BuidlerDAO & SevenX: In-Depth Research Report on Lens Protocol.

Original Title: "BuidlerDAO & SevenX: Lens Protocol In-Depth Research Report"

Original author: @Yinghao, @Jason, @Louis, @Jane

Introduction

Lens Protocol is a Web3 social protocol developed by the leading DeFi project Aave team for developers.

Lens Protocol is not a front-end product, but a middle and back-end protocol service layer. Developers can build social products on it at low cost based on the API it provides, which is why Lens Protocol's logo is a bouquet of flowers. They hope to create an open-source "developer garden" and be the soil and fertilizer in this social garden, where developers can grow a bunch of flowers on it.

We are already familiar with the narrative of Web3 social networking: criticizing the centralized storage and monopolization of user data by old-world social giants such as Facebook and Twitter in Web2, creating data islands, and causing every social product to compete for user attention due to data centralization, resulting in a zero-sum game for the entire social ecosystem.

Therefore, we have also seen a large number of Web3 social products based on the narrative of "data openness and data rights", but there are few killer products that have emerged in the end. One of the important reasons is that most Web3 social products still have not escaped the dilemma of Web2 data silos and are still creating one data silo after another.

Perhaps you may wonder: isn't the characteristic of blockchain transparency of data? Isn't its natural advantage to break down data silos? However, we need to understand that there are three steps to breaking down data silos:

Data transparency.Data confirmationData interoperability.

Most Web3 social products have solved the first two steps of data transparency and data ownership by putting user data and behavior on the chain, but they still haven't solved the third step of data interoperability, which requires clearing the obstacle of data format consistency.

Based on blockchain technology, social products can indeed allow users to become owners of their data, and the data can be publicly shared through being recorded on the blockchain. However, the boundary of Web2 data is the server, while the boundary of Web3 data is the smart contract. If a user uses 10 dapps, their data will be scattered across 10 independent smart contracts. Although the data in each contract is transparent, the format and standards of the data are different, such as:

- In a Dapp, the field for username is called "username", but in B Dapp it is called "nickname". Although they have the same meaning, the naming is different.

- Or there are a total of 10 pieces of user information in A Dapp and 15 pieces in B Dapp.

The inconsistency of data formats makes the data between two products still incompatible. If it must be used, it requires separate investment to do data format conversion and compatibility. Therefore, data silos still exist, but the data silos of Web2 are concrete walls, completely black boxes - invisible and unusable. The data silos of Web3 are glass walls, seemingly transparent but still out of reach.

Therefore, we believe that if the understanding of the Lens Protocol is still limited to "users own their own data", it is not deep enough. In addition to the commonly mentioned data ownership, its importance to the industry lies in being a soft standard at the protocol layer under sufficient openness. This is also the true meaning of the Protocol and the value it should bear.

Secondly, it can be seen that in the process of making Collect and Follow conditions limited and NFT assetized, Lens Protocol derives towards creator economy and DAO governance direction, rather than just a simple social protocol. These contents will be explained in detail in the following text.

Therefore, the value of Lens can be summarized in four aspects:

Users have their own data, which is the fundamental value of Web3.

A set of developer agreements has been established to reduce the difficulty of developing social Dapps.

A soft standard has been established for data formats, completing the last mile of breaking down data silos.

In terms of supported scenarios, it has evolved from social protocols to creator economy and DAO governance.

Based on the above 4 points, Lens Protocol makes it easy for developers to integrate and transform any app into a Dapp, allowing them to join the Lens Protocol ecosystem. Combined with unified user identity and user data, the entire ecosystem's users can be shared.

Developers are no longer trapped in the zero-sum game of competing for users like in traditional Web2, but can collaborate to grow the pie together in an incremental game. Each application using the Lens Protocol benefits the entire ecosystem. As users within the ecosystem, they can freely navigate through various products without barriers, and creators no longer have to worry about losing their data due to individual platform algorithms, policies, or competitive strategies.

Lens Protocol Data Analysis

Lens Protocol Data Fundamentals

Overall Data on Activity and Transactions

Since the deployment of the Lens Hub contract on May 16, 2022, it has accumulated a large number of users in just six months. As of December 31, 2022, there have been a total of:

Over 160,000 independent users with a peak of over 12,000 daily users, and an average of over 1,100 daily active users. The number of related txns is close to 8 million, with an average daily transaction volume of over 37,000 transactions.

For a non-DeFi project that has been deployed for half a year, such daily active user data is very impressive.

Lens user count, transaction volume, and daily changes.

Personal Information

Follow and bookmark NFT data

Lens is a social protocol based on NFTs. There are three types of NFTs within the protocol:

Personal Information NFT (Profile NFT)

Follow NFT

Collect NFT

Ordinary users (users who do not hold Profile NFTs) can follow creators and collect their favorite posted content. Only users who hold Profile NFTs can become creators and publish content. In the relevant operation steps, three different types of NFTs are respectively minted and sent to the corresponding user addresses.

The typical use cases for Lens include:

Creators can register and create a Profile, forging their own Profile NFT. They can set a personalized name (Profile Handle Name, which can be loosely compared to a "Lens domain name").

The creator publishes content (Publication), including posting (Post), reposting (Mirror), commenting (Comment), etc.

Currently, a total of 107,904 Profile NFTs representing Lens identity have been minted by 99,176 people. Due to Lens suspending free Profile minting and limiting it to whitelisted users, the growth rate of Profile NFTs has sharply slowed down since November 2022.

Although Lens allows an address to have multiple Profile NFTs, however:

97% of addresses only hold 1 Profile. 2,813 addresses have multiple Profile accounts through transfer and purchase, holding a total of 11,548. This means that 3% of addresses control 10% of Lens Profiles.

Lens Profile NFT minting status

Participation, Interaction, and Fan Data

The user participation level of Lens Protocol is relatively high:

Follow NFT has been minted by 15,3394 users, totaling 44,744,778. On average, each user follows 29 accounts.

Among all Profiles accounts, the number of Profiles with fans has reached 100,419, accounting for 93% of the total Profiles.

The content you provided is:

The amount of powder in Lens account is very high, which indicates two things:

The vast majority of users interact and follow each other on the platform. By tracking the number of followers on accounts, it can be observed that 52% of users have less than 10 followers.

It can be inferred that Lens increases new users through a "word-of-mouth" approach, where users invite friends to use it together, and Lens truly plays a social role.

The fan situation of Lens Profile

The top 1000 users ranked by number of followers own 43.66% of the total number of followers. The account with the most followers is #1 Profile NFT, the official account of @Lens Protocol, with over 60,000 followers.

Lens official account has the most fans

There are 58,720 Profile accounts that have posted 891,434 posts, with creators accounting for 55% of them. Among all the posted content, 44% have been commented on by users, with a total of 328,562 comments, indicating that the quality of the posted content is relatively high and can trigger discussions. There are 95,781 posts that have been reposted a total of 403,799 times.

