Web 2's worst nightmare
Is this the first real and useful Web3 protocol?
Hey early birds, today we are pivoting back to Web3 to cover one of the most important protocols I’ve seen in a long time, you do not want to miss this post.
Hey early birds, Robin here. If you’v been following me for a long time then you know that I have been keeping an eye on AAVE’s Social Media project since I started this account.
And these past few weeks, it has finally come out so let’s end the pleasantries and delve right into this.
What is Lens Protocol and what does it do?
Who is behind Lens? and what can be built on it?
Is there any token?
What does it mean for Web 3 and why should I care?
Looking towards the future.
What is Lens Protocol and what does it do?
According to the docs, “The Lens Protocol is a Web3 social graph on the Polygon Proof-of-Stake blockchain. It is designed to empower creators to own the links between themselves and their community, forming a fully composable, user-owned social graph.”
Now, I know what you’re thinking, “What does this actually mean Robin?”.
Let’s cover each and every important word in this explanation so you know it like the back of your hand.
Lens is on the sidechain Polygon, for more information on sidechains please reference this thread and their benefits and tradeoffs.
Composability or “composable” refers to a system design principle that deals with the inter-relationships of components. Something that is composable is something that can be re-arranged in all sorts of way to make something specific.
This means that Lens Protocol can be used to create something as simple as a DAO or something as complex as a Web 3 version of Spotify. It can be modified in all sorts of ways!
A social graph is a kind of data structure that represents social interconnections with people, groups, and even technologies.
Think of it like this, Social Graphs represent the various interactions on social networks. For example, here’s one for Facebook.
This kind of Social Graph has been used by companies like Facebook and Spotify. For example, Spotify integrated Facebook’s Social Graph and now you can see what music your friends listen to. Isn’t that just cool?
In the eyes of some people it’s quite creepy and, as it turns out, not everyone on Facebook wants to disclose they secretly love bubble gum pop.
The secret of Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok comes down to these social graphs. Each “edge” as they are called strengthens the network even more.
For example, when Julia joined thefacebook at Cornell and invited her boyfriend Julio to join and they both select they are in a relationship an “edge” or connection has been formed.
When Julio listens to “... Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears on Spotify an edge is formed or when Julia watches “Orange is the New Black” on Netflix.
Of course, these users opted into these kinds of things and features like this aren’t popular anymore but there’s a latent desire to show the world what we listen to.
That’s why Discord’s Spotify integration is so popular.
And yes, that interaction forms an edge.
You can think of this protocol as decentralizing that sort of feature so anyone can build a social network on top of this open source graph.
Right now, Facebook’s Social Graph is centralized and in one database. No one can use that to make their own social network and take advantage of its benefits. They have to make their own from scratch.
With this protocol the future of Social Media will look a lot like this:
You sign up for this one network.
You will probably have two separate accounts for work and pleasure.
You can use that sign up anywhere where the network is supported.
For listening to music, watching videos, posting to social media, joining communities, online dating, etc.
You own all data you produce since everything you do is minted as an NFT.
This means that basic features like royalties are done automatically and you can incentivize community growth for NFTs that are given on an automated basis.
Imagine trying to get an NFT drop and having it be based on how much you contribute (ex: users who were early get the drop instead of whales and speculators).
You can just take your posts to the next platform if a platform decides to kick you off.
DAOs become the defacto model for any community
Imagine being able to have DAO tools such as governance and for all actions on DAO being ENFORCED by code and not at the whims of the admins to decide.
Lens Protocol is working to make all of this possible and so much more possible.
Now, the backbone of this brave new world of Social Media is the wallet.
Your wallet is a lot like your key to this brave new world.
Now, how does this all really work?
Well, it works with your profile which is represented by an NFT. This NFT represents your online presence or your group presence.
Yup, that’s right multiple wallets can own a single NFT and this NFT can then be transformed into a DAO.
