Farcaster turns its back, and "Binance Square" and similar platforms take over crypto social media.

Original article by Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )

Author｜Golem ( @web3_golem )

On December 8th, Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero announced that the platform would abandon its "social-first" strategy, which it had adhered to for four and a half years, and instead focus on a wallet-centric growth model , hoping to attract more users by creating an excellent wallet. This means that Farcaster's future features and product positioning will be centered on the consumer wallet, rather than a decentralized social graph.

Following the collapse of friend.tech, Farcaster has been regarded as the "flag bearer" of SocialFi. It was backed by $1 billion in funding from top VCs (a16z, Paradigm), hyped up by crypto celebrities (Vitalik, the founder of Coinbase, etc.), and had a wealth effect that emerged from time to time (Degen, Clanker, etc.). Every hot topic could trigger a new wave of enthusiasm among crypto users. However, after "3 minutes", users would quickly lose interest and the platform's activity would drop rapidly.

This may be because Farcaster lacks a true product-market fit . Long before decentralized social applications emerged, the crypto community was already deeply rooted in Web2 social applications such as Twitter, Telegram, and Discord, which perfectly covered various social needs.

Farcaster's "social-first" strategy is essentially just a copy of Twitter, failing to generate sufficient motivation for users to migrate. Social products need real-world scenarios and differentiation; encrypted users are unlikely to abandon their established social graphs and relationship chains on Web2 social platforms like Twitter to "start from scratch" on Farcaster (unless they are "tomorrow's big influencers" with no prior experience).

Dan Romero himself is probably well aware of the crux of the problem: simply selling ideals like decentralization and data sovereignty won't lock in users. Therefore, instead of stubbornly persisting in a hopeless area, it's better to change tactics and focus on user growth and finding new product-market fits through the recognized Web3 gateway—wallets.

But has Farcaster really given up on encrypted social networking? In my opinion, no. On the contrary, it's a belated attempt to pull back from the brink, four and a half years late.

Since existing social scenarios have already been covered by Web2 social applications, we will create new encrypted social scenarios. Dan Romero named this strategy "attract users with tools and retain users with networks." He chose to start with the wallet scenario to enter the social field. Social needs will naturally arise in users' on-chain transaction/payment scenarios, and Farcaster's existing decentralized social infrastructure can provide users with a smooth one-stop experience.

However, Farcaster arrived too late. Their strategy of "building social scenarios first and then developing social applications" had already been preempted by CEX.

Crypto exchanges enter social media platforms

Asset investment behavior is naturally linked to social networks. After all, everyone is responsible for their own "bags" (i.e., their own investments). In fact, it could be said that the entire social demand within the cryptocurrency community (both public and private) is driven by investment and trading scenarios. Therefore, under this logic, cryptocurrency exchanges that create trading scenarios for users and develop social features are as naturally positioned as WeChat leveraged its social network to integrate payments.

Binance was the first to successfully launch a product. One day, when Binance's product manager was getting tired of constantly switching between Twitter and Binance, he suddenly had a flash of inspiration: why not create a social platform within the Binance main site? That way, people could openly share social information.

Therefore, in October 2022, Binance launched the content aggregation platform Binance Feed, and renamed it Binance Square a year later. At the same time, it opened up UGC (user-generated content) and launched the "content mining" function.

The so-called "content mining" means that creators can add token tags (e.g., $BTC) to the content they publish on Binance Square (including text messages, articles, videos, polls, voice live streams, or chat rooms). Whenever a Binance regular user or VIP 1-2 user clicks on the token tag in the creator's content to conduct spot, leveraged, or futures trading, the creator can receive up to 50% of the transaction fee rebate from that transaction.

By 2023, Binance had already become one of the world's top exchanges, and Binance Square's incentive mechanism was like a match thrown into a haystack, instantly creating a wildfire. By the end of 2023 (two months after the launch of "content mining"), the number of Binance Square creators had increased from 1,200 to 11,000, and by the end of 2024, Binance Square's monthly active users had reached 35 million.

