From Farcaster to Fantasy Top: An Overview of Potential Projects in the SocialFi Field

In the blockchain field, the continuous emergence of new technologies and concepts always attracts widespread attention from the market. Currently, SocialFi has become one of the most vibrant and innovative tracks in the crypto space. On May 2, crypto investor and influencer Su Zhu pointed out on the X platform that SocialFi not only shows strong development momentum but also demonstrates its innovative potential across the entire crypto field. This is evident from the active performance of several recent SocialFi projects.
For example, on March 28, Ethereum founder Vitalik recently posted on the social aggregation application Firefly of Mask Network, mentioning Farcaster and Lens, emphasizing the importance of diverse clients. This action immediately triggered a surge in the price of the MASK token, rising sharply from $5 to $6.4. This market reaction not only proves the high expectations for SocialFi projects but also highlights the influence of this track on the entire crypto market.
The rise of SocialFi brings new business models and user interaction methods to the blockchain community, and its redefinition of data sovereignty and economic incentives is gradually changing people's expectations and usage of social network platforms. Below, let us delve into the key projects in this field and their potential impact on the entire crypto community.
SocialFi, a new field that combines social media with decentralized finance, has experienced significant rise and attention in recent years. According to Google Trends data, the search popularity of SocialFi showed a noticeable increase in 2022, especially reaching a significant peak in early 2024. This trend reflects the community's widespread interest in the potential of combining social media mechanisms with blockchain technology.
SocialFi platforms now attract over 8.7 million users, with approximately 550,000 active users. These users are not only spread across multiple blockchain platforms such as Ethereum, Optimism, and BSC but have also executed a total of 82 million transactions on these platforms. This data showcases how SocialFi utilizes decentralized technology to provide users with more direct profit models and greater data control.
Despite the tremendous potential shown by SocialFi amid a surge in users, the development of this field also faces a series of challenges. For instance, early SocialFi projects like BitClout and Mastodon encountered failures due to issues such as creating profiles without user consent and restrictions on fund withdrawals. These challenges reveal the importance of designing incentive mechanisms and ensuring an excellent user experience.
However, with the emergence of layer two solutions and improved blockchain infrastructure, such as Optimism and Base, modern SocialFi platforms have achieved higher transaction processing speeds and lower operational latency, making real-time interaction possible. This not only enhances the user experience of the platforms but also facilitates further integration of social media and decentralized finance.
Although no project has fully realized the ideal SocialFi model so far, the market's demand and interest in such products remain very strong. The community holds great expectations for the first platform to successfully implement this model, indicating its potential for significant market potential and development space.
The future of SocialFi, while full of challenges, remains promising with technological advancements and active community participation, making its integration and development in the blockchain and finance fields worth looking forward to. Below, we begin to review the projects worth paying attention to.

Farcaster: Monetizing Social Media Creatively, with Over 300,000 Total Users

Farcaster is an innovative SocialFi protocol that has attracted over 300,000 users and 50,000 daily active users. It provides a smooth user interface similar to modern social media, allowing everyone from leaders to newcomers to easily participate and monetize content in various ways. One of the most popular monetization methods is through community token $DEGEN for tipping rewards. Technically, Farcaster strengthens its decentralized structure using smart contracts and a "Hub"-based client network matrix, ensuring data consistency and network stability.

These technical applications allow the entire network to maintain operation even if some nodes encounter issues. According to the latest data, Farcaster's protocol revenue has shown significant growth from September 2023 to May 2024, with total revenue approaching $1 million, reflecting the market's high recognition of its model.

Friend Tech: A Representative Force of SocialFi on the Base Chain, with Total Revenue Exceeding $27 Million

Friend Tech is a decentralized application (dApp) that allows users to tokenize their social media profiles, achieving a 416-fold increase in user base and revenue exceeding $27 million in just three months. The platform quickly accumulated users by leveraging the early development phase of the Base chain and widespread market expectations, binding with Web2 social accounts. Using an invitation system, it capitalized on people's curiosity and vanity to achieve viral growth. Additionally, Friend Tech maintains a sense of mystery around the project, reducing operations and focusing on the product itself, making it stand out. The project has completed a seed round of financing led by Paradigm, with the specific amount undisclosed, indicating its broad potential for commercial prospects.

Mask Network: Perfectly Combining Traditional Social Media with Web3 and Supporting Crypto Transactions

Mask Network is a decentralized social networking tool designed to integrate traditional social media with Web3 functionalities. Through the Mask Network extension, users can showcase and manage Web3 assets like NFTs on Twitter, conduct cryptocurrency transactions, and enhance privacy with encrypted tweets. Mask supports multi-chain transactions, including Ethereum, BSC, and Polygon, and integrates with DEXs like Uniswap and SushiSwap.
The development of Mask Network has received significant support from Vitalik Buterin, who actively shares his views on the platform and issued his first ETH red envelope through Mask, increasing social media users' acceptance of Web3 functionalities. Additionally, Mask has completed a $2 million seed round financing led by HashKey and Hash Global, as well as a subsequent $3 million financing, showcasing its strong potential as a bridge between social and Web3.

