@vrypan.eth

In 2025, I started having second thoughts about Farcaster. On one hand, the dev team was extremely reluctant to add new features at the protocol level: no changes unless they were proven useful, minimal impact only, and so on. In practice, the protocol had ossified, and at a state that wasn’t particularly satisfying. All the passionate discussions and debates, all the ideas we bounced around in 2023 and 2024, no longer seemed to have a place. On the other hand, Merkle would introduce significant changes overnight (10k-character casts, additional user_data properties, and more) with little to no public deliberation. Presumably, their product team felt they knew best. Farcaster stopped being exciting. I lost any illusion that I could influence what it might become. It felt boring, and like it belonged to someone else. - - - I wasn’t happy when the Farcaster fork was announced yesterday. But in the hours since, it’s the first time Farcaster has felt exciting in a long while. Possibilities are open again. Competition will likely push both teams to expand the boundaries. Governance styles, approaches, priorities, and strategies will clash — and at the same time become more explicit: we do it like this, they do it like that; we value this, they value that. I’m starting to feel bullish on Farcaster again.

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