What is Farcaster?

Following the short-lived excitement surrounding Friendtech and the SocialFi craze of Fall 2023, the Web3 community is still searching for a crypto-native social platform to call home.

The ‘sufficiently decentralized’ social platform Farcaster has now captured the attention of the crypto community following the launch of its newest feature, Frames, which gives creators the ability to launch applications and iframes within their posts – or casts as they’re referred to on Farcaster.

Since the launch of Frames, monthly active users on Farcaster have increased dramatically.

Through Frames, creators are able to offer their supporters a streamlined and interactive canvas built within Farcaster. Crypto aside, the ability to build applications within a feed is already a massive step forward for the entire social media space. The possibilities are then expanded further by connecting an Ethereum wallet to the app, allowing users to tip, claim tokens, and mint NFTs directly through the Farcaster feed.

Lately, Farcaster has been a popular place for creators to launch free or cheap NFTs for their followers to collect, which can have use cases outside of Farcaster in the world of trading and DeFi. Users have enjoyed the organic minting and collecting experience that isn’t completely overrun with spam and bots thanks to the few layers of friction that exist between Farcaster and blockchain, such as the $5 fee charged to create an account.

Getting Started on Farcaster

To use Farcaster, users can begin by downloading the Warpcast app from leading app stores. Warpcast is a centralized client built on top of Farcaster. Within the Warpcast app, users can access Farcaster and begin following their favorite accounts, connecting their wallets and launching or interacting with their own Frames.

Many users have praised the non-speculative nature of Farcaster compared to previous SocialFi dApps. The team has repeatedly denounced the idea of launching any native token, and the community has already adopted its own native tipping token, DEGEN.

Farcaster has provided Web3 users with an alternative to Twitter (X), where creators can interact with their users and spark speculation amongst them. Meanwhile, the application itself remains neutral, without any of the over-incentivization that has been associated with past iterations of SocialFi.