Guest: Allen Soc, Co-founder of Metya
"In the bubble, doing things requires faith and a sense of direction."
This is a phrase that Metya co-founder Allen Soc often says. As a former global growth head of a Web2 top platform, Allen has long been deeply involved in user growth, product operations, and community ecology, with extremely strong insights into how to build sustainable user experiences and scalable growth systems.
He witnessed how traditional social platforms drove growth through centralized algorithms and personally experienced the bottlenecks brought by data privacy controversies and the fading of traffic dividends. Through numerous global operational experiments and localization processes, Allen began to deeply contemplate the question of "whether users truly own their own data and identity".
"Web2 turned social networking into a traffic business, but forgot the original intent of connection."
Based on this reflection on digital identity sovereignty and user participation value, Allen gradually turned to Web3 and began to build a new type of social network system that is decentralized, incentivized, and evolutionary - this is the starting point of Metya.
He firmly believes: What can truly transcend cycles must be a product that serves real users and has long-term evolution capabilities, rather than temporary narratives or speculative hotspots.
Metya was born under such a concept - a brand new Web3 social platform that combines AI Agents, DePIN network, and on-chain incentive mechanisms, dedicated to redefining "connection" between people. Since its launch in early 2025, Metya has exceeded 1.9 million registered users, rapidly expanding its global community, with the $MET Token listed on multiple mainstream platforms, and multiple regional operational nodes have been successively established.
But this is far from the end.
Starting Point: Why "Social"?
Allen never shies away from his obsession with "connecting people".
"Social is the closest to human nature among all applications. It naturally possesses attributes of frequency, emotion, and value accumulation. Even during cycles of AI explosion, GameFi innovation, and BTC narratives, the relationships and interactions between people remain the next super entrance for blockchain."
Therefore, from the beginning, Metya's goal far exceeded labels like "Web3 Tinder" or "Decentralized WeChat". It is a full-stack social system driven by AI, propelled by on-chain incentives, and supported by DePIN network.
On Metya, users match, chat, create, and govern through AI agents, with all social relationships precipitated as on-chain assets. Data belongs to users themselves, behaviors can be rewarded, and even chatting itself can create economic value.
"We are not creating an App, but reconstructing a social network protocol."
Allen states that Metya's long-term goal is to become the "Android system of Web3 social" - developers can deploy various Agents based on the protocol, users can freely switch between different social scenarios, hardware nodes provide computing power support, and value feedback is realized through a closed loop of $MET.
Four Steps to Build a "Social Financial Operating System"
To realize this systematic vision, Metya has constructed a development path from shallow to deep.
Initially, Metya focused on cold start and establishing an economic model. The launch of the $MET mainnet Token introduced a basic value circulation system for the platform; deployment of the on-chain Staking module provided users with sustainable participation incentives; the introduction of Mini App formed an early AI social experience closed loop, planting the first seed of interaction for users.
Entering the second stage, Metya will continuously expand and evolve its technology stack. The AI system will achieve multi-language matching and emotion recognition functions, and the wallet module will gradually integrate multi-chain support and cross-scenario transactions, paving the way for asset and token transformation of social relationships. Meanwhile, Non-Fungible Tokens will be introduced to the platform as an experimental social asset form, laying the foundation for future Web3 personas and relationship networks.
In the third stage, the platform will introduce content incentive mechanisms and hardware entry points. The Mini Ear device, designed based on DePIN, not only has voice recognition and AI interaction capabilities but can also achieve efficient response through edge computing; simultaneously, the on-chain UGC mechanism will be launched to encourage users to create socially valuable content and truly activate the creator economy.
Ultimately, Metya will enter a global expansion and governance implementation stage. Localized nodes in Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea, Latin America, and other regions will be successively connected, constructing a multilingual and multicultural global social network; the community governance system will also be simultaneously launched, allowing users to participate in platform evolution through proposals and voting; Metya will also create offline "social centers" and event spaces, completing an ecosystem closed loop between virtual and reality.
"Our pace might not be fast, but every step is laying the foundation for the future."
Not Chasing Hotspots, Only Focusing on Underlying Structure
When the entire market was chasing "AI concepts", "MEME narratives", and "L2 explosion", Metya instead took a structuralist "slow path":
- Not creating "virtual AI chat toys", but building "personality agents"
- Not doing "social media stacking tokens", but realizing "on-chain relationship financialization"
- Not making a "traffic diversion tool platform", but constructing a "closed-loop social economic system"
Allen recalls: "Many people suggest we focus on exchanges, market manipulation, and 'quick money' when they see our active community and impressive data. But we remain very restrained. The issuance of $MET is not for speculation, but to build a truly sustainable social economic system."
In his view, Token should not just be a financing tool, but a "value protocol" connecting users, developers, and ecosystem participants: "If we only wanted short-term traction, we could choose an easier path. But what we want to build is an operating system that can support hundreds of millions of users and trillions of interactions."
Rather Than Pretending to Understand "E", Better to Genuinely Do "I"
Although Metya now has significant presence on X and Telegram, Allen describes himself as a typical INTP - quiet, rational, technology-oriented, and fond of systematic thinking. He jokes:
"Most people in our team are actually 'I people', not good at socializing, and not very skilled in marketing. But this is precisely the original intention of creating Metya - to provide introverts, marginal people, and cross-cultural users with a fairer, smarter, and more trustworthy connection method."
Therefore, from product structure design to operational activity arrangement, Metya always adheres to "real interaction" and "pragmatism".
Rather than desperately pulling people into groups, they care more about whether users are willing to stay and establish long-term relationships on the platform.
Three Numbers Defining the Next Three Years
Discussing the next three years, Allen mentioned only three numbers:
- 100 million registered users
- 10 million daily active users
- 50 million AI-Agent assets
He was very clear: "We are not drawing an airdrop pie, nor predicting market value, but hoping that one day, Web3 social will no longer be a concept, but a part of people's daily life."
He quoted his favorite sentence to end this interview:
"Long-termism is not waiting for miracles, but doing the right thing every day."
Conclusion: The Future of Social is On-Chain
AI is the wave, DePIN is the breakthrough, Staking is the engine, governance is belonging. But what has always been at the core of all this is - people.
People who desire to express, people who desire response, people who desire to establish real relationships in a complex world.
And Metya is trying to reconstruct a new social universe for them.
