Vitalik Buterin has deprecated his X (formerly Twitter) account after it was compromised by a SIM-swapping attack last month.
Since then, the creator of Ethereum has shown his support for a new decentralized social network, which is based on Ethereum's Optimism second layer solution. This is Farcaster, powered by the core team that bears the network's name and supported by a group of more than 50 developers, who constantly contribute to its code repository.
Farcaster is a protocol designed to create decentralized social applications, where users maintain true control over their data and information.
Through this social network, which is available in beta version and can be accessed only by invitation, the young creator of Ethereum has been sharing opinions and points of view on various topics. Specifically, on Farcaster, Buterin stated that he was happy to be on a social network where he could set up and control account recovery using an Ethereum address instead of a phone number.
The hack of Vitalik Buterin's X account, which cost his followers nearly $700.000 in losses, occurred due to a SIM-swapping attack. Buterin presumes that this attack could have occurred because he used his phone number to configure the Twitter Blue service.
Decentralized social networks, a Web3 phenomenon
Decentralized social networks are becoming a global phenomenon because they eliminate intermediaries, are resistant to censorship, and are open to all users. All this thanks to the attributes of Web3.
These types of social networks also allow a group of users from different applications to interact through applications and clients, a point that contrasts with Web2 social networks, where users can only interact through a specific social application.
In the case of Farcaster, this social platform, which is identified as “sufficiently decentralized,” allows people to communicate and interact with each other whenever they want to do so and allows developers to access public network data without permission.
Farcaster also has a unique infrastructure that can offer users a social networking experience similar to what they are used to on Web2 but retaining digital ownership and maintaining decentralization.
What is Farcaster?
Farcaster is a decentralized protocol designed to create social applications in an open way that is focused more on developers and the creation of applications than on the user experience.
Its most popular client today is called Warpcast, an application that offers a user experience quite similar to X, the centralized social network owned by Elon Musk. Through this client, users can share content, send messages, receive notifications, make mentions, search for users, and enjoy other features that are available in X, although hashtags are not yet an option in Warpcast.
However, being decentralized, Warpcast users have the ability to control their accounts, as well as the information and data they share there.
NFTs and ENS names
Another characteristic of Farcaster and its clients is that they can include functionalities linked to NFT tokens, such as configuring these digital assets as profile images on social networks.
On Farcaster, users can also associate ENS (Ethereum Name Services) domain names with their accounts on the social network, making it easier for others to mention them in messages.
The decentralized social network also offers users the ability to claim free names, called fnames, which are free and governed by Farcaster and which serve as a unique and immutable identifier for the user's social identity on the social network.
Furthermore, as Vitalik Buterin pointed out, Farcaster allows users to use their Ethereum addresses to set up accounts, making it easier for them to recover their accounts without having to provide personal data such as a phone number.
Currently, Farcaster has become one of the most relevant decentralized social media options offered in the Web3 ecosystem, attracting a significant number of users despite being available in beta version.
In addition to the backing of Vitalik Buterin, Farcaster also has the support of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), which led the project's funding round in 2022, in which the decentralized protocol raised $30 million.
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