Who would have thought that social networks, which emerged about 20 years ago, would become an integral part of today’s life, through which people communicate globally, engage, self-identify, and earn money?
Everything in the world is changing. Well, it’s a fact. And social networks have caught their share of transformation — into crypto social networks within the Web-3 environment.
With over 300 million crypto users worldwide, blockchain-based social networks are considered one of the NFT trends for 2022.
So, what are they, and do they push the blockchain-driven space towards mass adoption?
OneArt has its own take on crypto social networks — keep reading to delve into the details.
Centralized vs. Decentralized social networks
Blockchain technology can be considered the progenitor of a new era of social networks, which took with it all existing networks and gave them even more powerful features, chief among which is their decentralization — the management of the network by users themselves.
But at its core, the new network implies a more complex concept than just decentralization. So today, you can also come across a term like SocialFi.
SocialFi (social finance) combines social networks and decentralized finance (DeFi). It is derived from cryptocurrency networks with the introduction of NFTs technology and DeFi. In addition, the platforms resemble decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), where participants can partially manage the system by suggesting changes and improvements using community tokens.
What other benefits do crypto networks provide users with?
Benefits of decentralized networks
- “The Fediverse” approach
A set of networks constitute the fediverse (in other words, the metaverse), within which individual networks can interact, making internal cooperation more seamless and facilitated.
Such a cross-platform engagement makes it possible for Twitter users to interact with Facebook users, for example, via Web-3.
2. User control
As mentioned above, decentralization without central authority confers independence on network users. It, in turn, opens up several advantages: resistance to censorship, full ownership of personal data, and improved control over the content.
3. Enhanced security & privacy
The blockchain system itself is considered safer due to the absence of a central server, the malfunction of which could lead to undesirable consequences, including the leakage of confidential information.
Since in SocialFi, data is distributed through networks of nodes, single points of failure are eradicated, and the risk of collapse of the entire system with loss of data is minimized.
Moreover, decentralized social networks carry greater privacy and data security, allowing users to create accounts without being linked to real identities or phones. For example, a Yat string of emojis can be used as your username, website URL, or payment address within the Web-3 space.
4. Advanced token-driven economy with advertising neutrality
Users’ ability to receive and send crypto using a social media platform itself provides the main difference between blockchain social networks and regular ones. Tokens are used not only for internal network “governance” but as a reward for delivering quality content as the Steem social blockchain does. Thus, it allows social platforms to evolve through users’ input.
Next-generation Web-3 platforms are looking for ways of monetizing not through advertising (which is sometimes annoying) but through the token economy in which every user is motivated.
Although networks such as Reddit, Meta, YouTube have already begun implementing NFTs in the social network environment, they remain centralized. But imagine you can organize NFT trading (be it a digital gaming skin or art piece) through Instagram! Well, it may be just around the corner.
Today’s fraud within the centralized social networking ecosystem, unforeseen changes in system algorithms, and management of networks by “someone above” may soon completely give way to decentralization with its token-driven system, high-quality content, committed users, and endless possibilities.
Today’s projects related to blockchain social networks
Even though the topic of crypto networks is just gaining momentum, emerging projects — and the soon-to-be-released OneArt NFT app — enable the transition from Web-2 to Web-3 faster than one could have imagined.
Some of the crypto-based social media projects and networks existing in today’s market:
- Monaco Planet — a SocialFi platform for blogging and interacting.
- Torum — a social + DeFi + NFT metaverse ecosystem.
- Peepeth — a decentralized social network (like Twitter).
- LBRY — a blockchain version of YouTube.
- Boom — a social metaverse platform for NFT-based works showcasing.
- Secretum — a blockchain-based messaging app with in-built high-level privacy and security.
- Artrade — the 1st social NFT platform with its booming popularity nowadays for providing users with beneficial features.
The future of crypto-embedded social networks
With the expected number of crypto owners across the globe to reach 1 billion by the end of 2022 and with platforms like Torum, which already had more than 200.000 users, we can suppose that crypto social media will be firmly embedded in the metaverse ecosystem.
But, like everything related to a crypto theme, social networks are only at the initial stage of the shift. Still, projects launching and developing confirm that the transition to Web-3 has already occurred. The question here is instead about time, but considering the lightning-fast development of this burning topic — adaptation to the new-generation networks will take less than 20 years.
There is another crucial point to consider: will decentralized networks involve current blockchain-less social giants, or will entirely new networks emerge?
In OneArt’s opinion, YouTube, Instagram, and other networks are not so easy to turn into blockchain-driven, so most likely, we will see a battle of centralized and decentralized social networking platforms.
