Introduction:
Focus is a brand-new type of social network (raised $80 million in March), which is built on the cutting-edge decentralized social blockchain DeSo, achieving an organic integration of cryptocurrencies, social media, and generative artificial intelligence. Focus has introduced a new monetization path for creators, and has applied a new type of viral marketing mechanism that we call "social airdrop" to maximize user retention and solve the problem of platform cold start.
The DESO blockchain originated from the update and iteration process of the 2020 decentralized social media BitClout, and was further developed based on it. In September 2021, the DESO blockchain received a total investment of $200 million from more than 10 institutions including Sequoia Capital, Social Capital, a16z, and Coinbase.
Chinese community's understanding of DESO
In the July-August 2023 period, the social platform Friend.tech based on the Base chain had a brief period of popularity, sparking widespread attention to Web3 social in the entire crypto market and attracting a large number of KOLs to join. In fact, Friend.tech's economic model has 98% borrowed from BitClout's architectural model.
Although the Friend.tech platform was extremely hot at the time, for users of the DESO community, it was just a product they had already played with, and the past glory had become history, which led to the current DESO's focus on the development of decentralized social infrastructure architecture to accommodate the entry of 1 billion users.
Since the launch of the DESO blockchain, community users who have been using it for more than 3 years have shared that they have posted more than 50,000 text or image posts on various social application platforms on the DESO blockchain, and have spent about $0.5 in total on the chain. After more than 3 years, with over 50,000 posts published, they have only spent about $0.5 in Gas fees. This advantage is unmatched by Lens, Farcaster ($5 registration threshold), and others.
On social platforms like WeChat and Telegram, the cumulative fees for wallet withdrawal and the use of VPNs over the years may be tens of times higher than the cost of using DESO. In addition, I have personally used Lens, Farcaster, and other decentralized social platforms, and the DESO-related platforms are close to traditional social platforms in terms of ease of operation and fluency. It's just that in these years, the DESO team has been focusing on the development and innovation of ecological infrastructure, and has hardly engaged in any marketing or wasteful spending. Therefore, crypto media have rarely reported on DESO in the past two years.
DESO's Treasury Funds
Through monitoring the DESO treasury wallet address, the DESO treasury wallet currently holds approximately 2,524 BTC, worth $170 million. According to the disclosure of the DESO Foundation last year, the ecosystem fund still has about $30 million in earnings from US bonds. Thus, the current DESO treasury funds are around $200 million, and with the appreciation of BTC in the bull market, the DESO treasury funds will further increase.
According to relevant disclosures, the DESO core team has a scale of about 20 people, with an annual operating cost of about $5.5 million. With other income added, this will be sufficient to support its operations for more than 20 years. With such strong financial support, DESO undoubtedly has a strong foundation and resource guarantee for its future development, at least for community users, there is no need to worry about DESO going bankrupt or running away, the only question is when a phenomenon-level application or hundreds of them will ignite the DESO ecosystem.
In these years, they have developed infrastructure such as Openfund (DESO DEX platform), DeSo Javascript framework, Hypersync startup, derived keys and spending limits, HeroSwap (cross-chain trading), DesoDollar (stablecoin solution), Flux integration (cloud infrastructure), DeSo social wallet, DeSo Chat (on-chain social group chat), DeSo GraphQL API (for developers), Revolution PoS (DESO 2.0 revolution), and Focus.xyz.
Upcoming developments include DeSo Drive, DeSo AI, and DeSo token split (1:10000 ratio), awaiting the update of the 2025 roadmap.
Multiple Ways to Earn on Focus
The upcoming launch of Focus will be an important node for the startup marketing of the DESO ecosystem. The DESO core team has released on diamondapp (DESO app) that Focus will have nearly a dozen "earning categories" upon launch.
1. Bounty Rewards = You can earn these rewards by successfully referring people with bounties.
For example, to attract more high-quality users to the platform, Focus may launch a $1-5 million bounty to invite public figures like Elon Musk and Trump to join Focus and be active on the decentralized social platform long-term. If the invitation is successful, you may be able to receive a $1 million bounty reward.
Whether or not the invitation is successful, some public figures will likely be attracted to join, and the launch of such a bounty program in the market may be able to ignite the entire crypto market, making DESO and Focus the focus of this bull market, then the future can be imagined.
Secondly, if the invitation to Vitalik and Musk is not successful, the invitation to Twitter media with more active users like Phyrex (250k followers), Crypto Dog, Airdrop Farming KOLs, market analysis KOLs, and various Web3 project parties to join.
For example, the crypto KOL Phyrex has 250,000 real active followers, and other relevant evaluations. Focus can launch a $25,000 to $100,000 bounty reward, and whoever can invite Phyrex to join Focus will receive a $25,000 bounty.
There are tens of thousands of KOLs and Web3 project parties on Twitter, and the launch of such bounty activities will definitely ignite the crypto market again, bringing in the traffic of millions of users.
2. Transaction Fees = You earn these from people who trade the coins you hold.
This can be understood as copyright fees from creator tokens, similar to Friend.tech, but Focus, with several years of experience accumulation, will be a brand new model.
3. Paid Messages = You can earn these by enabling payments to receive messages.
4. Subscriptions = You can earn these credits when someone subscribes to one of your subscription packages (monthly).
Creators can set up paid subscriptions for their related content, and when users subscribe to your content or courses, you will receive income.
5. Tips (Diamonds) = You earn these when people tip you on your posts or comments.
When posting content, posts, photos, videos, etc. on Focus, you will receive diamond tips from readers, and diamonds are a certain proportion of valuable assets, which is income. Usually, the higher the quality of the content, the higher the reposting, commenting, and reading volume, the higher the tips and advertising revenue.
6. Referrals = You earn these when the people you refer generate fees.
For example, if you invite a crypto KOL to join Focus, their creator income will generate earnings for the referrer.
7. Gated Content = You earn these when people pay to unlock your content.
All of the above are the content we will be launching. The following are the content we will follow up on after the launch.
8. Post-2-Earn = You earn these by becoming a top poster and creating engaging content.
9. Repost-2-Earn = You earn these when people pay you to promote their content through reposts.
10. Notify-2-Earn = You can earn these by enabling payments to receive notifications of other users' posts.
11. Remix-2-Earn = You can earn by allowing people to remix your content with generative AI. As more use cases emerge, we will explore adding more use cases.
Currently, Focus is in the countdown to launch, and barring any unexpected delays, it will be launched on November 11, although there is a small probability that it may be delayed to early 2025.
The above content is partially sourced from Google Translate, and there may be some parts that are difficult to understand. Please wait for the official launch to get a better understanding.
