Author: zhou, ChainCatcher
On January 20 , Mask Network announced that it had taken over the decentralized social protocol Lens Protocol . This is the second decentralized social platform, after Farcaster , to announce a shift in its development focus.
Last December , Farcaster announced a strategic shift, abandoning its social-first strategy and moving towards building a wallet-centric application model. The fact that these two leading protocols have changed course so quickly reflects, to some extent, the struggles and uncertainties within the decentralized social networking sector.
Lens Protocol was reportedly launched in early 2022 by Aave founder Stani Kulechov . At that time, Stani was briefly banned from social media platforms due to his remarks, which prompted him to build a system that challenges data monopolies and allows users to truly have social relationships.
At its core, Lens is a social graph based on the blockchain, where users’ profiles, following relationships, and content interactions exist in the form of NFTs or on-chain data.
In terms of capital, according to RootData , Lens Protocol has raised more than $ 46 million in total, with investors including Tencent, Robot Ventures , Wintermute , Circle Ventures and Variant Fund . It was previously reported that it planned to raise a new round of financing at a valuation of $ 500 million.
Over the past few years, Lens has progressed from the Polygon testnet to the mainnet, and in 2023 , it achieved modular functionality with version V2 . With the entry into a completely permissionless phase in 2024 and the launch of Lens Chain , a dedicated chain based on ZKsync , in 2025 , the protocol has resolved the technical bottleneck of high transaction costs.
However, the technical success has not translated into a thriving ecosystem. According to Coingecko data, the protocol currently has 665,000 NFTs held by 575,000 individual holders, with a total market value of $ 138,000 .
Previously, Lens's official migration announcement stated that as of February 2025 , the protocol had approximately 647,000 minted profile accounts with a cumulative post count of 31 million, but only about 45,000 weekly active users. This means that most of the hundreds of thousands of accounts were likely registered early on to try and get potential airdrops, while the percentage of active users generating high-quality interactions was very small.
This also reflects a weakness of the original Lens team. While they may have a slight edge in DeFi protocol design and smart contract governance, their experience in refining consumer-grade products is relatively weak. Stani stated that Lens 's management will be transferred to Mask Network , while the original team will become technical advisors, returning to their expertise in DeFi to innovate.
As the acquiring party, Mask Network has long focused on social bridging Web2 and Web3 . Founded in 2018 by Suji Yan , it aims to allow users to enjoy secure, decentralized social messaging, payment networks, file storage, and file sharing without leaving mainstream social media networks.
According to Rootdata , Mask Network has raised more than $ 57 million in funding, with investors including HashKey , Hash Global , DCG , and YZi Labs . It has also launched its native governance token, MASK , and its current FDV is approximately $ 60 million.
Currently, Mask owns several core components, including the Firefly aggregation application, the Next.ID identity protocol, and Web3.bio .
It is worth mentioning that Mask Network participated in Lens 's seed round of financing as early as 2023. It was an early supporter and ecosystem participant of Lens . In 2025 , it also completed the strategic acquisition of Orb.club , the native social application of the Lens chain.
Mask founder Suji Yan stated that Mask 's mission is to make decentralized social features easy to use and intuitive, which aligns perfectly with Lens 's next stage of development.
However, for Mask , this may be a breakthrough attempt at the application layer, but for the entire industry, it is nothing more than a reckoning of the social dream.
Looking back over the past few years, the so-called surge in traffic has been almost entirely driven by expectations of airdrops and speculative games, rather than by genuine needs for communication.
SocialFi overemphasized "Fi" while neglecting "Social." With the departure of the Lens founding team and Farcaster 's change of course, the grand narrative of Web3 social networking that " disrupted traditional social giants " has been shattered.
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