The Guild: Applying the Hard Learned Lessons from SocialFi’s Pioneers
Lessons we learned through the successes and failures of Friend.tech, Lens, and StarsArena.
Introduction
SocialFi continues to face significant hurdles despite many of the initiatives that have sprung up to fill the void in an ever-evolving landscape. Pioneers such as Farcaster, Bitclout, Lens, Friendtech, Stars Arena, and many others, have continuously struggled to achieve long-term success on their missions to redefine social engagement through blockchain; merging social reputation and credibility with greater financial incentives.
However, through their multiple attempts and journeys, we’re capable of having greater understanding of the complexities and challenges inherent in building a scalable system successfully marrying social dynamics with monetary rewards. Using othe socialfi projects like Friendtech and Stars Arena as case studies, we will build on the lessons learned to set the stage for a new chapter in SocialFi, addressing current pitfalls and paving the way for more sustainable, community-driven, secure platforms.
Understanding Lens, and Farcaster: The initiators of Decentralized Social Media
Farcaster
Farcaster is a decentralized social protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain, designed to redefine online social interactions with a focus on user autonomy and decentralized identity. The protocol allows users to create and manage their profiles and social interactions directly on the Ethereum blockchain. This setup ensures transparency and security, as user data is not stored on a centralized server but rather on a decentralized network. Farcaster’s architecture supports the creation of various decentralized applications (dApps), enabling a wide range of social media functionalities while maintaining user privacy and data ownership. The protocol’s emphasis on decentralization also means that it is resistant to censorship and central points of failure, which are common issues in traditional social media platforms. However, this approach also presents challenges in scalability and user experience, as blockchain-based systems can be less efficient and more complex for the average user compared to centralized alternatives.
Lens Protocol
Lens Protocol, on the other hand, is a decentralized social graph built on the Polygon network, a scalable Ethereum sidechain. Lens Protocol is designed to empower content creators and users in the social media space by providing a platform where they can own and control their content and social connections. The protocol enables creators to mint unique Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) representing their social profiles and content. These NFTs can be followed, collected, or used to access exclusive content, creating a direct value exchange between creators and their audience. Lens Protocol’s use of the Polygon network ensures high transaction speeds and low fees, addressing some of the scalability issues associated with the Ethereum mainnet. The protocol’s focus on content ownership and monetization offers a new model for the creator economy, where creators are not reliant on traditional, ad-based revenue models and have more direct engagement with their audience. By leveraging blockchain technology, Lens Protocol aims to create a more equitable and user-centric social media ecosystem, where the value generated by content creators and users is returned to them, rather than being captured by centralized platforms.
Both Farcaster and Lens Protocol represent innovative approaches to decentralizing social media, each with its unique focus and methodology. While Farcaster emphasizes decentralized identity and user interactions on the Ethereum blockchain, Lens Protocol focuses on content creation and ownership on the Polygon network, showcasing the diverse applications of blockchain technology in reimagining social media.
Understanding Friendtech and Stars Arena: The SocialFi Pioneers
Both Friendtech and Stars Arena emerged as prominent players in the SocialFi domain, providing blockchain-based approaches to revolutionizing social media.
Friendtech, a decentralized social network, pioneered a unique system where users’ networks are tokenized into shares or keys, building a direct link between social credibility and tangible value. The platform, operating on the Base Network, primarily focuses on creator monetization allowing followers to buy keys to interact with influencers, introducing a novel concept where social interactions translate into financial opportunities. Friendtech’s ecosystem is characterized by a 10% fee on share-related transactions, emphasizing monetization through social engagement.
Stars Arena, following a similar path, is built on the Avalanche network, taking influencer monetization a step further by converting an influencer’s following into purchasable “tickets.” These tickets not only represent a stake in the influencer’s digital presence but also provide exclusive access to content and personal interactions. The value of these tickets fluctuate based on the influencer’s engagement level, making an influencer’s social media profile akin to a live economy. This system introduces new strategies for monetizing popularity and reputation, leveraging the Avalanche network’s native AVAX token for all transactions.