Analysis of Lens user behavior. The following figures show the number of addresses and operations classified by behavior. It can be observed that:

More than half of the Profile addresses have posted, 1/4 have reposted, and 1/5 have commented. In all Lens operations, the ratio of posting, reposting, and commenting is approximately 4:3:3.

Lens User Operation Distribution

Collecting NFTs, a total of 84,698 people have minted over 1.2 million. Among users who do not hold Profile NFTs, the vast majority of actions are simply following and the proportion of collections is not high. It is evident that to participate more deeply in the Lens Protocol, Profile NFTs are still a crucial key.

Lens User Operation Distribution

Lens Protocol Data Interpretation

Market has high participation desire for Lens Protocol

Lens Profile is the key to experiencing Lens in depth. Since the closure of free casting in November 2022, the transaction price of Lens Profile has continued to rise in the secondary market, limited to white list casting.

Take OpenSea as an example: the price of Profile is maintained at around 40u, and the trading volume has surged. The daily average trading volume is about 1,200, indicating that the market's attention to Lens Profile is very high and there is a strong interest in Lens. Profile NFT is also one of the necessary conditions for deep participation in the Lens protocol. After being restricted from minting, it can only be purchased through the secondary market. The strong buying intention expresses the expectation and optimism for the Lens protocol.

Last week, Lens opened the waitlist for Profiile, and users can queue up to receive the whitelist. The price in the secondary market has relatively fallen and is currently maintained at around 35u.

The market has a strong desire to participate in Lens Protocol

Lens Protocol User Participation in Trading is Low

All Lens Profiles have been traded over 80,000 times across nearly 37,000 accounts. Over 65% of users have no intention of trading and prefer to hold their Lens Profiles, anticipating further participation in the future development of the Lens Protocol.

Lens Traded Account Volume

Regarding the Lens domain name, which is the name set when creating a Profile NFT, there has not been a hype around pure numeric domain names like ENS. Only 15% of Lens domain names consist of pure numbers, indicating that users who participate in creating Profiles are more focused on usage rather than speculation.

Simply put, it can be understood as upstream contracts, backend services, etc. can embed a piece of EPNS code where message push is needed, and pass in the corresponding message content. Push Protocol will then deliver this message to the corresponding address. Of course, there must be a frontend downstream responsible for receiving and displaying messages. Push Protocol only handles the message distribution process as a protocol layer. For the convenience of users, Push Protocol also has a plugin-style message box, where messages received through Push Protocol will also be displayed.

Lens traded account volume

Lens Protocol daily active users and user retention are good

Comparing the Lens Profile casting situation with the daily active users and transaction volume, it can be found that despite the limited Profile casting, the daily activity of Lens is still maintained well, indicating that the user retention of Lens is good and the activity level does not rely entirely on the casting of new accounts.

Lens Daily Active Users

Lens Protocol Technical Design Paradigm

Lens Protocol's Technical Advantages

Lens Protocol has two major advantages in its technical design:

Full modularity gives developers a high degree of flexibility, while a certain degree of standardization ensures interoperability between operations and data.

These two advantages strictly adhere to the concept of high cohesion and low coupling in software development design, which requires developers to have a high understanding of low-level software development and high-level industry application prediction abilities.

This is also where its excellent expressive power as a protocol layer lies: the value of the protocol lies in providing the upper-layer applications with Lego-like capabilities, where limited parts can be assembled to create an infinite space of phenomena.

Lens Protocol's main entities and logical breakdown

Entity and Contract Overview

 Lens Protocol has 8 entities and 21 contract addresses, which cover all business logic and data assets within the Lens Protocol ecosystem.

其中 LensHub Proxy is the main interaction contract for entities such as Comment and Follow in the encryption industry. It can be seen that there are currently 7,925,203 transaction records generated.

Profile NFT

Profile NFT is the main object of Lens Protocol, which can be understood as the primary key of the traditional social product User table. Each Profile NFT is an independent user account, which includes the content generated by the user, such as Publication, Comment, Mirror, Collect, etc. These contents are linked to Profile NFT in the form of secondary NFT or on-chain data, and through contract records, all the data generated by a Profile NFT in the Lens Protocol ecosystem can be indexed layer by layer.

Profile NFT is an ERC721 standard NFT, presented in the form of a domain name with the suffix .lems. Currently, there are over 100,000 of them in existence.

Completed the process of Profile NFT Mint in the LensHub Implementation contract. Currently, Profile NFT is not open for registration. First, verify the wallet address of the current minter through _profileCreatorWhitelisted to check if it is on the whitelist. After passing the check, add the profileId of Profile NFT itself, and then call the _mint function of ERC721 with two parameters: the minter address and profileId, thus completing the minting of NFT.

The essence of NFT is just a token, so completing the Mint only represents that an address holds a token with a certain number, which has no business meaning. Therefore, the createProfile function in PublishingLogic.sol is called, and 5 parameters are passed in: vars, profileId, _profileIdByHandleHash, _profileById, and _followModuleWhitelisted.

vars: an array of objects that serves as the data structure for creating a Profile NFT, consisting of 5 parameters.

To: The wallet address pointed to by this Profile NFT, which is the actual owner of the Profile NFT.

handle: The content of the .lens domain of this Profile NFT needs to be unique and non-empty.

imageURI: The image address of the Profile NFT presentation layer.

In the logic of createProfile, the first step is to call _validateHandle to validate whether the domain name is legal. The following will match each word literally and remove some special characters and illegal content.

Because domain names are unique, after passing the legal verification, they also need to undergo uniqueness verification. The method is to hash all domain names using keccak256 and store them in the _profileIdByHandleHash mapping data format. When there is a domain name registration next time, the content of the domain name will be hashed to check whether it already exists in _profileIdByHandleHash. If it exists, it means that the domain name has already been registered.

After the domain name content passes the legal and unique verification, it will enter the registration process:

First, store the profileId of the Profile NFT and its corresponding hash content in _profileIdByHandleHash. Then, store the domain content, imageURI, and followNFTURI in the vars object into _profileById and attach them under profileId. _profileById is also a mapping format configuration file that records the content data of each Profile NFT.

Finally, initialize the followModule.

Publication

Importance of Publication

Publication is the lifeblood of Lens Protocol. It consists of user-generated original content, comments, and reposts (referred to as Mirror in Lens Protocol).

The content of Publication is stored in ContentURI, similar to the metadata of NFT, which links to text, images, videos and other content in the form of a link.

The Lens Protocol will not limit the storage method of content, meaning developers can use decentralized storage such as IPFS and Arweave, or store it in centralized storage institutions like AWS.

Publication standard data format

The biggest advantage of Lens Protocol mentioned earlier is that it breaks the last mile of data isolation and achieves data interoperability by establishing a standard format for data.

