Dialogue Suji Yan: What would happen if Twitter became a protocol?

Content source: CoinDesk

Compiled by: Mask Network

On November 4, CoinDesk host Christine Lee interviewed Mask Network CEO Suji Yan about the recent significant moves by Twitter and their impact on Mask Network, as well as the potential changes that could occur if Twitter becomes a protocol under Elon Musk's leadership. Suji stated that if Twitter becomes a protocol, every social application could be built on top of it, allowing everyone to create their own clients and applications. Mask can bring better solutions and will also enable social composability (Social LEGO).

The following interview content has been edited for readability.

CoinDesk: Mask Network received a lot of attention last week. Mask adds Web3 and privacy tools to Web2 platforms (Facebook and Twitter) through an open-source browser extension. Joining us from Singapore is Suji Yan, the founder and CEO of Mask Network. We saw a significant increase in the price of $MASK over the past week, but it has slightly retreated now. There are reports that Twitter has paused its crypto wallet project. Perhaps you can explain to us why $MASK is rising instead of falling?

Suji: As CEO, I generally don't pay much attention to the price. But such volume and attention are definitely good news for us.

Speaking of Twitter, I believe there are currently two different concepts. One is the Twitter company, which is currently acquired by investors like Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, and Binance. The other is the Twitter Protocol that they are trying to build: Twitter as a social protocol. Mask is a leading decentralized social network protocol. We started in 2017 and open-sourced all our code in 2019. So if anyone is looking for the best and most leading Web3 social protocol project, that is Mask. People are very interested in Mask.

In terms of the protocol space, if I remember correctly, in December 2019, Jack Dorsey announced the establishment of Bluesky. Mask quickly joined Bluesky as a community member. It is not a profit-driven company; its goal is the protocol. We don't know what kind of protocol Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, and others want to build, but I think it will be grand, and we also want to contribute to it. I think that's one reason. I believe the entire Web3 social space is also very underrated. There isn't a single project in the space valued over a billion. This is my assessment as a founder of a Web3 social project.

CoinDesk: Okay. It’s understandable that the rising attention is partly due to the excitement around Elon Musk taking over Twitter and mentioning wanting to make it a more Web3-like platform (introducing paid features, cryptocurrency payments, etc.). Mask is also involved in these, so we see the rising coin price. You explained the relationship between Mask and Bluesky, clarifying the connection between Mask and Twitter. Will the project continue under Elon Musk's leadership? Have you heard any news from Elon Musk?

Suji: I want to clarify that I haven't received any private messages from Elon. But I think it's a good thing that Twitter has paused its wallet project. There are already enough open-source wallets available. If I remember correctly, MetaMask's code is on GitHub, Rainbow is open-source, and Mask Network's code is also fully open-source. I can't find any reason for Twitter to develop anything internally when there are many open-source solutions available. The best thing about open source is the power of the community; we build together. DeFi grew from hackathons, and NFTs started from kids dropping out of school. I think social will extend even further. From my perspective, this is a good thing for Mask.

Back to the topic of Elon. Elon is considered a successful entrepreneur, the richest person on the planet, and a philosopher king. A bit like Vitalik, who is regarded as the philosopher king of Ethereum. But Twitter is still a company, and Elon is the boss.

However, if Twitter becomes a protocol, every social application could be built on top of it, and we wouldn't necessarily need to use Twitter's official wallet or official app anymore; everyone could create their own clients and applications. If you have better talent, why not use Mask to do better things? This is what we learned from the Bitcoin and Ethereum movement, from DeFi composability (DeFi Money LEGO). I believe there will also be social composability (Social LEGO), and I'm glad Elon is pushing these things to the public.

CoinDesk: So Suji, one day when your engineers interact with Twitter, can anyone communicate? Suppose your engineers can occasionally talk to Twitter's engineers. Do they know they have contacts? Or did those contacts disappear in the recent mass layoffs?

Suji: I just communicated with Binance; they formed a new team, but I'm not sure who is leading it ------ you can see in the news about building Web3 on Twitter. We will definitely connect our engineers with the Binance team. From Twitter's perspective, we actually have a very interesting third-party application called Twidere (one of the largest third-party clients for Twitter), which has been around for a few years and is currently maintained by our team.

Yes, there are some conversations happening, and there can be more details. But I don't think it's important to get permission from Elon Musk's people about what we can do. This is becoming permissionless. The strategic preparations we've made over the past five years are very important; everyone can use this open-source code to build social protocols on Twitter's protocol. I'm very happy that we are part of this.

CoinDesk: I'm not quite sure how this will become permissionless. Elon is going to implement an $8 monthly subscription service, and you have to pay to get the blue checkmark next to your name to prove your account is verified. I'm curious if you think Bluesky will continue under Elon Musk ------ there are rumors that Twitter will become a "Super App" like WeChat. I wonder how you view the prospects of this happening?

Suji: I think if you want to become a super app, you have to allow people to program on it. If you live in Asia, you know that WeChat has mini-programs where you can program. It seems permissionless, but if you violate WeChat's rules (they won't tell you which rule you violated, just like Apple), you will get banned. WeChat and other Asian super apps (LINE, Korea's Kakao Talk) achieve such high efficiency because they have a centrally integrated super ledger that defines all responsibilities. There are governments and companies that can apply for licenses across multiple industries as a single entity, allowing two friends to trade and tip each other.

But for Twitter and other widely used social software globally, they haven't produced a super app because there isn't an individual, centralized, government-like ledger. It doesn't exist before blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum; you have to apply for licenses one by one. We all know that Twitter can be used in over a hundred countries and regions; how can an individual company achieve compliance in so many areas? The best way is to make it a protocol. The question is, how open-source and permissionless can it be? I was an early developer of the Twitter app and studied their API in depth years ago. Before Jack Dorsey was last fired, they actually allowed users to build whatever they wanted on Twitter.

Later, Twitter went public, a new CEO took over, and all APIs were shut down, forcing third-party software to stop. Think about Ethereum; even Vitalik doesn't have the authority to require everyone to use the official wallet developed by the Ethereum Foundation. They can't do that. So I hope the entire Twitter under Elon: first, Elon is the philosopher king, he is the owner, but ultimately I hope Twitter can become a protocol, and I'm sure Bluesky and other related actions will continue as independent actions, managed by other companies.

CoinDesk: Do you think Jack Dorsey's Bluesky project will continue under Elon Musk's leadership?

Suji: It will definitely continue. It is independent, and protocols do not require permission. How Elon adopts it is just a matter of time, whether he wants to charge ------ in Elon’s version, users will be charged $8. But if more talented engineers build a better version ------ they could charge only $5. People will use it.