Inspirations and issues found within Lens and Farcaster
Farcaster draws inspiration from the desire to balance the benefits of blockchain technology with practical usability in social media. A key innovation in Farcaster is its approach to keeping much of the content off-chain, addressing common concerns about blockchain bloat and inefficiency. This strategy allows for the decentralization of social identity and enhances censorship resistance, crucial aspects for users who value privacy and freedom of speech in an increasingly controlled digital landscape. Farcaster’s focus on social identity is particularly notable, as it offers a blockchain-based solution for users to manage their digital personas in a secure and transparent manner. However, a significant issue with Farcaster is its modularity, which, while flexible, can lead to inconsistencies in user experience. This modularity means that the user experience can vary greatly depending on the specific applications and interfaces built on the Farcaster protocol, potentially leading to a fragmented and confusing landscape for users who are accustomed to the uniformity of traditional social media platforms. Other issues regarding Farcaster’s model is the issue with moderation something near impossible, meaning you have many regulatory issues down the line.
Lens Protocol, meanwhile, is inspired by the need to provide content creators with innovative monetization avenues that don’t rely on conventional advertising models or put every piece of content behind a paywall. The use of NFTs in Lens Protocol is a groundbreaking approach, offering creators a way to monetize their influence and content through unique digital assets that provide additional utility and engagement opportunities for users. This model empowers creators by giving them control over their content and the economic benefits derived from it. Additionally, Lens Protocol’s controlled social graph presents a new paradigm in social networking, allowing users to manage their connections and interactions in a more personalized and secure manner. However, Lens Protocol faces its own set of challenges. The reliance on NFTs and blockchain technology can be a barrier to entry for less tech-savvy users and creators. Furthermore, the concept of monetizing social interactions through blockchain can introduce complexities in terms of user experience and the inherent volatility of cryptocurrency markets, which might affect the perceived value of the NFTs used within the platform. And more importantly we personal didn’t understand the need for every post on someone’s social feed needing to be on-chain. Why? These issues highlight the delicate balance between innovating in the social media space and ensuring accessibility and stability for a broad user base.
The Downfall of Friendtech and Stars Arena
Unfortunately, despite innovative approaches, Friendtech and Starz Arena were plagued with significant challenges contributing to their shortcomings. In the case of Friendtech, their monetization strategy being heavily reliant on the tokenization of social reputation raised concerns regarding the sustainability of the platform’s economic model. The commodification of social relationships arising from an importance being placed on financial incentives over authenticity generated additional concerns for Friendtech. But, although a creative approach to a new source of engagement between users and creators, the keys had no utility and no reason to exist other than as ponzinomics. In a similar vein to other SocialFi dApps, privacy and security issues additionally contributed to the platform’s difficulties.
Stars Arena would be unable to buck the trend of SocialFi applications, facing its own host of difficulties regardless of a unique monetization model in combination to its rapid growth. A major security breach following a smart contract exploit resulted in a loss of $3 million. The exploit further highlighted the vulnerabilities and risks intrinsic to crypto platforms, especially those in the limelight of the crypto community, underscoring the importance of robust security measures. Over a period of a few weeks, Stars Arena would have 4 more vulnerability exploits as well as not having a team enough to handle the rapid needed scalability needed to support their rapidly grown audience from their virality. The virality sought by most consumer facing crypto projects, was what brought the downfall of Stars Arena ironically. Goes to show that you have to be prepared to want it. Furthermore, while forward-thinking, questions were raised about the pressures on users to stay relevant to boost their ticket’s share price following the platform’s model of gamified social interactions.
Introducing THE GUILD: A New Vision in SocialFi
THE GUILD, a significant evolution in SocialFi, offers a robust set of tools extending beyond the conventional frameworks built by its predecessors. Unlike Lens, Friendtech and similarly Stars Arena, THE GUILD presents a comprehensive suite of features designed to cater to a diverse user base, including a robust job board system, a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) for community governance, a sophisticated tokenomics structure centering sustainability and scalability, and most importantly, an emphasis on user engagement and multifaceted reward systems.
Below are a few of the key features of THE GUILD:
Decentralized Job Board: Facilitating a dynamic marketplace for freelancers (Solvers) and clients (Seekers), The Guild’s job board serves as a nexus for a wide array of services and projects.
Community Governance: Emphasizing democratic participation, The Guild empowers its community to make key decisions, aligning with the ethos of decentralization.
