Author: TechFlow
Recently, the founder of a16z funded $50,000 to an AI Bot, and the subsequent event where the Bot created a viral Goat token became a hot topic.
But don't forget, a16z's original intention was not to invest in Memes, this top-tier VC's invested projects have more results in various tracks.
Yesterday, the decentralized social protocol Towns, which a16z previously led a $25 million investment in, officially launched. But due to the super-hot Meme cycle, the serious projects were overlooked in the limited attention.
With the attitude of "rather miss ten thousand than overlook one", new crypto products need to be researched when launched. Who knows, there might be opportunities in the ignored ones.
We quickly registered and experienced this product, which looks more like a decentralized Discord. In the context of the Telegram founder's arrest, FriendTech's abandonment, and Farcaster's lukewarm performance, is decentralized social coming back this time?
Functional Experience: More Like a Decentralized Discord
First of all, don't misunderstand, the news that a16z led a $25 million investment is not a recent announcement.
In February 2023, Towns raised $25.5 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Benchmark and Framework Ventures.
And after nearly 2 years of development and refinement, Towns officially announced its launch recently.
In the fast-paced crypto world with a new gimmick every day, the pace of building an application product in two years is relatively slow; but by steadily moving forward and doing a good job before launch, it also gives a sense that they may be seriously doing a product.
So, what are the product features of this Towns?
1. Login: No crypto wallet login option, blockchain logic is encapsulated
Currently, Towns provides a web version and an iOS app. After accessing https://www.towns.com/, you can see that there is no design for logging in using any wallet, but rather directly provided mainstream options such as third-party account login and mobile login.
After registration and entering the personal details page, you will find that the system has automatically associated and created an built-in wallet, most likely also using a non-private key MPC wallet design, where the user's blockchain logic is encapsulated during login, which is also the common processing method used by most consumer-level crypto products.
2. Create Groups: Similar to Discord, but with a paid membership commercialization space
After account registration, Towns provides two options - join a group or create your own group.
In fact, the logic of this group is basically similar to Discord, where different people find different interest groups based on their interests, and then start different types of topics and functional partitions within the group.
And when creating a group, using on-chain economics and token/Non-Fungible Token permission control, Towns has built-in membership payment and commercialization functions.
As shown in the figure below, you can customize the first 100 members to be free; the subsequent members can choose to be charged at the same price to join, or they can be charged more expensively for later members, creating a FOMO effect.
At the same time, since it is a completely end-to-end decentralized application, the creation of groups and the joining of members are on-chain behaviors, and gas fees will be charged accordingly. The group creator can also have the option of "pre-paying gas" to cover the gas fees for the joining members, and of course you can also recover this money from their membership fees.
In addition, you can also specify conditions, such as holding certain tokens or certain Non-Fungible Tokens, in order to join the group.
3. Join Groups: Join and Mint, Gain Information Control
If you want to join a group, after clicking the button you will find that the system will automatically help you Mint an NFT of the group identity, to confirm that it is indeed your own operation, and that you have indeed joined this group.
Subsequently, this behavior is confirmed on the chain, and only then will the information flow of the entire group be synchronized. At the same time, due to the decentralized design on the chain, your message flow and information will not be controlled by any single centralized entity; but the front-end experience is just like a normal Discord.
Underlying Technology: Application Chain Supported by River
So how did Towns achieve a completely on-chain social protocol? The answer lies in its underlying River - a Layer 2 scaling solution designed specifically for decentralized social applications.
The River protocol provides Towns with a three-layer architectural framework, enabling it to realize high-performance, decentralized social functions.
1. EVM-compatible L2 Chain
Towns runs on River's Layer 2 (L2) chain.
In the use case of Towns, this means that users' social interactions (such as posting, commenting, liking, etc.) can be quickly and inexpensively completed on-chain, without being affected by Ethereum mainnet congestion.
2. Decentralized Off-Chain Streaming Nodes
To handle real-time communication needs, Towns utilizes River's decentralized off-chain streaming node network. Through an efficient peer-to-peer communication protocol, it can provide message delivery performance close to centralized systems while maintaining decentralization.
This allows Towns to support real-time chat and notification functions similar to traditional social platforms.
3. Smart Contracts Deployed on Base
Towns' core business logic is controlled by smart contracts deployed on Base. These smart contracts define the basic rules of the Towns social protocol, including user identity management, community creation, and permission control.
On the basis of these three components, each community group in Towns is actually an independent, programmable on-chain asset, called a "Space". Each Space is a unique Non-Fungible Token, representing the ownership and management rights of that community.
Additionally, and more importantly, Towns has implemented end-to-end encryption to protect user privacy. This means that all communications between users are encrypted, and only the communication parties can decrypt the content. This functionality is directly integrated into the Towns protocol layer, ensuring that privacy protection does not depend on any centralized server.
Towns VS Warpcast
Both are projects invested in by a16z, so what are the similarities and differences between Towns and its predecessor Warpcast?
We've made a table to help you understand quickly:
Finally, in the crypto world where attention economy reigns supreme, if Towns wants to develop, it must answer a key question:
For the sake of so-called complete decentralization, do users really have the motivation to abandon Telegram, Discord, or even Farcaster?
User habits are not something that can be reversed overnight, and sometimes being used to something is more convincing than being afraid of the sky falling and switching to another application.
The resistance faced by Towns obviously comes from the existing applications mentioned above, so the Go To Market strategy becomes more important. For example, Towns is also actively approaching popular crypto communities and Non-Fungible Token holders, creating a community for them to attract them to join, such as Azuki, Doodles, and Penguins as shown in the image below.
And the prerequisite for these to be playable is profitability. Only when there is profitability will the people creating groups be willing to build groups (e.g. sharing Alpha), and the people joining the groups be willing to pay the entry fee.
In addition, the crypto bull market is also an indispensable factor.
After all, who would want to join a group and chat if they've already lost money? Crypto social applications still have a long way to go.
