Crypto Twitter’s great. But there’s a problem—it’s not built for crypto. It’s not open, it’s not decentralized, and it’s not permissionless. But there’s a new social app that is: Farcaster’s Warpcast.
What is Warpcast (Farcaster)?
Warpcast is a “sufficiently decentralized” social app by Farcaster. Like Twitter, you follow people and topics, engage with posts, and share your thoughts. But there's a twist. Unlike traditional social media, Warpcast’s built on the blockchain so it's open and permissionless. That means, you own your social identity, content, and connections. Not a corporation.
As for its features, Warpcast offers the must-haves for a social network: user posts (known as “casts”), a curated feed, simple search, trending topics, and direct messages. These social features, combined with an interface that’s reminiscent of Twitter, make it easy to connect, communicate, and interact with people and brands around the world.
Besides standard social features, Warpcast offers novel features such as Frames and Warps. Frames allows apps to run inside posts on Warpcast. This allows developers to build on top of the platform and users get to benefit from the fun, new functionality. Frames include games like chess, polls, NFT minting, and more. As for Warps, it’s Warpcast’s in-app currency for performing on-chain actions. For now, its main purpose is to create channels and bring people together around shared topics.
Now, onto the team. Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan, two former Coinbase employees, founded Farcaster to decentralize social media. Through Farcaster’s open protocol, which is built on Ethereum L2 Optimism, the team builds decentralized social applications such as Warpcast.
Why use Warpcast (Farcaster)?
Own your social identity
Unlike corporate social networks—such as Facebook, Instagram, and X—on Warpcast, you own your social identity. This means you can create an account, produce content, and build a community without fear of losing it all. Why? Because if Warpcast ever falls out of favor, or pushes an unfavorable change, you can move your identity, content, and connections across the protocol to a new app.
Connect and communicate without censorship
Traditional social media wants to know “What’s on your mind?” But if it goes against the beliefs of their corporate team, they’ll be quick to censor, silence, and deplatform you. Not Farcaster. As an open and neutral network, you can actually share what’s on your mind. Sports? Politics? Memes? Whatever it is, you can cast your thoughts and interact with others without Big Brother bullying you.
Have fun with Frames
On Warpcast, posts are much more than posts—they’re apps. With these apps, or “Frames,” you can play games, share feedback, mint collectibles, and a host of other use cases. How? Just scroll through your feed and interact with your favorite Frames. And as developers continue to build them out, you’ll have more Frames to choose from.
How to get started with Warpcast (Farcaster)
Get started with Farcaster by creating a Warpcast account. It takes less than five minutes and you can start posting and engaging with others like you do on 𝕏.
Create a Warpcast account:
- Enter (and verify) your email address
- Provide a phone number (or a $5-signup fee)
- This is to discourage spambots (a common problem on traditional social networks)
- Set your username and bio
- Select your interests
- Complete your signup
As soon as you’ve completed the Warpcast signup process, you’ll begin seeing “casts” (Warpcast’s version of posts) related to your selected interests. From there, you can like, reply, and repost them, or create your own casts.
Explore other Farcaster apps
Tons of other social apps are being built on Farcaster. Here are a few worth checking out:
- Bountycaster
- Supercast
- Yup
- Farcord