Lens Protocol has established a set of metadata standards for Publication, which is based on the metadata of ERC721 and is compatible with platforms such as Opensea. We will now provide a detailed introduction to Lens Protocol's metadata standards.

Below is a standard data format for a Publication, which means that all content generated by projects in the Lens Protocol follows this standard, enabling interoperability of content between different products.

PublicationMetadataVersions: Standards also iterate, so PublicationMetadataVersions defines the version number of the current standard. Currently, there are two versions available, and developers are required to use V2 version according to official requirements, but the old V1 version is still compatible.

mainContentFocus: It is an enumeration type field that identifies the content type, including: video, image, article, text, audio, and link.

metadata_id: a required string type content identifier. As the content itself is indexed by an external ContentURI link, multiple contents may be indexed by the same link. Therefore, metadata_id can identify the uniqueness of each content.

description: A description of the content, but not the content itself. This may be a bit difficult to understand, for example, the content of BAYC's NFT is a picture of a monkey, but each NFT also has a description that describes the NFT itself rather than its content.

metadata_id: a required string type content identifier. As the content itself is indexed by an external ContentURI link, multiple contents may be indexed by the same link. Therefore, metadata_id can identify the uniqueness of each content.

description: A description of the content, but not the content itself. This may be somewhat difficult to understand, for example, the content of BAYC's NFT is a picture of a monkey, but each NFT also has a description that describes the NFT rather than its content.

locale: Used to identify the language type of this content, such as "en-US" for English.

content: The text of this content, for example, if a post says "Hello World" and includes an image, then "Hello World" will be saved in the content.

 external_url : An optional field that stores additional links related to the content.

 image: The image of this content, pointing to an external URL link.

 imageMimeType : Indicates the format type of the image, such as gif, png, and so on.

name: The name of this content, corresponding to the "name" field in the metadata of OpenSea.

attributes: Everyone should be familiar with it, as it corresponds to the attributes of NFT.

tags: Represents the tags of this content. Each content can have up to 5 tags, and each tag can have up to 50 characters. Therefore, users can add tags to their published content, which can be used for filtering and other scenarios.

Above is the standard data format for Publication, and the combination of only 13 fields can basically cover the content format of most social products.

发布 Post 的过程
The process of publishing a Post.

The data structure required to create a post includes: profileId, contentURI, collectModule, collectModuleInitData, referenceModule, and referenceModuleInitData.

profileId: the tokenid of the Profile NFT corresponding to the post being made.

contentURI: The content of the post, which is the standard data format of Publication mentioned earlier in the text. This is a link to an external location, which can exist in IPFS, AWS, or any other location.

Then use the API call lensHub.connect(user).post(inputStruct) to pass in the publisher and content to complete the post.

Please note that Lens Protocol itself does not mint an NFT for the published content. The image below shows a post record, and no NFT was generated on the chain. Instead, the NFT is generated when the content is collected and mirrored.

Not having NFT does not mean that data is not on the chain. NFT is just one form of data assetization. In Input Data, we can see the on-chain data of a post.

After passing in the ID of the Profile NFT when creating a Post:

First, add 1 to the record of the user's number of posts, pubCount. 

Then call the createPost function and pass in all relevant parameters to execute the creation.

Comment

Users' comments on other publications are also a type of publication, which is also attached to the Profile NFT.

Let's first take a look at the data structure of comments:

vars is an object array that stores the data structure of a comment. It is actually a type of Publication because comments are also a type of content produced by users. Therefore, in terms of data structure, it covers Posts.

However, two additional fields have been added in comparison: profileIdPointed and pubIdPointed, which correspond to the author ID of the commented content and the ID of the commented content, respectively. This establishes an indexing relationship between the comments and the commented content and personnel.

The following image shows the on-chain data of a comment that has already been generated. It can be interpreted as a comment made by a Profile NFT with ID 33431 on a content with ID 28 posted by a Profile NFT with ID 71587.

The content of the comment is stored in arweave and the link points to the contentURI. Let's open the content in arweave and take a look at the specific content of the comment. Its format also follows the standard data format mentioned above. We can see that the content of the "name" field is "Comment by @momodao.lens", which is the domain address of the commenter.

_createComment's code logic is similar to _createPost, after all, they are both Publications in essence. Therefore, we can also see that the user's publication count, pubCount, will be incremented by 1 for both comments and posts, which are treated equally in nature.

Mirror

Mirror can be understood as forwarding, but the definition of Lens Protocol is reposting or reamplifying. That is, the nature of the Mirror action is to republish existing content or amplify its impact again, especially the second point of reamplifying needs to be carefully considered. Therefore, although it is a forwarding action in concrete terms, Mirror encompasses a broader and more abstract range in terms of ideas. It is not just seen as a simple function, but rather an understanding and thinking from the perspective of creators and content distribution.

Because Mirror is referencing other existing publications, it will be subject to the referencing restrictions of the original publication. For example, if the creator limits the Mirror of their content to only those who follow them, by setting the followerOnlyReferenceModule in the reference configuration to true, those who do not hold the creator's Follow NFT will not be able to Mirror that content.

The following is a record on the Mirror chain, which can be seen that compared to Post, it does not have the ContentURI field and Collect configuration. This is because Mirror forwards existing content and does not generate new content itself. Therefore, unlike Post and Comment, there is no ContentURI field for storing published content. Additionally, since it forwards other people's content, it also does not have the ability to Collect. However, it still has a reference configuration, so the content on Mirror can still be mirrored by others.

Creating a Mirror follows a similar logic to that of Posts and Comments. It is important to note that although Mirrors are not considered content "created" by the user, the pubCount is still incremented by 1 because it is a special type of Publication. Therefore, the Lens Protocol defines Publication as "generating content" rather than "creating content".

In createMirror, we can see a special logic: to get the root user and root content. Because a Mirror can also be mirrored, that is, when the content posted by A is mirrored by B, and then C mirrors A's content again, this continues, and it is necessary to know who the original content creator is. Therefore, getPointedIfMirror can obtain the original content rootPubIdPointed and the original creator rootProfileIdPointed, so that it can be indexed layer by layer to trace the propagation chain of a content in the Lens Protocol ecosystem, understand who created the content, who spread the content, and the size of these propagation nodes. This fully reflects the importance and understanding of Lens Protocol for creator economy, such as realizing creator revenue sharing through this ability.

Collect

Free Collect Module: Free Collect, unlimited quantity; Fee Collect Module: Collect requires payment of a certain fee, unlimited quantity; Limited Fee Collect Module: Collect requires payment of a certain fee, and quantity is limited; Timed Fee Collect Module: Collect requires payment of a certain fee, and can only be collected within a certain time period; Limited Timed Fee Collect Module: Collect requires payment of a certain fee, quantity is limited, and can only be collected within a certain time period. Essentially, it is a combination of Limited Fee and Timed Fee.

