Introduction:
Today, we’re diving into the magical world of Lens Protocol that will change the very fabrication of social graphs and the overall creator economy. Now let’s discuss: The Content Creator & The Ownership of content! Over the years, content creation and consumption have gone through mind-blowing transformations, and the ride is far from over. In fact, it’s given rise to a whole new economy called the Creator Economy!
So, what exactly is the Creator Economy? Well, my friend, it’s all about creators like you monetizing the awesome content you produce. Whether you’re writing articles like this one or creating amazing videos, your hard work and creativity deserve to be rewarded. And that’s where the Lens Protocol comes in!
What is Lens Protocol?
Lens Protocol is a decentralized social network with a web3 team backing it up. What does that mean? It means you have the power to own your profile and your content! No more playing by someone else’s rules. You can even set up a DAO account and start monetizing your content like a pro. Plus, the team behind Lens Protocol is constantly innovating and working to serve the community, so get ready for some exciting web3 tools coming your way!
Now, let’s talk about why a decentralized platform like Lens Protocol is the NEED OF THE HOUR!
Picture this: in the current web2 space, content creators often get a raw deal. Centralized entities control the monetization of your hard work, all in the name of “free content hosting.” But fear not! Lens Protocol is here to save the day and bring about a paradigm shift in the creator economy.
Lens Protocol has implemented an inclusive governance model that allows active community members to contribute to the decision-making process regarding the protocol’s future development.
Among the three existing proposals, two focalize on the establishment of open standards for algorithms and metadata.
Lens Protocol, a decentralized social media platform that originated from the DeFi lending giant Aave, introduced a novel open governance model. This model enables community members to propose enhancements to the protocol.
Inspired by Ethereum and Aave’s successful improvement proposal frameworks, Lens Improvement Proposals (LIPs) aim to establish a comprehensive framework that facilitates the engagement of developers, creators, and users in shaping Lens’s future development.
LIP-0: Establishing an Open Governance Model
LIP-1: Open Standards for Algorithms
LIP-2: Open Standards for Metadata
The recent announcement reveals the existence of three ongoing proposals. The primary proposal establishes the open governance model itself. The second proposal seeks to promote the integration of third-party algorithms and machine learning (ML) services into Lens Protocol. Meanwhile, the third proposal outlines the classification, organization, and labelling of metadata within Lens.
Getting started with Lens Protocol is a breeze! When you create your profile, it generates a super cool Non-Fungible Token (NFT) that’s fully customizable. This NFT holds all your content, remarks, likes, and reposts, all linked to your wallet address. And if someone wants to collect one of your posts, they’ll get your tradable NFT. It’s like digital gold!
As a creator on Lens Protocol, you have the power to choose who can access your work. Want to make some extra cash? You can monetize your social media by asking others to pay for special content or setting up subscriptions. It’s like having your own decentralized version of Patreon! Oh, and did we mention that Lens Protocol runs on Polygon‘s EVM compatibility? That means low transaction fees and endless possibilities for developers. It’s a win-win for everyone!
Now, let’s take a quick tour of the awesome components that make up the Lens ecosystem:
- Profile NFTs: These babies represent your online identity and hold all your posts, mirrors (RTs), and comments. They’re like your digital trophy case, stored securely in your wallet. Say goodbye to losing control over your online persona!
- Follow NFTs: The social graph of Lens Protocol revolves around these NFTs. When someone follows your profile, they receive a special follow NFT that marks their place in the follower queue. You can even set up rules to keep those pesky spam bots at bay. Plus, voting rights are on the table, just like a DAO setup. How cool is that?
- Publications: This category includes your posts and comments. Thanks to Lens Protocol’s decentralised approach, every piece of content you produce is now fully owned by you. No more platform overlords dictating your creative destiny!
- Mirrors: Think of mirrors as the supercharged distribution feature of Lens Protocol. It’s like retweeting on Twitter or sharing on Facebook, but way more awesome. Spread your content far and wide, and watch your influence soar!
Now, let’s tackle the elephant in the room: the problems with the Centralized Creator Economy. Yikes! From the platform taking all the revenue to crazy fees and even banning creators, it’s been a tough ride for content creators worldwide. But fear not, my friend! Lens Protocol is here to shake things up!
