Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he plans to focus more on decentralized social media in 2026, arguing that better communication tools are needed and that decentralization can help create more competition online.
Buterin revealed in a post on X on Wednesday, Jan. 21, that he has already been using decentralized social tools this year through Firefly, a multi-client that supports reading and posting across platforms like X, Lens, Farcaster, and Bluesky.
In his post, Buterin linked to an announcement from Lens Labs, which said Mask Network will become the new steward of Lens as the project shifts toward building more consumer-friendly social applications.
“If we want a better society, we need better mass communication tools,” Buterin wrote. “We need mass communication tools that surface the best information and arguments and help people find points of agreement.”
Buterin said decentralization can make social platforms more competitive by using a shared data layer, allowing different teams to build their own apps on the same network. He also warned that many crypto social projects have focused too heavily on tokens and hype.
“Too often, we in crypto think that if you insert a speculative coin into something, that counts as ‘innovating’, and moves the world forward,” Buterin wrote. He cited Substack as an example of a model that can support high-quality content by letting users subscribe to creators.
Lens Labs emphasized in its announcement that “what the ecosystem needs now is not more protocols, but great consumer experiences.” It added that Mask Network will lead the next phase of Lens and focus on building products meant for everyday users, while Lens Labs shifts into an advisory role.
“In that role, we remain fully aligned with the mission to make open, scalable, user-owned social networks a core pillar of the future internet,” the announcement reads.
Buterin concluded his post by encouraging users to spend more time on Lens, Farcaster, and the broader decentralized social ecosystem. “We need to move beyond everyone constantly tweeting inside a single global info warzone, and into a reopened frontier, where new and better forms of interaction become possible,” he added.
MASK, the native token of the Mask Network, was trading around $0.60 on Wednesday, flat over the past 24 hours. Its market capitalization is about $60 million, according to CoinGecko.