Today, in 2025, Binance maintains its position as the world's largest exchange with 300 million registered users, which also means that Binance Square's user ceiling has reached 300 million. More importantly, these 300 million users are users "purified" by Binance; they have a clear goal—to profit in crypto finance. Within the trading environment created by Binance, they also have a clear and specific goal when using Binance Square—to find trading signals or wealth secrets.

Where there is demand, there will naturally be supply. The large and high-quality user base, coupled with the rebate incentives of "content mining," has led not only top traders, analysts, and KOLs to spontaneously migrate/synchronize from social platforms such as Twitter to Binance Square, but also a large number of native crypto bloggers to emerge from Binance Square, gradually becoming Binance Square's social "moat."

Binance Square Ads

Binance Square's tremendous success has prompted other exchanges to follow suit. Last week, OKX announced in Dubai the upcoming launch of its exchange social platform, OKX Planet, which includes three main functions: community, live streaming, and group chat. It makes no secret of its direct targeting of Binance Square, and some KOLs even revealed that OKX extended invitations to top Binance Square creators to join the platform on the spot.

Compared to OKX, other exchanges implemented content square features much earlier—Gate established its content square in 2023, and Huobi launched its content square in the second half of 2023...

Clearly, the battle among cryptocurrency exchanges has spilled over into the social sphere, but this also proves that exchange-based social platforms, such as Binance Square, have a high degree of product-market fit.

Furthermore, for creators, another significant advantage of exchange-based social platforms is the greatly reduced risk of account bans and compliance issues . Although governments worldwide are gradually relaxing crypto regulations, crypto bloggers on Web2 social media platforms frequently face reports and bans due to the industry's inherent association with investment, money, and "gray areas." On exchange-based social platforms, these risks are significantly reduced. Firstly, these platforms are built within the context of crypto trading, making their content naturally compatible with crypto bloggers. Secondly, exchange users are typically "high-quality newbies" who are highly tolerant of crypto bloggers.

This characteristic may become a core competitive advantage for exchange-based social products in the future, competing with Web2 social products like Twitter. After all, the main battleground for the Chinese-language crypto community used to be domestic public media like Weibo, which was forced to migrate entirely to Twitter due to regulatory crackdowns. Perhaps one day, a similar large-scale migration will occur with exchange-based social products as well.

Of course, while the above example of Binance Square demonstrates that exchanges have a natural advantage in developing social platforms, the core of an exchange remains its cryptocurrency trading business. Developing a social platform for an exchange is unwise if its user base has not reached a certain scale.

What kind of social products does the crypto community really need?

Looking back at the history of crypto social products, those that touted decentralization and SocialFi, such as Friend Tech, Lens, and Farcaster, all experienced their heydays, but ultimately, some failed and others suffered setbacks. Ironically, it was highly centralized Web2 social platforms like Twitter that consistently accompanied the crypto community. Even the newly emerging exchange-based social platforms, aside from their connection to crypto trading, seem quite different from the Web3 social platforms touted by investors.

This naturally raises a thought-provoking question: what kind of social product does the crypto community really need?

First and foremost, it's crucial to understand that decentralization is a means to an end, not the end itself. When this means fails to achieve our goals, it should be abandoned decisively. In social interactions, users prioritize information value, a sense of belonging, the ability to connect with others, and entertainment, rather than whether a platform is decentralized. The same applies to encrypted social networks.

Over the past five years, SocialFi has once again led crypto social networking into a Ponzi scheme, overemphasizing the "Fi" aspect while neglecting the "Social" aspect. Short-term traffic and token hype can create temporary prosperity, but in the long run, it cannot build trust or any high-quality content. Collapse is the only outcome for SocialFi.

In my view, what the crypto community needs is simply social products that connect crypto scenarios, foster meaningful communication, and build trust and collaboration on that foundation. This has nothing to do with decentralization or whether it's "Fi." It's simply about letting crypto social networking return to the essence of social networking: built for specific scenarios and existing to connect people.

Perhaps, to put it more bluntly, we need more Binance Squares, not the Farcaster of the past.

Further Reading

With SocialFi's narrative failing, does encrypted social networking still have a future?