We take the configuration file of Fee Collect as an example, which shows the contract address and amount of the currency set for the content, as well as the conditions for whether only my followers can perform collect.

Based on the actual on-chain case shown in the figure, after the user executes Collect, a NFT with tokenID 2380 will be Minted, and the creator will be paid 0.1 WMATIC worth 0.08 USD.

The data uploaded by the chain is also very simple compared to Comment and Post, with only 3 fields, namely the creation ID and content ID of the collected content.

The parameters passed into the collect function include the wallet address of the collector and other information. Because the content being collected may be mirrored, the getPointedIfMirror method is used to obtain the original creator ID and content ID information.

Each user will have an independent collectNFT contract, so if the current contract address is recognized as the 0 address, _deployCollectNFT will be called to create one, and then execute mint to generate an NFT.

Follow

When a user follows someone, a Follow NFT is created, which is also a part of the creator economy. Users can set conditions for being followed, such as paid following.

There are two types of restrictions on the attention of interest, the whitelist restriction Approval Follow Module and the paid attention Fee Follow Module. Approval Follow Module is when the creator sets the whitelist address that allows followers, only those on the list can follow.

Fee Follow Module

is a feature that allows creators to require payment in order for users to follow them. The creator sets the currency, amount, and receiving address for the payment.

One aspect of paid subscription is to provide creators with revenue, while on the other hand, it is similar to a Pass card, which can derive the Follow action towards DAO governance. For example, creators can consider users who hold their Follow NFT as their fans, and after establishing a fan community, they can DAO-ize it. Then, NFT holders can have governance capabilities, including voting, based on the size of their tokenID, and can determine who was the earliest follower of the creator. As early contributors, they can be given certain incentives such as increased voting rights. From this, it can be seen that Lens Protocol's ambition is not just to be a simple social protocol.

Through on-chain data, we can see that, just like Collect, when a user completes the Follow operation, an NFT will be minted.

Through the code, we can see that it is allowed to follow multiple people in batches, because the profileId of the person being followed that is passed in is an array type, which can be passed in with more than one value. Then, the array is traversed through a for loop to follow each person one by one.

Like Collect, Follow also requires an independent contract. When the followNFT address is detected as 0, _deployFollowNFT is called to create the contract, and then mint is executed to generate NFT.

When the user unfollows, the Follow NFT will be burned and destroyed.

Above is the explanation of the data structure and implementation logic of Lens Protocol, using its entities as the starting point.

You can deeply feel as mentioned in the previous text:

Lens Protocol emphasizes high cohesion, low coupling, modularity, and standardized data structures in its technical design paradigm.

And through the paid configuration of Collect and Follow, we can see Lens Protocol's thoughts on empowering creators' economy after NFT assetization, and the extension of Follow to the DAO governance level is a brilliant move.

Lens Protocol Ecological Analysis

Lens Protocol Mapping 

Lens Protocol Ecosystem Levels

The Lens protocol has only been launched for less than a year, but currently there are already over a hundred products built on top of Lens.

This is closely related to the attractiveness of Web3's openness and composability to developers, as well as the Aave team's relentless promotion and easy-to-use API.

除了吸引开发者来建设生态，Lens 也与许多其他产品构建了合作关系，比如 XMTP, POAP, Push Protocol 等，试图集众人之力把生态的底层设施铺设得尽可能完备。

Translation:

In addition to attracting developers to build the ecosystem, Lens has also established partnerships with many other products, such as XMTP, POAP, Push Protocol, etc., trying to work together to make the underlying infrastructure of the ecosystem as complete as possible.

We have compiled a comprehensive list of products that currently use or integrate the Lens protocol, as shown in the following figure. Please refer to the appendix for more details.

Lens Protocol Ecosystem Mapping

Lens Protocol Project Statistics

In our surveyed versions (143 products), dApps are the majority (119, accounting for 86%), meaning that most products are developed based on the Lens protocol to explore application scenarios. Some developers have further expanded the functionality of existing modules (7, accounting for 5%), as well as some middleware products (17, accounting for 9%).

We have further classified and analyzed dApps, as shown in the following figure:

dApp Classification Statistics

You can see that the application-oriented products in the ecosystem basically cover most categories.

Among them, tool-type products with relatively simple development and clearer ideas ranked first (34, accounting for 28%), followed by content (23, accounting for 19%), social platforms (15, accounting for 12%), and music (9, accounting for 7%). At the same time, there are also a small number of trading platforms (2, accounting for 2%) and social trading (2, accounting for 2%) products.

Among them, most products are still in the relatively early stages, with relatively simple functionality and user experience.

Some of the hackathon products are still in the demo stage and have not been officially launched. A few products have reached milestones, such as Phaver (a product that earns money through sharing content and pledging), which has reached 100,000 active users and is officially claimed to be the largest product on Lens. We have compiled the Twitter fan numbers of each product as of the end of 2022, ranging from tens to tens of thousands, which can partially reflect the uneven development within the current ecosystem.

On the product concept level, the initial focus is still on mapping to Web2 products.

Some products are exploring whether they can create Web3-specific user experiences based on the features of the Lens protocol, especially its built-in commercial modules. Since developers can develop based on the Lens protocol without permission, and there is no so-called overall Roadmap, we see that some product features overlap. An open system may have some resource waste, but on the other hand, this also means that after the development cost and difficulty are greatly reduced, developers may make "countless" attempts, and among them, Web3 symbolic product features may emerge. How to cleverly conceive and use the basic modules of Lens requires inspiration and luck in multiple attempts. To some extent, redundancy is also a characteristic of ecological health.

At the client level, the vast majority of products are on the web, with some products beginning to explore the mobile experience. It is expected that more and more future development products will move from PC to mobile.

Analysis of Some Categories

Except for the differences in development stages between products, the level of prosperity also varies among different categories. We will analyze the ideas and development situations of several main categories briefly by section.

Communication tools

At the basic communication level, Lens integrates protocols such as XMTP and Lit. Currently, DM functionality can be experienced on products such as Lenster.

Unlike the chat function of existing social networks, Lens DM has the following features:

Privacy Protection: Default End-to-End Encryption.

Portable: can be viewed on any compatible Lens series product or XMTP-enabled product.

Bound to the user: When the Lens Handle is transferred, the new owner cannot view the previous chat records; only the wallet's key has control.

Security: XMTP does not use keys in any scenario, ensuring the isolation of chat and assets.

In addition, there are also specialized chat products that have made more detailed features. For example, Hashchat combines NFT, Safes, PoAP, etc., and is also researching how to use the new features of Web3 to solve "old" problems such as junk information in communication.

Compared to other social products, communication products are more essential and have stronger functional attributes. The construction ideas are more straightforward and the customer acquisition points are also very clear (Web3's core users care about security, privacy, data ownership and other features, without the need for too much market education). It may be one of the first product categories to run out in the ecosystem.

