Vitalik Buterin makes decentralized social media a 2026 priority

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said helium plans to afloat recommit to decentralized societal media successful 2026, arguing that lone platforms built connected shared, decentralized information layers tin foster existent contention and enactment wide connection systems aligned with users’ interests alternatively than engagement metrics.

In a Wednesday post connected X, Buterin said helium has shifted his enactment toward decentralized societal platforms this year, noting that each station helium has written oregon work successful 2026 has been accessed done Firefly, a multi-client interface that supports X, Lens, Farcaster and Bluesky.

“If we privation a amended society, we request amended wide connection tools,” Buterin said, arguing that decentralization enables contention by allowing aggregate clients to run connected a shared societal information layer.

Source: Vitalik Buterin

Buterin criticized galore crypto-native societal projects for relying connected speculative tokens arsenic a substitute for meaningful innovation, arguing that SocialFi experiments person repeatedly failed by rewarding pre-existing societal superior and short-term terms speculation alternatively of contented prime and constructive discourse. 

He contrasted these efforts with creator-subscription models specified arsenic Substack, which helium said amended align incentives astir high-quality content.

Calling for broader assemblage participation, Buterin urged users and builders to walk much clip successful decentralized societal ecosystems, saying the manufacture indispensable determination beyond a azygous centralized “info warzone” and toward a much competitory frontier wherever caller forms of online enactment tin emerge.

Related: Vitalik Buterin calls for a caller DAO plan for onchain disputes and governance

The authorities of decentralized societal media

Decentralized societal media, oregon SocialFi, refers to platforms built connected unfastened oregon blockchain-based networks wherever idiosyncratic identities, contented and societal graphs are not controlled by a azygous company. While protocols specified as Lens and Farcaster have gained aboriginal traction, the assemblage has truthful acold struggled to person that momentum into sustained mass-market adoption.

On Wednesday, halfway infrastructure supplier Neynar acquired Farcaster from Merkle. Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero announced the news, saying that “after 5 years, it’s wide Farcaster needs a caller attack and enactment to scope its afloat potential.”

Lens besides underwent a leadership modulation this week, arsenic Aave transferred stewardship of the open-source societal protocol to Mask Network, tasking the Web3 societal institution with advancing consumer-ready, onchain societal applications.

Farcaster features much than 2 cardinal full registered users and hundreds of thousands of regular interactions, measured by posts and reactions. Lens has accumulated astir 506,000 users, according to Dune Analytics data.

Source: Dune Analytics

Source: Dune Analytics

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