Founder's Thoughts
My journey building onchain social apps and the vision behind v03.fun
Why Onchain Social?
I believe the future of social media lies in decentralization. Traditional platforms have created walled gardens where users don't own their data, relationships, or content. Onchain social protocols like Farcaster, Lens, and XMTP are changing this paradigm by giving users true ownership and control.
My mission is to build user-friendly applications that make these powerful protocols accessible to everyone. We're not just building apps - we're building the infrastructure for a more open, user-owned internet.
The Vision
- User-owned social connections and data
- Interoperable social experiences across platforms
- Monetization opportunities for creators
- Innovation through open protocols
Connect & Follow
I share regular updates about our progress, thoughts on the future of social media, and insights from building onchain apps.
Journey Timeline
Key milestones and thoughts since 2021
Building the Crypto Social
I was working for a Malaysian startup back then, and they were building a social media platform for crypto enthusiasts. I was one of the two blockchain developers who handled the blockchain-related work and contracts.
They actually built a crypto social with just MongoDB and didn't build anything onchain.
They had just launched a token for the audience to trade and dump on the community.
This made me question what they were really building onchain, so I opted out of the project and quit the job.
Got to Know Farcaster
With my previous experience, I was exploring various decentralized social platforms and found Farcaster. I totally aligned with what they were trying to build and solve.
Got an invite from Dan, and after exploring, my first thought was to contribute and build on it.
Farcaster was just a desktop app then, and the protocol wasn't ready for client development.
Meanwhile, I also started exploring Lens Protocol, going through their docs and understanding their approach.
Exploring Farcaster Mobile Apps and Mainnet
Things got better with Farcaster as they moved to mainnet, launched the mobile app, and improved the documentation for builders.
Started building a few social apps on various blockchains across hackathons to test features.
Discovered how we could achieve easy distribution by building on existing decentralized social protocols.
Tinkered with ideas for what apps or clients could be built on top of Farcaster and its protocol features.
Building on Farcaster Protocol
With the launch of Frames gaining huge traction, we decided to build a Farcaster client, as we felt the existing mobile client was kind of messy and needed better UX.
In Q3, we started building the Farcaster client, similar to early Instagram for sharing images.
We thought of designing a better design system for the app, but instead started building the iOS version with Swift.
We are testing features on both the Android and iOS Swift clients, though we still need a proper design system.
Making the UX Better, Internal Testing the Apps
We're optimistic about what we're building, especially with Farcaster mini-apps gaining huge traction and Farcaster integrating wallets and other features. Our work has expanded to include more features, as we continue to focus on delivering better apps with better UX—it takes time.
We're on the cusp of mainstream adoption and want to deliver an app with better UX and an Instagram-like feel.
Fixing UX bugs, adding features, and internally testing both apps before launching them to the respective stores.
The vision of user-owned social media with better UX is becoming a reality—we're launching before Q4.
Let's build Onchain Social
Experience the power of user-owned social connections.
We are open to contributions from anyone who wants to help us build this together.