Social Media

Social media is one of the core components of the Lens ecosystem. Lens has also developed its own Lenster, which is currently a very popular project within the ecosystem.

If you want to create a Web3 social product, you still need to answer some basic social questions first:

The value points of its differentiation are where?Whether social efficiency has been improved.How to obtain the first batch of users.

How to design the path from seed users to the masses.

The social products of Web2 often have the following characteristics, and the most successful ones usually have seemingly "unbreakable" moats:

Powerful network effect

Centralized algorithms, closed data system.The main mature business model relies heavily on advertising.

The opportunities in the past often came from intergenerational changes (such as not wanting to use the same social network as one's mother) or the emergence of a new media form (text -> image -> video).

The Lens team may not have a complete answer yet, but they have revealed many of their thoughts on social interaction in interviews, and we can also glean some insights from the iteration of their products. Some of the product experiences currently offered by Lens are as follows.

Unified identity within the ecosystem

Identity is one of the most important identifiers for users when engaging in social activities.

Within the entire Lens ecosystem, users only have one username and undergo real-person verification through PoAP and other methods. At this level, the team has not chosen to be more decentralized (with different dApps having different account systems), likely because they believe the benefits of a unified identity outweigh the drawbacks.

Reviewing Web1 and Web2:

When it comes to Web1, user identity is reflected in the account and password.

During the Web2 era, most users chose to log in with their Google/Facebook accounts.

In the Web3 ecosystem, wallets currently represent the most common form of identity. However, for ordinary users, wallets may not be a good enough social product for login options. Connecting wallets can easily lead people to associate them with asset consumption, resulting in high psychological barriers. In addition, when experiencing immersive social experiences, it is also necessary to avoid the experience being fragmented due to repeated confirmation of wallets. That is, there is still room for improvement in the experience of identity systems.

Data Ownership

Data ownership means that users to some extent are free from the control of the platform, and they have complete ownership and processing rights over their own data.

There is a viewpoint that suggests that ordinary users may not care about owning their data. However, if we temporarily step out of the user's perspective and look at it from a developer's point of view, user data ownership means that developers can more flexibly request to use their data and freely combine the data accumulated by users in different scenarios. Collaboration can also be formed between different developers. This will bring about some new social possibilities.

Take AI matching as an example. It has always been a topic of interest for many social entrepreneurs. The problem encountered before was where to collect the basic data, without enough high-quality data sources, matching was impossible. However, Lens, with its unified identity and self-owned data within the ecosystem, provides new possibilities for accumulating data. These data are native and "non-standard" (compared to absolute standardization factors such as age and region), to some extent, they can reflect users' characteristics, interests, hobbies, and existing social relationships.

On the basis of the Lens protocol, it may also be possible to build middleware such as interest maps. These all lay a good foundation for improving matching efficiency.

Another issue here is how to make better matches without exposing user privacy, which may require drawing on some of the practices of ZK.

Portability of Identity and Data

Portable means that users can leave one subnet and join another more interesting new subnet at relatively low cost.

On the one hand, the fact that users can flow in and out at any time means that developers face greater challenges, and user loyalty has truly become a scarce resource. In addition to providing utility value to users, products may also need to provide additional community value and continuously improve utility experience to truly retain users. On the other hand, each independent product within the ecosystem contributes traffic to Lens' large user pool, and each new product may bring new users into the Lens ecosystem, opening up the source of the user pool in multiple dimensions.

In addition, the social capital accumulated by users in a certain sub-network may be reused in another sub-network or non-social scenario, that is, social identity and data will have cross-value. This may also open up interesting application scenarios.

The following question is whether Lens can handle a potentially large user pool. Regarding scalability, founder Stani revealed on Twitter that their new technology is currently capable of achieving 50,000 TPS in testing (Twitter's peak is 20k).

Free Customization Curation Algorithm

One of the most criticized consequences of Web2 algorithms is the filter bubble effect, but on the other hand, this is also the point that makes users addicted and obsessed (at least in the short term).

In Lens, users are expected to be able to choose from a variety of algorithms to customize the Feeds content they see, greatly increasing their degree of freedom and possibly providing a new experience for exploration and discovery. Unlike current algorithm black boxes, the algorithm rules of the open platform are open and transparent. At the same time, users can also manage a portion of their personal data that they are willing to use for algorithm recommendations. This kind of algorithm that adapts to different values from different optimization goals is also an interesting development opportunity within the Lens ecosystem.

In addition, social curation is also a way. For example, Lenster's new feature "Feed through" allows users to switch to other users' perspectives to browse content, which really echoes the name of Lens, and allows users to see the world through different "lenses" and get different content experiences.

Feed Through Function

However, despite this, we may still find it difficult to imagine what the ultimate super social application that grows on the Lens ecosystem will look like, whether it is a product similar to Twitter like Lenster, or a functional product that combines Defi, or originates from some kind of fissile game interaction, or starts from a meme community that outsiders cannot understand, or a use case of NFT + Token. But no matter what, composability may bring us surprises.

Content, Music, and Creator Economy

In the Lens ecosystem, one of the biggest variables in the creator economy is NFTs (such as those related to NFTs). They provide a new way for creators in different categories (music, writing, comics, memes, sports, brands, etc.) to monetize their content.

Stani revealed in an interview that the inspiration for Lens came from a research on NFT auction protocols, where an engineer realized that based on the current NFT standards, a lot of cool things could be done, such as dynamic content NFTs. Dynamic NFTs go beyond the value of collection itself and begin to have practical benefits, such as token-gated content access rights, creator revenue sharing, and fan-level privileges.

However, besides PFP, what kind of content is worth being NFT-ized? Taking Meme culture as an example.

It carries the common values and humor of small groups, and has considerable memory value. This can be extended to whether UGC is also a category of assets in addition to users expressing their desires. If it is an asset, it should be tradable and liquid. NFT is a good way to assetize it.

Music is also a rising trend on the Lens platform.

For example, Ooh La La, wavwrld, spinamp, amnisiac, etc. Music NFTs provide a new way of monetization, where users can pay to listen through collecting behavior. Based on the NFT carrier, music is no longer just a commodity, but carries more interactive and social functions. Listening, collecting, and trading all happen on the same platform, creating a music-first experience that drives subsequent transactions. Unlike the previous copyright disputes between major music platforms, since NFTs are bound to users, users can enjoy their purchased music NFTs regardless of which Web3 player they use, and are expected to have a more integrated experience. In addition, considering that many musicians have a large fan base, Web3 music combined with communities may become one of the entry points for the public to enter the Web3 world.

Another point worth emphasizing is that when fans and data truly belong to creators rather than platforms, true D2C (Direct to Consumer) can be formed. The interaction between creators and fans can be more direct, including giving fans special gifts, random rewards, etc. The interaction between the two parties can be collected in one-stop, rather than scattered across various platforms. Creators can also define the way they manage their fans and communities more freely. Correspondingly, a new value chain for profit distribution will be formed, which will drive different behavior patterns and deepen interaction and stickiness.