But for users, they can use the publication function to post content. So users actually OWN their content, the place displaying them DOES NOT actually own the content they are only displaying it.
Ex: a song or social media post.
Publications have a ContentURI which “has specific content the publication contains, this can point to text, an image, a video, or other arbitrary content stored on either a decentralized protocol such as IPFS or Arweave, or a centralized storage provider like AWS S3.”
It also has a Collect Module which allow creators to monetize their content via NFTs and allows them to create constraints.
Limited time only NFTs.
Certain number of collects.
Devs can decide further functionality.
Publications also have a Reference Module which is used to decide who can comment or share your post or “mirror” it.
You can think of a reference module as a rule book for your content.
Comments are similar to publication NFTs but they are used to comment. These comments have Collect and Reference modules which follow the same features as stated above.
Mirror is best described as being similar to Twitter’s re-tweets. You can amplify content to people who follow you or the DAO you’re in.
Now, following is where things can really complex and open up all sorts of possibilities for creators.
When a user follows someone on Lens, hey are given a Follow NFT, which creators and communities can encode.
Following can only be accessible via payment.
vote delegation
Being an early follower can give you more privileges or be used to decide who gets to vote.
These are just some basic examples of possible features that can be created, the protocol’s docs believe that more features can be created by the dev community for various purposes.
Who is behind Lens?
The team behind Lens is Aave.
Oh yes, the same Aave that kicked off the DeFi revolution in 2018 with EthLend (as it was called then) to allow for decentralized lending and borrowing.
Aave formed a team around July and it looks like my analysis of their job postings I was on the dot.
Some aspects of the posting aren’t reflected in Lens right now but we’ll see how things evolve.
Aave is led by Stani Kulechov, an experienced CEO and angel investor who has an eye for spotting and creating the next big things.
I’m predicting that just as Aave kicked off the DeFi Revolution, they’ll all kick off the Web 3 revolution with Lens.
Lens, assuming these docs, allow for more features are extremely transformative and profound for Web 3.
It allows for people in Web3 to create their own dapps that can possibly rival the likes of Meta, Twitter, Match Group, Youtube, Spotify, Google.
Is there any token?
No, not at the moment but we can speculate about what the token could look like.
It’s likely that the token will be a governance token in a similar way to AAVE and could be used to burn the creation of NFTs on the protocol.
What does it mean for Web 3 and why should I care?
Lens, while extremely nascent, is shaping up to be one of the most important protocols for the future of Web 3.
If we want to finally fix Social Media to move away from the model of stealing your data, stalking you like the paparazzi, and incentivizing the creation of communities then Lens is looking like one of the more likely candidates to do this.
And you should care immensely because this is a chance to fundamentally reinvent the internet and by extension society as we know it.
Yes, Lens does not have a token but that does mean that you should ignore them.
The developers building on this platform are extremely passionate and will likely create incredible products that are not just comparable to Web 2 products but can expand on them.
It’s a brave new internet people and with this new internet comes the opportunity to not only bet on the platforms that will dominate it but thanks to Web 3 the chance to directly bet on creators themselves.
For example, you could bet on the next Olivia Rodrigo (up and coming pop star) and directly profit as she profits by only her album NFTs and Social Tokens.
Investments like this for, most of human history, have never existed and now they have the chance to exist thanks to Web 3.
Looking towards the future
This is the most major Web 3 development of serious substance in the social media space and a sign that the future of the internet as we know it will not be in the hands of a few nerds from the early 2000s.
It will be in the hands of anyone on Earth with an internet connection who can either code or wants to have their voice heard.
I firmly believe that just as Stani kicked off the DeFi revolution that which now has $74.66B in TVL, we are going to see something incredible that will birth protocols and DAOs worth trillions.
The revolution that has just begun will not be centralized.
Very interesting.
I'm surprised that there's no recommendation to buy Aave coin.
Do you think they'll mint a separate coin for Lens?
Hey Robin please keep us updated if there's any token launch for Lens, thx.