UXLINK: A Leader in Web3 Social Interaction and an Accelerator of Network Effects

As a pioneer in Web3 social networking, UXLINK currently has over 5.8 million users and covers over 8.34 million users in its network, involving 102,010 active groups. This platform bridges real-world relationships with Web3, enabling high-frequency information exchange and asset trading through a powerful social network.

UXLINK leverages familiar social interactions combined with a decentralized framework to significantly drive its rapid growth. It not only facilitates users' smooth transition to Web3 investment and entrepreneurship but also enhances user engagement through social media mechanisms adapted from Web2, thereby fostering widespread network effects and nurturing an active digital ecosystem.

Tomo: A Social Tool Across Linea and Base Chains, Excelling in Meme Play

Tomo, a Web3 social platform based on the Linea and Base ecosystems, recently launched Tomoji Launchpad, a meme release platform based on the ERC404 protocol that allows users to create and trade personalized emojis. This platform not only provides a high-quality Web3 interaction environment but also revolutionizes the way users engage in social activities and monetize content through its unique social wallet feature.
Tomo currently has 350,000 community members and generates over $50,000 in fees monthly through TomoID—a management tool designed for KOLs and community leaders. This tool not only aggregates links to all social platforms but also allows users to earn rewards by participating in content creation, similar to the content experience on Instagram.
Moreover, Tomo's development has received heavyweight investment support, including strategic investments from OKX Ventures and HTX Ventures, as well as a $3.5 million seed round financing led by Polychain Capital. These investments not only demonstrate market recognition of Tomo's strategic position in the Web3 field but also reflect trust in its transformative potential. Tomo's NFT fragmentation and token native liquidity features signify its commitment to creating a transparent and open trading market environment, injecting new vitality into the Web3 ecosystem.

Pop: Raised $4 Million, with Monthly Active Users Exceeding 100,000

Pop, a leading SocialFi AI project in the BSC ecosystem, has rapidly developed into a star project in the industry. Currently, Pop has over 500,000 global online users, with daily active users reaching over 50,000 and monthly active users exceeding 100,000. By enhancing DeFi functionalities and integrating rich AI technologies, Pop offers a mature and smooth user experience, having created over 20,000,000 pieces of content globally.

Pop's token (PPT) has successfully listed on mainstream exchanges and gained widespread market recognition. Additionally, Pop successfully completed a $4 million financing round led by Fundamental Labs and Chainlink, which not only provides solid financial support for the project but also enhances its credibility in the investment community. These achievements mark Pop as a leading project in the multi-chain SocialFi space, showcasing its innovative capabilities and market potential in connecting social influence with blockchain technology.

Fantasy Top: Creating a Top-notch Web3 Interaction Environment, Successfully Raising $4 Million

Fantasy Top (FT) is a social finance (SocialFi) game built on the Ethereum L2 Blast, allowing users to participate in competitions by buying, selling, and trading cryptocurrency-related virtual trading cards. These competitions offer players rewards in ETH, the Blast-based token GOLD, native "fan points," and additional trading card packs. FT not only creates a high-quality Web3 interaction environment for users but has also become a leader in the multi-chain SocialFi space.
According to a report by K33 Research analyst David Zimmerman, despite the challenges of "unfair incentives" in the SocialFi field, the introduction of FT has been seen as a potential hotspot in the sector. FT successfully raised $4 million, and in the first week of its launch, it accumulated over 7,000 ETH in trading volume, with 33,000 users generating 236 ETH in fees in the market. This data not only shows FT's market potential but also highlights its unique position in the Web3 social and card game fields.
The success of FT underscores the signal that the SocialFi season may have arrived, showcasing the growth and maturity of the social finance sector. As more innovative projects like FT enter the market, they are expected to drive the development of the entire Web3 ecosystem.
Although the complete success of decentralized social networks still faces various challenges, including the need to expand infrastructure to accommodate more users, simplify the digital wallet creation process for new users, and reduce gas fees, substantial progress has already been observed on platforms like Farcaster. Farcaster's daily active users have grown to 20,000, a tenfold increase from two weeks ago, demonstrating rapid community expansion and high engagement.
Furthermore, the permissionless nature of decentralized social networks provides developers with vast innovation space, allowing them to further develop on existing blockchain foundations. This has been widely reflected in the DeFi field and is now gradually emerging in the SocialFi sector.
In this environment, emerging SocialFi applications like Fantasy Top and Focus are showcasing their market momentum. Fantasy Top combines social media elements with gaming mechanics, quickly gathering a large user base and stimulating active market trading. Meanwhile, Focus raised $75 million in its first week of launch, and its strong market performance indicates its potential in the social subscription platform market.
Looking ahead, as more innovative blockchain social platforms like Xterio and Young Protocol are launched, the SocialFi field is expected to continue expanding. These platforms provide new paths for decentralized social networks by offering new user interaction methods and community-building tools. This not only drives user growth but also provides developers with rich opportunities for innovation, signaling the ongoing progress and expansion of decentralized social networks.