Take content products as an example. In the past, when creators published a work, the most popular place for discussion was often not directly in the comment section, but on various social media platforms, such as Twitter for short texts and Youtube for videos. For creators, due to the decentralization of interaction, they find it difficult to see the full feedback of their works. For fans, they often need to spend more effort to dig deeper. Ideally, comments, reposts, and shares from various social platforms can be unified and collected at the original work, so that all sources will eventually be converged, and creators should have this right. Open and unlicensed social platforms will make this possible.

However, there have been many fan token products and token gated tools before, so what is the difference in creator economy in Lens? It is believed that the interaction between creators and fans is a comprehensive atmosphere and field, not just a monetization aspect. Both parties are in a large network, from discovery to interaction to establishing deep connections, converting to paying users, while deep fans enjoy special benefits, and even benefit binding. This is a gradual process that may require multiple products to work together to achieve deepening goals, such as creator recommendation based on similar graph + interactive games + chat communities + graded benefits + transactions, etc.

One interesting point is that through commenting and forwarding NFTs, creators are not completing 100% of the creation alone, nor is it a completely distributed collective creation. It is somewhere in between, where the creator still leads, but fans can participate in a lightweight way and enjoy a certain form of content ownership. The feeling of ownership will deepen fans' support, which will greatly increase their participation and interaction, and thus the jointly created content will be forwarded and discussed more, accumulating a greater consensus within the ontology NFT and increasing its value. Users who participate in the interaction, because their behavior is also NFT-ized, can also enjoy the dividends brought by this appreciation. The NFT formed by the interaction itself may also add valuable parts to the original NFT, and the two can also be seen as an expanded large NFT. The threshold for interaction is relatively lower, which can allow more users to participate in the creation. Creation, re-creation, seems to have entered an infinite fission game, providing an excellent interactive experience.

In addition, the forwarding and commenting functions can be combined with paid functions. That is, creators can share a portion of the fees collected from forwarding and commenting with users who participate in forwarding and commenting by setting up the feature. This allows for flexible distribution of content, goods, and other objects that we have not yet imagined. If the creator pays the forwarding and commenting users in full, it is similar to the reward model of Qu Toutiao. There is a lot of room for experimentation here.

Overall, in this form, creators and fans no longer have a one-way relationship, but have formed a certain degree of community, and both sides have the motivation to contribute to the continuous growth of this community.

Here, many product ideas are derived, such as:

Tool Type

Help creators better understand their fan portraits (Bello), or find other creators with similar fan portraits to collaborate with;

Light Interaction Type

For example, Lens Raffle randomly distributes Matic rewards to followers.

Special Equity Identity

You can classify equity based on the time of attention, so early attention can also become a social asset; or based on other diversified ranking criteria.

For example, Golden Circle defines a special fan level called golden circle, and a portion of the income generated from each transaction will be returned to the creator, similar to NFT's royalty income. Lens Collect Auctions has built two types of auctions, English and Dutch, and only successful bidders are allowed to collect.

Trading Platform

For example, LensPort is a trading platform that focuses on collecting Lens NFTs, helping to fully release the liquidity of NFT collections.

On the one hand, with the liquidity export, it may encourage users to do more collection actions, which is helpful for creators to increase their income.

On the other hand, it may also give rise to users who spend a lot of time on collecting and filtering, thereby improving the efficiency of discovering high-quality content on the platform and creating revenue for themselves.

Social and trading integration, there should be many new ways to play in this area;

Credit Scoring System

In the Web2 community, there is often a difficult-to-solve high-end user squeeze effect, that is, as the community becomes more generalized and novice users are introduced, the concentration of the community is diluted too much, and the original core users leave, and the community becomes unrecognizable. This is also one of the curses of community scaling. At the same time, if the core circle is too tight, the experience of new users will not be good, because the stronger the cohesion of the original community, the greater the rejection of the outside (new users).

When expanding a community, it seems like an unsolvable problem to expand the user base while ensuring a good experience for different users. Reputation mechanism may be one of the solutions. Aura Reputation establishes a rating system for users, and only users with qualified reputation scores can post comments (the threshold is determined by the creator), which to some extent avoids the damage of malicious comments to the community atmosphere, and protects the experience of creators and loyal fans.

The use of credit scores is not limited to comments, but can also be used for entry qualifications in communities. If the threshold is set high, it is a very accurate small circle. If the threshold is relatively low, it is aimed at the generalized population. Different communities for different purposes can be well isolated, and users' expectations will also be adjusted accordingly. It's a bit like the BBS era. If you just want to post some venting posts, go to the water area. If you want to discuss a deep topic of a certain interest, go to a specialized sub-channel.

In summary, the Lens protocol is equivalent to scaling the production of vertical creator communities in a decentralized way, using a complete set of tools and product matrices. Creators can focus on building front-end experiences and improving their interaction and management efficiency with fans. NFTization provides many possibilities for creating new experiences.

Tools

In our categorization, tools are the largest category, partly because it covers many subcategories, such as creative tools, search and discovery tools, data analysis tools, marketing tools, etc. Behind this is the fact that tools are like water, and a powerful tool library can make the experience of building products within the ecosystem smoother.

One of the categories, which we call "bridge", includes migrating Twitter identities to Lens, finding Twitter friends on Lens, and synchronizing Lens with Twitter posts. It can be seen that Lens is still in the stage of diverting traffic from the huge user pool of Web2 in various ways. Similar functions to find friends on Web2 social networks can also help with cold start in the early stage and improve initial user retention.

Among other tools, data analysis tools are a must-have for creators in the encryption industry. In addition, there are notification tools, posting tools, airdrop tools, and so on. The common tool requirements for these vertical scenarios can be extracted and developed uniformly.

Let's focus on marketing tools, including Tide (marketing interactive reward tool platform), Screen (advertising recommendation and sharing system), Connect (one-stop communication for bloggers), and so on. Traditional marketing tools are quite limited in terms of understanding users and providing marketing methods. Many brands are seeking new solutions. When brands choose to enter Web3, they need a complete solution to reduce the threshold for communicating with users in new ways and to obtain output as soon as possible. A good marketing tool should be able to improve the interaction efficiency between the brand and users without violating user privacy, create diverse interactive gameplay (such as combining casual games, dynamic NFTs, rewards, etc.), and help brands enhance user loyalty.

The extension space here lies in the fact that marketing tools are not necessarily purely online, but can be connected to offline, connecting Web3 with the physical world in a real way, and combining with certifications such as PoAP to create more flexible and interesting marketing methods. This will also help to bring more users into the Web3 world invisibly. When users enter the Lens ecosystem through the brand entrance, they will get a complete community and exploration experience, not just a single interaction of a single event, that is, the huge social ecology behind Lens can do a better job of this, which distinguishes it from a single marketing tool. Ideally, the public domain and the private domain can help each other.

