On Farcon, Farcaster and the Future🧵👇

First things first. Impeccable conference end-to-end. Events, people, etc. 

You’ve read plenty of casts and threads to that effect.

I’m more interested in what comes next

To me, the underlying theme of Farcon week was:

How does Farcaster execute the transition from scene to platform?

But scenes either evolve or fizzle.

Even the strongest of vibes are ephemeral.

People change. The world changes.

Farcaster is a unique protocol and community. There’s no great case study to learn from, but FWB is probably the best one.

They did a lot of things well, but ultimately squandered quite a bit of cultural capital, failing to convert vibes into a sustainable ecosystem.

The work of effecting that transition is well underway. Smart growth is *obviously* top-of-mind for the team.

Dan and Varun were ruthlessly on-message at Dev Day and Summit, as usual.

And, despite limited user growth, the hard work over the last year is evident – the app soon-to-be-no-longer-known as Warpcast is world class.

The code is advancing rapidly, but the conference presented some unanswered questions about how the culture will scale and coalesce. 

Who will inject the new energy and how?

Three core questions:

#1: Solana, wtf?

The lack of Solana participation in the network has been apparent for a while, but it hit me like a brick this week.

Not news to anyone that this is where the growth in crypto is. Talked to several SOL folks who knew just about nothing about FC.

They have their own subculture and technical stack, but *much* deeper Solana technical and cultural integration seems like by far the lowest hanging fruit for a new wave of healthy growth.

Easier said than done of course, but the latent energy was palpable.

#2: How will the new major clients change the topology of the network?

This one’s a bit more abstract. We know Coinbase Wallet has a lot of installs, but I really don’t know much about the people who use it as their primary crypto interface.

The app looks good and I think the emphasis on video will fill a clear gap in Warpcast. 

But it remains to be seen whether those users will create their own scene or integrate with and grow the Warpcast monoculture – or whether they’re interested in contributing social content at all.

#3: How will Farcaster attract premium content and mini-apps?

The content is good and the mini-apps are good, but the distribution is limited.

Which makes it harder for creators and developers to justify larger investments in the platform.

Just like the team invested deeply in the first layer of distribution – the client – I wonder if at some point they invest deeply in the second layer of distribution: premium content.

Creator/dev rewards are nice, but are not large enough or reliable enough to be the foundation for premium creators.

Once again, easier said than done, but I think some notion of flagship, premium content would have positive downstream distribution effects for the rest of the ecosystem. 

Not the team’s M.O. to invest in something like this, but you see this exact pattern in other media forms like linear TV, satellite radio, podcasting platforms, etc, where the reach of flagship content percolates through the rest of the channel.

You go to any event and a lot of people know each other. It’s a scene. A good one.

Speaking to my own experience, I felt a lot more comfortable at Farcon this year than last, after a year of developing new relationships and old, online and at various events IRL.