Tokenomics and Incentives: With a unique approach to token distribution and use, The Guild ensures that users are incentivized for their contributions, fostering a sense of ownership and investment in the platform’s growth.
Enhanced Security and Privacy: Acknowledging the concerns of its predecessors, The Guild prioritizes user security and data privacy, employing advanced blockchain technology to safeguard its ecosystem.
Global Accessibility and Reduced Barriers: By enabling transactions in cryptocurrencies and focusing on a user-friendly interface, The Guild makes it simpler for a global audience to engage with its services.
How THE GUILD Stands Apart from the Competition
THE GUILD differentiates itself from Stars Arena, Friendtech, Lens.protocol, and other projects by focusing on several of the key aspects that lead to the downfall of our predecessors:
Balanced Monetization vs. User Value: Whereas Stars Arena and Friendtech heavily leaned on the financialization of social interactions, The Guild maintains a balanced approach. It focuses on providing real value to its users, ensuring that monetization strategies do not overshadow the core functionality and user experience.
Centralization of Market Share by Whales: In many cases, in both Friendtech and Stars Arena, there were many occasions where a whale/influencer would buy many shares/keys/tickets of an individual, artificially inflate their price and then dump on the market forcing a giant sell off cannibalizing not just the user experience and even destroying the platform’s public reputation due to a consistent negative downturn on the protocol’s TVL. Our platform doesn’t allow for this by making the amount of shares available for purchase based upon level and rank incorporating a robust gamified system that simultaneously rewards and penalizes positive and negative interactions respectively.
Real Utility and Practical Features: THE GUILD offers practical and tangible features such as a job board and governance, which are directly aligned with the real-world needs of freelancers and clients. The keys/tickets within current platforms have 0 real utility aside from their value speculation akin to gambling. Our keys are a p2p bilateral agreement in which the key issuer and key holder agree that the key holder is allowed to take a small share of all the key-issuer’s revenue generated through transactions via the protocol’s many features. This stands in contrast to the more speculative nature of the value proposition in Stars Arena and Friendtech, where the worth of social interactions often lacked concrete utility.
Community-Driven and Democratic Operations: Unlike the top-down approach seen in some SocialFi platforms, THE GUILD operates on a community-driven model. This approach not only fosters a more engaged user base but also ensures that the platform evolves in line with the collective will of its community. Due to the fact that The Guild allows for one to go from discussion to execution right away, it allows for much more community engagement.
Security and Reliability: Learning from the security pitfalls of platforms like Stars Arena, THE GUILD places a high emphasis on security measures. This commitment to creating a safe and reliable environment is paramount in a space where users engage in financial transactions and share sensitive information. THE GUILD’s key’s are tied to multi-sig controlled treasury contracts which partition every time a certain amount fills the treasury contract.
Global Inclusivity and Accessibility: While Stars Arena and Friendtech focused primarily on influencer engagement, THE GUILD broadens its scope to include a more diverse, global audience. By reducing geographical and financial barriers, THE GUILD democratizes access to its platform. With the World Bank statistic of over 1.1 billion undocumented people globally that are, making it impossible for them to use traditional online job platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, or Taskrabbit, THE GUILD doesn’t require a bank account or government issued ID to transact or earn by providing value to other users on the platform allowing for a global job arbitrage market.
Conclusion
The journeys of Friendtech, Stars Arena, and other SocialFi platforms while marked by innovation and having been marred by challenges, bring valuable insights into what is to come for SocialFi. Their experiences highlight the delicate balance required between monetization, user value, security, and community engagement. As we reflect on their paths, it becomes evident that the next wave of SocialFi platforms, exemplified by THE GUILD, needs to prioritize real utility, democratic governance, and a holistic approach to user experience starting with accessibility and usability wtihout a compromise on security. THE GUILD’s emergence signifies not just an evolution but a thoughtful response to the lessons learned from its predecessors, embodying a vision for a more inclusive, secure, and community-driven SocialFi future.
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About The Guild:
The Guild stands as a pioneering Web3 protocol layer, artfully merging job facilitation, social networking, and community-driven network effects. Our platform is dedicated to revolutionizing problem-solving and collaboration in the digital age.
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