Farcaster, a decentralized social media protocol, is seeing substantial growth after launching its newest feature: Frames. Frames allow users to perform a suite of functions within Farcaster apps without leaving, which means that you can embed an Ethereum ERC-20 token mint, a playable online game, or even sell Girl Scout Cookies directly within a cast.
Frames have brought a lot of attention to Farcaster, and the app that many users use to interact with the Farcaster protocol, Warpcast. One byproduct of the increased attention is a wave of speculators eager to bid on the newest flavor of meme coins: meme coins launched through Farcaster itself.
Rug Radio creator Benjamin White digs into the rise of Farcaster, the decentralized social media platform that's challenging Twitter following the launch of its Frames feature. Is this the decentralized social media app that finally clicks with the masses?
(Video by Rug Radio Creator Benjamin White.)
DEGEN is an ERC-20 token launched on Ethereum scaler Base. It first appeared on-chain on January 7 and was originally airdropped to the Degen channel community on Farcaster. According to the meme coin’s website, the team’s goal is to distribute the token amongst “builders, content creators, and users in the Base and Farcaster ecosystems.”
As of now, DEGEN has a market cap of $155 million after multiplying in value several times over in recent days. Let’s dive into how to take part in the Farcaster ecosystem and earn some of these new meme coins.
How to farm DEGEN
If you missed out on the first DEGEN airdrop, there are still a couple of ways you can get some tokens. DEGEN has two programs where users can rack up points that will later be convertible to DEGEN: “Airdrop 2” and a liquidity mining program.
Farcaster is a decentralized social media protocol built with a focus on interoperability, user autonomy, and privacy.
Leveraging blockchain technology, it aims to solve the prevalent issues of censorship, privacy breaches, and centralization that plague traditional social media platforms. But what sets Farcaster apart in the crowded space of decentralized applications (dapps)?
(Video by Rug Radio Creator Benjamin White.)
Technical underpinnings
Blockchain Basis: At its core, Farcaster runs on...
For the second DEGEN airdrop, users can rack up points by giving out tips (in DEGEN) to other Farcaster users. To tip, all you have to do is type out the amount you want to tip and the word “$DEGEN” in a cast, and it will tip that user. For example, replying to a cast with the “69 $DEGEN” would tip the caster 69 DEGEN tokens.
You don’t have to buy DEGEN to use as tips. Every user gets a daily allowance in DEGEN for tipping other users. The size of your daily allowance depends on your reaction-to-cast ratio.
The exact math for how your daily allowance is calculated can be found here. Unused DEGEN from your allowance does not carry over to the next day, so make sure to spend ‘em while you’ve got ‘em. To qualify for the daily allowance, all you have to do is connect a wallet to your Farcaster account and make at least three casts (the Farcaster version of tweets). After that, your account will be eligible to receive daily DEGEN.
Once you’re eligible for the allowance, just start tipping! You can connect your wallet to the DEGEN website to view the amount of points you’ve earned so far.
Decentralized social media protocol Farcaster is crypto’s latest obsession—and unlike other blockchain-backed social networks that have come and gone, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin seems to think this one can go the distance.
In response to a Twitter post early Monday about the failures of Friend.tech, another decentralized social app that quickly lost steam after a rapid rise in attention, Buterin appeared to write that platform off as doomed due to its speculative approach.
(Video by...
Another way to boost your points for Airdrop 2 is knowing where to tip. There are certain channels that receive boosted points for tips given within them. At the moment, the channels where tippers receive boosted points are: /Base, /Founders, /Dev, /Design, /Product, /Frontend, /FarCon, /frames, /perl, /Zora, and /farcastHER.
Users can expect to redeem their points for DEGEN once a month, but the exact date when redemptions will start hasn’t been announced.
Liquidity mining
Users can also earn points by providing liquidity for DEGEN on Uniswap V3, specifically the pool with 0.3% fees. Eligible users will be able to claim their liquidity mining rewards starting on February 22, and the program will run until July 8.
Decentralized Twitter rival Bluesky announced Tuesday that it has finally opened its app to the general public, after nearly a year of invite-only beta testing.
The platform, a Twitter-like social feed for sharing text and media posts with followers, is built upon a decentralized protocol that is effectively uncensorable and does not collect user data. The underlying AT Protocol also will eventually enable users to transfer their own personal data over to other servers within a federation of ne...
Just a heads up: If you haven’t provided liquidity before, it is no joke. Being a liquidity provider is hard, and newbies who go in blind often get rekt due to impermanent loss. Please don’t do anything you’re uncomfortable with in an attempt to farm magic internet points.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
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