OpenSocial is at the forefront of a transformative wave in the digital world, offering a multi-chain SocialFi infrastructure that provides a truly scalable and composable protocol for web3 users, creators, and developers. This innovation is set to power the future multi-chain SocialFi ecosystem, creating new opportunities for social interactions, content creation, and community engagement in the decentralized web.
Profile of Co-Founder Sean Tao
Sean Tao, a partner at EVG and co-founder of OpenSocial, brings a wealth of experience and vision to the project. Prior to OpenSocial, Sean was the co-founder and CEO of Kikitrade, a leading platform in the crypto trading space. He holds a degree from Peking University, one of China's most prestigious institutions. His expertise and leadership are instrumental in driving OpenSocial's mission to revolutionize the social landscape of the web3 era.
OpenSocial's Main Features and Operations
What is OpenSocial Protocol?
Founded in 2023, OpenSocial is an open-source social infrastructure layer designed to power native web3 social experiences. It aims to empower thousands of community dApps (decentralized applications) with infrastructure and UI-layer composability, ensuring true ownership of intellectual property and relationships, as well as better-aligned monetization and financial incentives. The protocol's modular design allows for easy deployment of social tools on a multichain approach, enabling developers and creators to assemble dApps quickly and economically.
These modules, which can be either on-chain or off-chain, include features such as feeds, chatrooms, text/video/audio posts, comments, reactions, voting, sharing, on-chain social graphs, tribes (user and topic-based communities), megaphones (an advertising engine), and plug-ins for token issuance, DAO tools, betting, voting, bounties, matching, and mini-games.
"These modules and tools are designed to provide both an emotionally captivating and financially rewarding social experience, covering accessibility, ownership, and monetization opportunities to end users and communities," noted Sean Tao.
Another unique aspect of OpenSocial is the upcoming feature that will allow the portability, self-ownership, and self-sovereignty of identities and communities across different ecosystems and products.
Why Social, Why Now?
Social media has the potential to become the largest consumer use case for mass adoption of web3. The evolution of internet use cases provides a precedent. Initially dominated by marketplaces, portals, and games, social media emerged as a leading use case in the second phase of the consumer internet's growth. However, SocialFi projects have struggled to reach their full potential without the right technology and consumer readiness, similar to social media's early path in web2.
"Importantly, Asia represents more than half of the world's social media users, with nearly 3 billion people actively using social platforms every day. We think SocialFi's 'Axie moment' will happen this cycle and likely take place in Asia. And the SocialFi trend in Asia will prove that social is a layer, not just media," said Allen Ng, CEO of EVG and co-founder of OpenSocial Protocol.
OpenSocial's strategic investors and venture studio background, with expertise from Bytedance, Tencent, and Alibaba, provide a significant advantage. Leveraging their understanding of user preferences, OpenSocial aims to power hundreds, if not thousands, of community dApps within five years.
OpenSocial Protocol Raises $5M to Fuel Growth of SocialFi Super Apps
OpenSocial recently announced the successful completion of a $5M seed funding round. This funding will fuel the growth of SocialFi super apps, enabling developers and creators to effortlessly build social dApps. The round was led by infrastructure investors Portal Ventures and SNZ Capital, with participation from Animoca Brands, Awesome People Ventures, Arche Fund, Decima Fund, Moonrock Capital, OKX Ventures, Orange DAO, Panony, Summer Ventures, and renowned web3 entrepreneurs.
Founded by Everest Ventures Group (EVG), one of the largest web3 operating groups in Asia, OpenSocial benefits from the support of EVG's extensive network. EVG has set aside a $15M ecosystem fund for developers to build on OpenSocial and has deployed 30 of its best in-house builders to develop the protocol. Additionally, there are 50 more developers building dApps on top of OpenSocial outside of EVG.
OpenSocial's Immense Potential
OpenSocial is poised to redefine the landscape of social interactions in the web3 era. By offering a scalable and composable multi-chain SocialFi infrastructure, it empowers developers and creators to build innovative social dApps that provide true ownership, monetization opportunities, and a captivating user experience. With strong leadership from co-founder Sean Tao and substantial backing from prominent investors, OpenSocial is well-positioned to lead the charge in the SocialFi revolution, particularly in the rapidly growing Asian market. As the world continues to embrace decentralized technologies, OpenSocial stands at the forefront, shaping the future of social media in the web3 ecosystem.