False data and brushing are also pain points in traditional marketing. In Tide, it will screen the wallet qualifications of interactive users to exclude the existence of false activities such as multiple wallets or robots as much as possible. This screening can also be combined with the credit scoring system mentioned earlier, so that the brand can obtain real data on marketing interactions and pay for real people.

In addition, in the traditional advertising ecosystem, it is difficult to accurately attribute due to the involvement of App islands. However, on-chain data is relatively transparent, and the identity within the Lens ecosystem is completely interconnected. The attribution system of advertising within the ecosystem can theoretically be more perfect. At the same time, we can make more accurate labeling of users to achieve better advertising matching and improve customer acquisition efficiency. On the user side, how to protect their privacy as much as possible while receiving better advertising recommendations is another topic. That is, there is still room for the development of many advertising tools here. With the help of these tool matrices, marketing efficiency is expected to be improved, and ROI will also be correspondingly improved.

It can be seen that as the Lens ecosystem becomes more prosperous, more and more tools will emerge. Tool products always have demands and are expected to remain an important development category. As the development stage of the ecosystem changes, specific needs will also change. For example, when a considerable number of users become heavy users of the Lens system and use multiple Lens products, there may be a need for data permission management tools to grade the data permissions that different products can obtain, thus achieving better user privacy protection. On the other hand, new tools are expected to combine with Lens' social ecosystem to provide some new solutions for traditional industries, improve industry efficiency, and refer to the marketing market we just analyzed.

DAO

Lens has a special feature that focuses on NFTs, which is the embedded governance mechanism.

The threshold for establishing a DAO in the community is very low, and governance schemes can be set up in conjunction with the characteristics of NFTs, such as allowing only the top 1000 followers to participate in voting. Currently, some governance tools and community management tools have emerged or been integrated within the ecosystem, such as Zilly, Daoscourse, JokenDAO, Guild, etc. However, we have not yet seen governance functions that are well integrated with NFTs.

Imagine that at a certain stage of development in the Lens ecosystem, the Lens protocol itself has a DAO, and each social media product in its ecosystem will also build its own subDAO. These subDAOs have their own independent governance rules, fully reflecting their respective values and community orientations, while not conflicting with the DAO rules of Lens. All of these DAOs operate in an open and transparent manner.

The governance layer, protocol layer, and middleware and application layer together form the ecosystem of Lens. The construction of the governance layer is crucial for the community, as it is the source of driving the development of protocols and higher-level applications. It will formulate reward and operational rules based on the community's values, determine the initial gathering of people, and then expand and build in a certain direction. As the community does not belong to any single entity, high-quality dialogue and new-generation community building capabilities are essential to enable individuals to collaborate effectively and contribute to the healthy development of the Lens ecosystem.

Middleware

Middleware (such as Lens API) is an essential part of the Lens ecosystem for normal operation.

As the connecting part between protocols and applications, a complete middleware can enhance the development experience for developers.

For example, Lens is not yet a complete map. Considering the large amount of information on the chain, searching and finding is one of the pain points of using the protocol. In the early stages of the ecosystem, most developers used The Graph, followed by Sepana (Web3 search engine), Cultivator (visualization of social graph), RSS3 and other tools, making social data processing more convenient.

Cultivator's visual social graph

Here we focus on introducing Cultivator, which is essentially a social DAO. In addition to the map, it also plans to do content review in a decentralized way. Developers/users can choose to enable its function to solve problems such as spam and bots. It can also be forked to support specific review needs based on community members' demands. In the decentralized and anti-censorship Web3 social ecology, how to combine the power of the community to build an adaptive content review system is a necessary path to maintain a safe and reliable community atmosphere. Based on Cultivator and other content review middleware, developers can focus on developing their front-end UGC experience without having to build their own content review system repeatedly.

We also discuss diverse distribution algorithms in social media, which is an important part of making data more usable. The interesting point here is that the optimization goal of Web2 product recommendation algorithms is usually to achieve higher click-through rates for the entire user population. When the algorithm layer and the application layer are separated, and the algorithm selection right is in the hands of the user, that is, the optimization goal of the algorithm may truly be adjusted to focus on user satisfaction, and even customize the algorithm to adapt to the preferences of local users.

Identity verification and reputation system are also part of the middleware. Lens is currently not fully open, and only whitelist users can obtain Handle, which involves human confirmation. Currently, there are Lens Human, which cooperates with WorldCoin, and Verify Me!, a social real-person verification product based on PoAP, on Lens. It is expected that new products for human identification verification will continue to emerge. The reputation system involves a set of scoring rules, which can design participation thresholds or issue badges (Sismo) to users based on scores, and there are many terminal application scenarios.

In addition, for example, the issue of user privacy that we mentioned in the tool (application layer) can also be addressed with solutions at the middleware or protocol layer. The specific layer to solve the problem depends on the developer's specific judgment.

Building a middleware ecosystem in a decentralized way is more challenging than in a centralized way. However, the benefit is that users can have ownership of their content and social relationships, and the reliability of this content is somewhat guaranteed. The community atmosphere is also relatively friendly.

Social Graph Project Comparison

GTM Strategy Differences

We take Lens and Farcaster as examples to illustrate the differences in the construction ideas of different social graph products from the perspective of GTM.

The underlying technical solutions may be similar or replicable, but the community atmosphere and brand are unique, as well as who can truly scale to acquire C-end users. The differences in GTM methods can reflect the different teams' solutions to this.

First is Lens, which takes a protocol-first approach, building a social graph based on protocols and establishing communities.

We mentioned earlier that in the early stages of the protocol, it actively established contact with developers through hackathons and grants. In its ecosystem, except for individual products that are officially recommended or products like Lenster that are made by the Aave team themselves, all other products are spontaneously grown on its ecosystem. It's like a truly open big garden, with lots of empty space waiting to be explored and planted. The Lens team is constantly loosening the soil, fertilizing, and enhancing the plantability of the soil, corresponding to the development of more user-friendly APIs, modules, and middleware, making the protocol more widely adopted.

On the user side, the application for limited-time opening of Lens Handle is available, and users can also purchase it on the Opensea platform. Considering that Aave has already gathered a large group of Defi users, it is uncertain whether there will be cross-flow. However, some teams are already trying to combine social and trading fields to create products, and it is natural for some integration between these two types of users to occur.

Given that the Lens team has accumulated a deep understanding of protocols and experience in building developer ecosystems while developing Defi products, these can be reused in another field. However, social products are not purely functional products, and the subtle human nature and communication aspects may also require the team to gain insights while building the Lens ecosystem.

Farcaster adopts a product-first approach that is more similar to the cold start of Web2 social products.

Currently, the only way to obtain the experience qualification for Farcaster is to send a direct message to its founder's Twitter account (@dwr). It is expected to continue using an invitation system until reaching the first one million users, and is also considering whether to open this invitation privilege to some users within the community.

