3 min read
Decentralized social graph platform Primitives Protocol is nothing if not ambitious.
“If we can get network effects, we can beat Facebook by tying together all new social applications with our protocol,” Primitives Protocol founder and CEO David Gabeau told Decrypt.
The problem with the current social networking landscape is that it’s “ephemeral,” Gabeau said. As social media applications pop up and die, they take your social graph—the map of your connections to people and organizations—with them. Each time you’re onboarded to a new application, you have to start from scratch, uploading your contacts book without any of the nuance that comes from an established social graph.
Primitives Protocol, Gabeau explained, enables users “to bring your social graph from one application to another permissionlessly, for anyone who might plug into the protocol.”
Built atop the Solana network and leveraging the technology that underpins Compressed NFTs, Primitives Protocol introduces a new social primitive that it’s dubbed “non-fungible graphs.” These store the social graphs that map the relationships between wallets, NFTs and other assets on-chain, eliminating any single points of failure.
Unlike other decentralized social networks, “we've built our social graphs on a layer 1, and we're permissionless,” Primitives Protocol’s Head of Product Nehemiah Blackburn explained. Where layer 2 and permissioned crypto social networks contain the aforementioned single points of failure, “we have all the data security guarantees of the layer 1, and anyone can write, and anyone can read,” he said.
Primitives Protocol opted to build on Solana because “not only was it cheap, but it was really fast,” said Gabeau. “Accessibility is our core value,” he added, noting that, “by making transactions free for the user, and taking away some of the complexities of logging in with your wallet or managing keys, we've built a product that anybody can use and use very quickly.”
The first deployment of non-fungible graphs is already live, in the form of primitives.xyz, an art trading platform launched atop Primitives Protocol. Billed as a “stock market for culture,” it enables users to mint images as NFT “gems” to share and trade with other users.
The Primitives core app is just the beginning, however. “The flywheel of getting people onto the protocol has already started,” said Gabeau. “And we're going to continue to drive people to the protocol through great clients.”
He added that over 15 teams, including from outside the crypto space, have already reached out about building with Primitives Protocol. “Any application, regardless of which chain, regardless of even being on chain at all, could use our APIs to make a portable decentralized world,” Gabeau said. “That’s our goal.”
If you’re a developer interested in building on Primitives Protocol, register for early access here.
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