Galaxy Digital, an asset management company, is projecting a sustained growth outlook for decentralized social networks (DeSoc) over the next decade. According to a recent report, the increase in the number of cryptocurrency holders will drive the growth of these platforms that promote data ownership, transparency and resistance to censorship, all developed on a decentralized network. DeSocs, in contrast to traditional social networks such as X or Facebook, use the private key of a cryptocurrency wallet to access, thus promoting security and user control. Galaxy Digital highlights that DeSocs are not only part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, but also have the potential to drive widespread adoption of those assets, just like decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFT) do. Since the launch of the first DeSoc, Steemit, in 2016, until today, These applications have accumulated more than 8.7 million users and have facilitated more than 82 million transactions on various networks, including Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon and BSC. The total number of monthly active users on DeSoc platforms is 550,000, according to Galaxy. A prominent example is Friend.tech, a social network based on Ethereum layer 2 called Base. So far, Friend.tech has accumulated a total value locked (TVL) of $41 million since its launch in August 2023. A month and a half after its launch, the social network had more profits per service than the largest decentralized exchange (DEX), Uniswap, as reported by BitcoinDynamic. This early success shows the community's strong interest in exploring and adopting DeSocs.
Friend.tech's explosive growth in 2023 positioned DeSoc as Web3's Comeback Sector of the Year. Friend.tech's user base grew 620-fold in 3 months and the app generated over $27 million in revenue. Galaxy Digital, asset management company.
Another platform watched by Galaxy Digital is DeSo, launched in 2021, which It has the largest number of user registrations, reaching 3 million. The top five DeSoc apps, led by DeSo and followed by Cyber Connect, Poap and Friend.tech, account for 85% of the total registrations on these platforms, as shown below. Each DeSoc platform has a particular focus, from traditional publishing and interactions to innovative models such as social-fi, digital asset collecting and other unique user experiences. In this context, Farcaster presents itself as an outstanding DeSoc thanks to its focus on user retention, says the report. Launched in September 2022 on Optimism, layer 2 of Ethereum, Farcaster has been responsible for 30% of DeSoc-related transactional activity in 2024. To date, Farcaster has facilitated more than 6 million transactions daily unique. Within Farcaster users can create a series of integrated applications that perform various social networking functions. Precisely one of those is Degen, a project that at the beginning of the year delivered a airdrop of your DEGEN token, as a reward for channel users. It should be noted that the creators of the Degen channel and its token have no affiliation with the Farcaster team. However, this allows more users to join the network and attracts airdrop hunters. There is also the MINDS token from the social network with the same name, where you can create a profile, publish content and interact with other people. There users earn the crypto asset for creating a post, liking another user's post, sharing an image, uploading a video or creating an article. For each action carried out on Minds, the platform delivers points that are then added up and this allows them to grant a daily token payment. Currently the MINDS token is trading at $0.04, according to data from CoinGecko. Another social network that has a token is D.Tube, similar to YouTube, in which users can upload and share videos. DTUBE tokens are given there to reward users for their contributions. The price of the asset is $0.043 on the current day. Although this DeSoc sector is still nascent, Galaxy Digital is cautiously optimistic about its future, seeing in these platforms a unique combination of technology, data ownership and community participation that could redefine the social media landscape in the next decade.