Since the launch of Friendtech last year, the development of social track projects has begun to accelerate. We firmly believe that in the next few months, we will see many breakthrough social applications released one after another.
While we are excited, we also introduce these projects to you. Friends who are interested in the social track should not miss today's article.
What is SocialFi ?
Connecting crypto users through social protocols is usually accompanied by financial incentives and speculation, which leads to the term "SocialFi".
Current SocialFi projects are mainly divided into the following categories:
Finance-driven
Utility-driven
Infrastructure
Finance-driven
Friendtech is a social transaction protocol that allows creators to monetize their content and earn a share of the fees.
It is a key example of achieving virality through GTM (market entry strategy) and user retention strategies such as points, bond curves and referral mechanisms.
(https://x.com/friendtech/status/1696599323637846444)
Fantasy on Blast uses a similar concept but introduces gamification elements through cards and tournaments.
Both protocols were very successful in their early stages, generating more revenue than most protocols.
However, these protocols also have some trade-offs.
(https://x.com/0xjaypeg/status/1789742413457637833)
As the number of users increases, the entry threshold increases rapidly
Users are too concerned about airdrops to recover their initial capital
Sustainability of incentives
Therefore, while this strategy is great for project launches, we have not yet seen its durability in terms of growth.
Driven by Practicality
Protocols driven by practicality usually provide stronger playability, low user participation threshold, and do not require a large amount of upfront investment.
In addition to crypto-related cases such as paid chat and identity verification, we are more excited about protocols that challenge traditional platforms.
Infomon aims to decentralize algorithms through a game-like experience, where users can train their own algorithms by feeding tweets to AI pets.
It can provide better content for each user, enhance the influence of individual creators, and reduce noise.
(https://x.com/Infomon_ai/status/1789943144978551102)
Combining traditional social elements and on-chain data, and presenting it in the form of social information flow, 0xppl is redefining "social" for crypto natives.
0xppl improves the readability and recognizability of on-chain operations, which was not possible before.
(https://x.com/0xppl_)
Infrastructure
Social networks such as Farcaster and Lens have laid the foundation for the development of this field.
Farcaster's Frames took the crypto Twitter circle by storm when it was launched in February this year, and since then we have seen the use cases and builders in the ecosystem strengthen.
(https://x.com/DWFVentures/status/1754358837627519093)
As the number of social networks increases, interoperability becomes important.
Developers can achieve this using Tako's SDK, which is neutral to social networks and provides content planning/monetization APIs. Jamfrens is using Tako to build the protocol.
(https://x.com/TakoProtocol)
Summary
We believe that the following factors will be key to future social protocols:
Sustainable incentives
Strong practicality
Interoperability