Source: Bankless
Translated by: Deng Tong, Jinse Finance
The Farcaster ecosystem is developing rapidly, recently launching new airdrops, new blockchains, and new features. Let's quickly review some of the major highlights.
Warpcast Rebranding: Farcaster is a decentralized social network protocol. You can create social applications on it. We have seen various clients (such as Herocast, Litecast, Super, etc.), but the most popular so far has been Warpcast, which is the flagship app developed by the Farcaster team.
That said, many new users are still confused by the naming discrepancy between Farcaster and Warpcast. People tend to ask "Are you on Farcaster?" instead of "Are you on Warpcast?" and so on.
To address this issue, the Farcaster team decided to simplify the process by renaming both the mobile and web applications of Warpcast to Farcaster.
Another interesting detail is that the team has discussed open-sourcing the Warpcast app's codebase, which could trigger a new wave of projects applying this infrastructure to other more experimental Farcaster clients.
Pro Subscription Plan: Additionally, Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero just confirmed that the team is preparing to launch a new "Pro" subscription level for Farcaster power users. Premium members are expected to pay $10 per month and will receive advanced features such as 10,000 character slots and up to 4 image uploads per post.
Notably, all revenues from this on-chain subscription system will be distributed in a flywheel manner to the Farcaster Creator Rewards Program, which has been distributing $25,000 in USDC weekly to top posters on Farcaster.
"The protocol needs to find a long-term revenue source that can sustainably fund creator and developer rewards, not just by any single company," Romero explained. "We initially thought storage fees could be the rewards, but we realized that to promote growth, storage fees should be essentially free."
Farcaster's First Airdrops: Earlier this year, Farcaster launched native wallets for its mobile and web applications to facilitate more convenient transactions within its flourishing mini-app ecosystem. Now, this wallet is gradually becoming a convenient center for airdrop claims.
Farcaster has some of the most active on-chain users, and crypto projects have been eager to win their favor. Therefore, Farcaster has been collaborating with third-party teams to directly distribute airdrops like $CELO and $WCT to Farcaster wallet users. So far, $110,000 has been airdropped through this method, with more distributions ongoing.
The win-win concept is that these teams can attract new high-quality users while enhancing Farcaster's appeal.
The initial airdrops average around $10 each, providing a convenient way to fund your Farcaster wallet. However, Farcaster ecosystem head Linda Xie points out that some projects will exclude users who have participated in multiple previous airdrops. If you plan to participate, consider holding as long-term as possible to maximize future distribution opportunities.
New Ecosystem Incoming: Base has been the most popular public chain for Farcaster projects so far, but we are beginning to see more ecosystem diversity. For example, Celo and Monad testnet have recently been integrated into Mini Apps and Farcaster wallet, with even larger integrations coming soon.
First, Farcaster is currently developing a new Solana wallet beta and will soon fully launch it. Its arrival should be a significant catalyst for the Solana Mini Apps domain.
If the team continues to roll out support for such new ecosystems, they will have ample conditions to build Farcaster into one of the top social activity centers across all top blockchains. Stay tuned for these developments.
Coinbase Wallet Integration: Coinbase Wallet, one of the most popular apps and on-chain gateways in the cryptocurrency field, has been completely restructured for its upcoming 2.0 version. One of the main new highlights of this revamp is native Farcaster integration.
In other words, you will soon be able to post and transact directly within Coinbase Wallet using Farcaster. The wallet will include scrollable social feeds with comments and a search and discovery process for Farcaster Mini Apps.
This new wallet experience is not yet open to everyone, but you can join the Beta test waitlist through this form. If you are accepted, you will receive an invitation link.
Considering Coinbase's reach, this integration is expected to significantly increase Farcaster's active user count in the coming months.
