at Coinbase helped shape their decisions about building Farcaster, and his vision for eventually getting Farcaster to a billion-plus users. 

Show highlights:

What Farcaster is and what problems it’s trying to solveHow and why Farcaster uses blockchain technology in the background How you can use ENS (Ethereum Name Services) for your handles on FarcasterHow the recovery of accounts works on Farcaster and what the security implications areWhat Frames is and why it’s significant for developers and creatorsWhat’s controlled by the protocol vs. the client What Dan imagines could be built with the new Apple Vision ProWhether there’s potential for better economics and ways to monetize content in FarcasterWhy Farcaster is on Optimism, an Ethereum Layer 2, and whether it could be moved to another networkHow they are working to build a more decentralized networkWhat the future of Farcaster and Frames could look likeHow Dan’s background at Coinbase shaped the way in which he decided to build FarcasterWhat the strategy is for scaling the platform to the numbers more associated with Web2 social media

Thank you to our sponsors!  Popcorn Network  |  Polkadot

Guest | 

Dan Romero, Co-founder of Farcaster

Coinbase’s Pragmatic Crypto Culture by Dan Romero

Links | 

Unchained: 

Bounties to Build Frames on Farcaster Are Growing Rapidly

Farcaster's User Base Skyrockets Nearly 500% After Frames Launch

What Is SocialFi? A Beginner’s Guide

The Chopping Block: Is Farcaster the Web3 Social Layer?

Dan’s ideas for Farcaster

Farcaster architecture | 

Architecture

Onchain password reset mechanism

Why Farcaster Frames are important

The layers of Farcaster

Farcaster charges “rent”

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Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC.  Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz. 

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