Programmable social
Crypto made money programmable. You can use tokens like Lego blocks, play around with different mechanics, and now we’re heading in the same direction with social media posts. We spend hours scrolling, posting, chatting, signing transactions, swapping tokens, and bouncing between apps for different types of engagement. But it’s so fragmented: sharing weekend plans in one app, messaging with friends in another, tracking prices somewhere else, executing a swap in a wallet, and posting a DAO pro...
Tokens as cultural moments
When a new narrative starts, everyone wants to experiment. From a few projects to thousands of assets, we’re in a memecoin bull market - similar to when we saw everyone talking about NFTs last cycle. The difference now? It’s much easier and cheaper to create anything onchain. It’s not about how many tokens are created - it’s about their narrative. Pump.fun alone has over 3 million tokens created, averaging 30k daily, but only 1% make it to a secondary market. Just like social media: abundant ...
Ride the attention wave
Programmable social
Crypto made money programmable. You can use tokens like Lego blocks, play around with different mechanics, and now we’re heading in the same direction with social media posts. We spend hours scrolling, posting, chatting, signing transactions, swapping tokens, and bouncing between apps for different types of engagement. But it’s so fragmented: sharing weekend plans in one app, messaging with friends in another, tracking prices somewhere else, executing a swap in a wallet, and posting a DAO pro...
Tokens as cultural moments
When a new narrative starts, everyone wants to experiment. From a few projects to thousands of assets, we’re in a memecoin bull market - similar to when we saw everyone talking about NFTs last cycle. The difference now? It’s much easier and cheaper to create anything onchain. It’s not about how many tokens are created - it’s about their narrative. Pump.fun alone has over 3 million tokens created, averaging 30k daily, but only 1% make it to a secondary market. Just like social media: abundant ...
Ride the attention wave
Share Dialog
We're used to identifying market cycles based on pricing - when ETH goes down, we're in a bear market. Sometimes we need these downturns, they clean out speculators and lock in new builders. It's during bear markets that innovation happens.
Look at what we've gained: AMMs, stablecoins, derivatives, loans, NFTs, collective groups, bonding curves as a product, smart wallets, memecoins - you name it. While many projects behind these initiatives wind down, their building blocks remain for new builders to explore and experiment with.
Despite all these innovations, we haven't seen a whole new wave of users that stayed in the market. But that's about time. We've improved so much that now you can use a consumer app without even realizing you're onchain. Take glimmer by Kartik as an example, using existing infra to create a seamless onchain experience.
The Farcaster ecosystem is a clear example of this progress. Both on similar warpcast-clients and apps. You got Supercast, Recaster, and Wildcard offering greater feed control, bookmarks, claiming rewards, or even chat groups. On the other side, we're seeing a lot of apps leveraging its social graph:
Share Dialog
We're used to identifying market cycles based on pricing - when ETH goes down, we're in a bear market. Sometimes we need these downturns, they clean out speculators and lock in new builders. It's during bear markets that innovation happens.
Look at what we've gained: AMMs, stablecoins, derivatives, loans, NFTs, collective groups, bonding curves as a product, smart wallets, memecoins - you name it. While many projects behind these initiatives wind down, their building blocks remain for new builders to explore and experiment with.
Despite all these innovations, we haven't seen a whole new wave of users that stayed in the market. But that's about time. We've improved so much that now you can use a consumer app without even realizing you're onchain. Take glimmer by Kartik as an example, using existing infra to create a seamless onchain experience.
The Farcaster ecosystem is a clear example of this progress. Both on similar warpcast-clients and apps. You got Supercast, Recaster, and Wildcard offering greater feed control, bookmarks, claiming rewards, or even chat groups. On the other side, we're seeing a lot of apps leveraging its social graph:
Hypersub: an improved patronage protocol with creator incentives
Bracket: social markets for sports and live events
Rounds: a fun way to grow community by rewarding contributors
Zora: the onchain Instagram with referral rewards
Rodeo: share what you're up to onchain
Moshicam: brings that nostalgic Polaroid vibe onchain
Kiosk: a hub to track friends' activity on Zora and Rodeo, with a chronological farcaster feed
And we have some volumes in there:
Hypersub has reached $1M in creator earnings.
Zora is the most-used app with over 43.8k addresses.
Base has become the go-to chain for consumer apps, with over 5M active wallets.
I'm optimistic about the future of onchain consumer apps. Onchain adds a new layer where users are rewarded for using the internet. Ccarrela puts it well:
We’ve got the building blocks, and with every new experience, we're improving onboarding, payments, and creating fun onchain experiences. I think we’ve learned the lesson that bonding curves and sexy tokenomics won't get normies hyped, but something they can have fun with or that solves a need.
There won't be a button to onboard billions of users overnight. However, with each innovative app and new experience, we're getting closer to more adoption - to that moment when crypto really matters outside our bubble. We might be at a point where the infrastructure is robust enough; now we just need that 'iPhone moment' for crypto.
Hypersub: an improved patronage protocol with creator incentives
Bracket: social markets for sports and live events
Rounds: a fun way to grow community by rewarding contributors
Zora: the onchain Instagram with referral rewards
Rodeo: share what you're up to onchain
Moshicam: brings that nostalgic Polaroid vibe onchain
Kiosk: a hub to track friends' activity on Zora and Rodeo, with a chronological farcaster feed
And we have some volumes in there:
Hypersub has reached $1M in creator earnings.
Zora is the most-used app with over 43.8k addresses.
Base has become the go-to chain for consumer apps, with over 5M active wallets.
I'm optimistic about the future of onchain consumer apps. Onchain adds a new layer where users are rewarded for using the internet. Ccarrela puts it well:
We’ve got the building blocks, and with every new experience, we're improving onboarding, payments, and creating fun onchain experiences. I think we’ve learned the lesson that bonding curves and sexy tokenomics won't get normies hyped, but something they can have fun with or that solves a need.
There won't be a button to onboard billions of users overnight. However, with each innovative app and new experience, we're getting closer to more adoption - to that moment when crypto really matters outside our bubble. We might be at a point where the infrastructure is robust enough; now we just need that 'iPhone moment' for crypto.
>400 subscribers
>400 subscribers
7 comments
I just subscribed to @tomu on /paragraph! Check it out:
188 $degen higher will be more high
we’ve got the building blocks, and with every new experience, we're improving onboarding, payments, and creating fun onchain experiences i'm bullish on consumer apps ↑ art cover: IV by @lght.eth https://paragraph.xyz/@tomu/bullish-on-consumer-apps
we've improved so much that now you can use a consumer app without even realizing you're onchain. Take glimmer by @slokh as an example, using existing infra to create a seamless onchain experience https://warpcast.com/slokh/0x4c4a55da
i'm optimistic about the future of onchain consumer apps. Onchain adds a new layer where users are rewarded for using the internet. fully agree with @ccarella on this https://warpcast.com/ccarella.eth/0x9b3b496c
loved this essay, we are def making strides in the right direction
thanks for reading!