By setting up barriers, we can initially gather a high concentration of similar people, similar to a refined version of Twitter. Early users can enjoy a better posting and interaction experience. Moreover, those who qualify in the early stages are usually influential KOLs, who are high-energy users themselves. They will be motivated to discuss and spread Farcaster on other platforms due to their social superiority complex. For their fans, they will also generate social admiration and a desire to obtain such a "scarce" qualification. The practice of raising social value by limiting the number of users can also be seen in the early invitation system of Zhihu.

On the other hand, this relatively restrained growth approach (with a goal of 5% weekly growth in daily active users) also helps the team to continuously iterate on the product at a small scale. The team believes that, given the current maturity level of the product/protocol, even if a large number of new users were to come in due to some event, they would not be able to retain them well. Only by constantly growing high-quality users can they eventually lead to a sustainable social network.

When the Farcaster V2 version goes live, the team may start considering empowering developers more. The logic of first building a benchmark product for oneself and then expanding from product-first to protocol-first is sound, but there are still some uncertainties at present, such as:

The specific construction speed of the benchmark product and whether this Twitter-like product can sustain growth as an important social product in Web3, attracting enough mainstream users in the next stage;

How to build attraction for developers and how the products developed by developers can work in conjunction with Farcaster (if successful).

As we can see, different protocols have significant differences in their specific strategies. Although it is difficult to predict for now, the ultimate winner should also be the culmination of the ecosystem, that is, the one who can build a loyal community, provide a good development environment and sufficient users for developers, enable creators to better monetize on the platform, and provide better interaction and social experience for ordinary users.

用户数据差异

User Data Differences

Lens and Farcaster are both leading Web3 social projects. Comparing their data, it is found that Lens is leading in all aspects:

User Volume

From the comparison of total users, Farcaster has been online for 29 weeks, which is equivalent to the duration of Lens. The total number of users is 7821, which is a huge gap compared to Lens' 160,000 users. Farcaster's latest monthly active users are 3,000, while Lens has 40,000 monthly active users during the same period. Farcaster added 99 new users last week, while Lens added 6,200 new users.

Lens User Monthly Activity

Farcaster User Data

关注度
Attention

From the perspective of Twitter followers, Lens has 230,000 fans, while Farcaster only has 20,000 followers. In terms of the number of fans on their respective protocol accounts, the official account with the most followers on Lens has 60,000 followers, while the founder's account with the highest number of followers on Farcaster has only 7,000 followers.

Lens 和 Farcaster 推特粉丝数对比

Comparison of Twitter followers between Lens and Farcaster

Creation Count

Farcaster has created a total of 360,000 pieces of content, with an average of 1,562 posts per day. Lens has an average daily post count of 3,880, which is 2.5 times that of Farcaster. The proportion of creators in Lens is 55%, while the proportion of creators in Farcaster is approximately 75%.

Lens Creation Status

Farcaster Creation Status

Farcaster and Lens both adopt a relatively restrained approach to user acquisition. Farcaster requires an invitation code to participate, while Lens requires a whitelist address to participate. However, Lens is far ahead of Farcaster in terms of user volume and attention.

Ecological product composition

Combining with the official website and Farapps' statistics, there are currently about 30-40 products related to Farcaster, most of which are tools and content products, such as user search, content collection, data analysis, and location-based activity/friend discovery. The product forms are also in a relatively simple state. It is worth mentioning that Paragraph recently integrated Farcaster, which can achieve the function of integrating social media comments into the original work as we discussed earlier. And products like Yup aggregate Web3 social content and integrate content from platforms such as Lens, Farcaster, and NFT Gallery, which may be a phased opportunity, but their long-term value points may not be clear.

As mentioned earlier, Farcaster currently does not seem to be focusing on building its ecosystem, but rather on improving the experience of its main product. In terms of the richness, quantity, and cooperative ecosystem of products within the ecosystem, Lens is currently ahead.

Lens Protocol Future Outlook

Native Payment System

Currently, Lens has not yet issued its Token, nor has it publicly announced a clear schedule for issuing coins.

However, the founder mentioned in a tweet in 2021 that because social accounts can carry wallets, tokenization is default and there are no specific social tokens. On another level, within the Lens ecosystem, as we discussed earlier, paid actions such as collecting, following, and trading are very common. It is important to make the payment experience within the ecosystem smooth.

Currently, it seems more likely to use GHO (a stablecoin launched by Aave) as the currency within the ecosystem.

Marc Zeller, who previously worked in the Aave strategic department, mentioned in an interview that from an efficiency perspective, he hopes GHO can become one of the currencies within Lens. If creators use GHO for settlement, non-Web3 core users can also purchase GHO with credit cards to support their favorite creators, without the need to understand Defi. GHO can become an intermediate payment currency, reducing payment friction. For GHO, this also means that it may find enough use cases in Lens to enter real-life (non-Defi) payment opportunities and gain more adoption.

After the establishment of the native payment system, other categories involving transactions such as e-commerce and investment may experience further growth. At that time, the entire Lens ecosystem will be like a large value network, where works, currencies, commodities, and various value carriers will flow smoothly within the ecosystem.

From Social Graph to Credit Graph

Based on the social graph of Lens, we can further derive a credit graph.

The credit graph quantifies credit and may bring new feasible models to many vertical industries. Taking the Defi field as an example, high credit value users can enjoy low collateral loans, thereby improving asset utilization efficiency. The combination of credit system and e-commerce is also exciting. In e-commerce scenarios such as social e-commerce and second-hand e-commerce (such as PoshMark, Xianyu, etc.), the credit rating of buyers and sellers may help promote the completion of transactions and improve conversion rates (of course, with the help of social graphs, better product recommendations can also be achieved). In addition, credit graphs can also be extended to fields such as insurance and recruitment.

However, all of this is based on the premise of sufficient social usage. The broad extension scenarios that follow also help to further elevate the value space of social protocols.

Continuous Construction of Growth Flywheel

For the Lens team, who have accumulated a great deal of experience in the Aave community, they understand that it is impossible to achieve the vision of Web3 social networking alone, and that it is necessary to rely on the power of the community and ecosystem to build growth together.

Currently, Lens actively attracts developers to join its ecosystem through Grants, hackathons, and other means. For developers, on the one hand, there is monetary incentive, and on the other hand, as more and more users join the ecosystem, the value of the network continues to increase, which also motivates them to invest more in the ecosystem. Joel John summarized the flywheel of protocol adoption in his article "Grants & Web3".

https://www.decentralised.co/p/grants-and-Web3

The Lens ecosystem is still in the early stages of building this flywheel and needs more good products, developers, and users to inspire each other and make the ecosystem more prosperous.

Original article link

欢迎加入律动 BlockBeats 官方社群：

Telegram 订阅群：https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram 交流群：https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Twitter 官方账号：https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia