Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has committed to focusing on Decentralized Social Media, as Farcaster, with two million users, and Lens, with 506,000 users, undergo leadership transitions.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin announced he will fully recommit to decentralized social networking in 2026, arguing that only platforms built on shared and decentralized data layers can create genuine competition and support mass media systems that align with user interests, rather than optimizing for engagement metrics.
In a Wednesday post on X, Buterin stated that he has shifted his activity to decentralized social platforms this year, noting that every post he writes or reads in 2026 will be accessed through Firefly, a multi-client interface supporting X, Lens, Farcaster, and Bluesky.
He emphasized that if society wants to improve, it needs better mass communication tools, in which decentralization facilitates competition by allowing multiple client applications to operate on a shared layer of social data.
Buterin strongly criticized many native crypto social projects for relying on speculative Token as a substitute for meaningful innovation. He argued that SocialFi experiments have consistently failed because they rewarded existing social Capital and short-term price speculation, rather than quality content and constructive dialogue. He contrasted those models with creator-based subscription models like Substack, which he considered better suited to aligning dynamics around high-quality content.
The Decentralized Social Media market is undergoing a transformation.
Calling for broader community involvement, Buterin urged users and builders to spend more time in decentralized social ecosystems, arguing that the industry needs to move beyond a single centralized information battlefield to a more competitive front where new forms of online interaction can emerge.
Decentralized Social Media, or SocialFi, are platforms built on open or blockchain-based networks where user identities, content, and social graphs are not controlled by a single company. While protocols like Lens and Farcaster have gained initial traction, the field has so far struggled to translate that momentum into sustained mass adoption.
On Wednesday, core infrastructure provider Neynar acquired Farcaster from Merkle. Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero announced the news, stating that after five years, it was clear Farcaster needed a new approach and leadership to reach its full potential. Lens also underwent a leadership transition this week, as AAVE transferred governance of its open-source social protocol to Mask Network, tasking the social networking firm Web3 with promoting consumer-ready on-chain social applications.
Farcaster has over two million registered users in total and hundreds of thousands of interactions daily, measured by posts and comments. Lens has accumulated around 506,000 users, according to data from Dune Analytics. This number is still modest compared to centralized social platforms, but recent leadership changes reflect a repositioning effort to attract a mass audience.
Buterin's commitment, from one of the most influential figures in the blockchain industry, could become a crucial catalyst in helping Decentralized Social Media move beyond the testing phase and toward wider adoption.
