After DeFi and GameFi, will Web3.0 social be the next trend?

Author: Bob, Baihua Blockchain

Earlier this year, Zhao Changpeng published a comment in the Indian edition of Fortune magazine stating: "DeFi saw rapid innovation in 2021, and we may witness a thriving interest and innovation in 2022, with SocialFi and GameFi becoming the main driving forces." In fact, following the successful transformation of "finance" and "games" by Web3.0, more and more people believe that the next area likely to be transformed is "social"…

01 Why will the next Web3.0 trend be social?

Social media is undoubtedly one of the core and most important businesses of the Web2.0 era. As of now, data from Qimai shows that in the App Store download rankings of any country, there are always three or more social applications in the TOP10, and many entertainment applications also come with social features. Moreover, these social applications not only have a massive user base, but the value they generate is also evident; almost every successful social application is backed by a company that ranks among the top in global market capitalization.

Nowadays, almost all internet users are users of social applications. Driven by large capital, the social giants behind these applications generate hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars in revenue each year by acquiring more and more user data through personalized advertising, content recommendations, and services. However, at the same time, the excessive concentration of power among these giants has also brought many problems. Years ago, regulators in Europe, America, and even globally began to focus on issues of cybersecurity and privacy protection. Today, the threats posed by internet giants still exist, and these security and privacy issues urgently need to be addressed.

Today, Web3.0 brings solutions to these problems, with the concept of returning data and power to users gradually gaining traction. Perhaps it is time for a social revolution in Web3.0.

Speaking of Web3.0 social, the crypto community actually launched some decentralized social products as early as 2016, but at that time, blockchain development was still in its infancy, and the infrastructure such as public chains was not yet mature enough to support high-concurrency services; even DeFi had not yet emerged. However, starting from 2019, with the rise of DeFi and the explosion of GameFi in 2021, we find that the current crypto infrastructure has been gradually improved, and various high-speed public chains can now provide services for various high-frequency scenarios. For example, many GameFi applications requiring quick transactions have already been deployed on BSC, and their feasibility has been proven. So perhaps now is the time for social applications to take the stage.

02 FaceDao: A New Force in Web3.0 Social

With urgent demand and improved infrastructure, many social applications have emerged in this fertile "soil." Taking Face DAO, an active social Dapp deployed on the BSC public chain, as an example, FaceDAO is a Web3.0 social platform where each user can participate in DAO governance while ensuring real social interactions through facial recognition. It has already released mainstream iOS and Android applications on the App Store and Google Play.

I had my first experience with the FaceDAO APP:
First, after downloading and opening the FaceDAO APP, you can log in using a traditional Web2.0 account, which everyone is likely familiar with. The APP then prompts you to undergo "real person verification" (facial recognition) to ensure "I am not a robot" before proceeding. In simple terms, you can create a decentralized Web3.0 social DID using a Web2.0 account and 3D facial information.

After creating an ID, we can see that you automatically receive some FaceDao. In addition to social features, the application also includes four governance functions: "Finance," "Proposals," "Tasks," and "Council." Through the finance option, you can view transparent distribution data; through the proposals option, you can propose and vote in the DAO; through the tasks option, you can enter reward tasks; and through the council option, you can run for and vote in community council elections.

The social features of FaceDAO currently include functions similar to "Moments" for posting, commenting, liking, and private messaging friends, allowing users to see various photos and texts posted by friends from around the world. You can log in and start "Web3.0 real socializing." In the future, the DAO is expected to continue organizing proposals to improve and develop more valuable new features.

In short, FaceDAO is a Web3.0 social platform that ensures real social interactions through facial recognition. From the official website and the application experience, it has the following characteristics:

• Facial recognition ensures real social interactions
  As mentioned earlier, the FaceDAO APP requires "real person verification" (facial recognition) during registration to ensure "I am not a robot" before proceeding.

• Decentralized DAO governance and profit sharing
  The future of the FaceDAO social platform is directly in the hands of its users, allowing them to manage the platform's future content control parameters and the development of new features through proposals and voting. The platform is co-governed and co-created by users (community members), and profits are also shared. Additionally, users are allowed to earn social income from their activities on the social platform, such as paid content and social e-commerce.

• Social to earn
  Users can earn rewards through social activities (participating in platform content creation and interactions to attract more new users). Daily visits, likes, comments, shares, or creating a post, liking, or commenting on others—every positive action will earn rewards.

• DAO Treasury
  All community assets are controlled by a multi-signature smart contract managed by elected custodians. For example, rewards for developers when proposals to add new features are made and some distribution parameters will be managed and paid by representatives elected by the community.

• Free Tokens
  All users can receive governance tokens for free. By using your Web2 login and creating an ID with facial recognition, you can immediately obtain governance tokens.

03 Mainstream Web3.0 Social Products

Earlier, we mentioned that the crypto community has been exploring Web3.0 social. We found several typical social applications for analysis and comparison:

• Status
  Status is an early privacy social application deployed on Ethereum, which also has wallet and browser functionalities. Its tokens are mainly used for voting, rewards, and paid usage of certain features. Due to its early development, the APP provides a relatively smooth user experience. It gained some popularity in 2017, but due to congestion in the Ethereum public chain infrastructure and the subsequent bear market, it has not developed further.

• Etherscan Chat Function
  Recently, the most popular blockchain explorer made an attempt at a social function by setting up a chat entry called Blockscan Chat within the browser. Users can send and receive "encrypted signed messages" by linking their wallets, ensuring that messages come from the real owner of the address and can be intuitively verified due to encryption with private keys. There are also some interesting use cases, such as sending messages to Vitalik Buterin's address and receiving replies; finding NFT owners in the browser and negotiating with them through chat…

• FaceDAO
  The main features of FaceDAO have already been mentioned earlier; here we will discuss how it differs from the two social products above:

  Compared to Status, FaceDAO's decentralized governance model is more direct and thorough, not only used for governance and voting but also for profit distribution and rewards, etc. It can be said that Status is almost controlled by the development team, while FaceDAO is entirely controlled by participating users.

Status and Blockscan Chat use wallet addresses as account IDs, but theoretically, these are uncontrolled and can be infinitely increased, which does not ensure real social interactions. A face is unique; using facial recognition as an ID ensures uniqueness and authenticity.

Using the Web2.0 login method provides a better experience for users who are already accustomed to operating Web2.0 accounts, and with facial recognition, security is also enhanced and guaranteed. Of course, since the application has been developed for a short time, it currently does not have the functionality for wallet login, but in the future, through DAO proposals, there may be an increase in the need for users to log in directly through wallets for higher security.

04 Postscript

On May 13, Musk announced in a tweet: "Twitter deal on hold until details emerge that prove the proportion of fake accounts or spam accounts is less than 5%." During a technology forum in Miami on May 16, he stated that the proportion of fake accounts on Twitter is at least 20%, and it could be as high as 90%; the exact numbers are as unknowable as the human soul.

Musk's suspension of the Twitter acquisition has drawn significant attention, with the focus on the high number of fake accounts on Twitter, which pose great risks to real users. In fact, issues of fraud and inflated metrics have long plagued Web2.0 platforms. FaceDAO offers a viable solution by combining facial recognition + Web3.0 + DAO to create a real Web3.0 social platform.

As a DAO, FaceDAO can also be seen as a social experiment, as it did not start very early and still has some uncertainties and risks. How will FaceDAO perform in the next Web3.0 social trend? Time will tell.