Twitter, for example, loves to slap a “Promoted” tag on posts, but guess who gets to keep all the revenue? Yep, Twitter itself! Not a single dime goes to the creator. Talk about unfair! And don’t get us started on Meta charging creators a whopping 47.5% fee in its Metaverse. Hypocritical much?
But fear not, content creators of the world, Lens Protocol is here to turn the tables! We’ve seen some fantastic growth in the Lens community, with more and more creators embracing the decentralized revolution. Our on-chain analytics show an incredible surge in interaction, profile followers, and overall ecosystem usage. The Lens rocketship is ready for takeoff, and it’s going to the moon!
So, my fellow creators, let’s wrap things up. Decentralized Social Networks are not just a buzzword in the crypto space; they’re a game-changer! We need to empower creators, give them full ownership and control over their content, and revolutionize the way content is produced and distributed. And Lens Protocol is leading the charge!
We’re at the transitory stage of Web2 ➡️ Web3, and it’ll take some time to adapt to the ever-changing dynamics. But trust us, a paradigm shift is coming, and it’s going to be epic! So buckle up, my friend, and join the Lens Protocol revolution. Together, you can create, own & dominate the decentralized creator economy!
The Lens Protocol Timeline:
In early 2022, the blockchain and crypto communities started taking notice of something stellar brewing in the background.
And then, on February 7th, 2022, Lens Protocol burst onto the scene like a superhero flying in to save the day! They went live on Polygon’s Mumbai testnet!
Fast forward to May 18th, 2022, and it was time for the grand transformation. Lens Protocol levelled up and made the EPIC transition to Polygon Mainnet.
In June 2023 Lens Protocol raised $15 million led by DEOVC with participation from VC firms like General Catalyst, Variant, and Blockchain Capital, as well as DAOs like Flamingo DAO, DAOJones, Punk DAO, DAO5, and Global Coin Research.
Notable angel investors involved in the raise include Balaji Srinivasan, a prominent Web3 entrepreneur, Sandeep Nailwal, the co-founder of Polygon, Hayden Adams, the CEO of Uniswap, and Sebastien Borget, the co-founder of The Sandbox.
The Emergence of Lens Protocol in 2023
When it comes to the relationship between traditional social media companies and cryptocurrency, things have been a bit rocky. Facebook’s venture into web3 began with a controlled stablecoin known as Diem (or Libre), but that project was dismantled and sold for parts in 2022.
Instagram made a strong start by allowing users to showcase their collected NFTs, but they suddenly discontinued support for NFTs a few weeks back.
On the other hand, Twitter made an announcement this month that it will enable users to trade cryptocurrency through integration with eToro. With Elon Musk leading the way with his super-app vision, perhaps this move will break the streak of bad luck.
Meanwhile, crypto-native social media platforms are gearing up to challenge traditional web2 social media. Lens Protocol has experienced a significant surge in monthly transactions and user activity since the beginning of this year.
In February 2023, it reached an all-time high of 4.2 million transactions and boasted 125,000 users. What’s even more impressive is that the protocol is still in closed beta, with new user signups limited to an allowlist. However, potential users can still acquire Lens IDs from secondary markets, although they will be taking over an existing account with existing on-chain history.
Lens Protocol operates as an open-source social media network, powered by the Polygon proof-of-stake blockchain. The main advantage of an on-chain social network is that users have ownership over their data.
On platforms like Facebook, user-generated content and interactions are recorded in a controlled, centralized database owned by Meta Platforms. In contrast, Lens allows users to create content that is recorded on-chain and can be seamlessly integrated into any application built on top of Lens.
A user’s journey in the Lensverse begins by minting a profile NFT (non-fungible token), which serves as a record of all their content and engagement. Users can create posts in the form of text, video, or images, while comments and mirrors (similar to retweets on Lens) are treated in the same manner as posts, but also reference the original post they are linked to.
When users follow another account, they receive a follower NFT, which enables creators to restrict comments and mirrors to their followers only.
The Architecture of Lens Protocol:
“The foundation of Lens Protocol lies in ERC-721 profile NFTs. Unlike Nostr and Farcaster, Lens executes every social graph action as an on-chain transaction on the Polygon network.
Publishing updates to a profile NFT incurs transaction fees, but many apps utilize their own relays or other solutions to provide a gasless experience. By publishing data to the NFT, users always remain in control of their social graphs, making it effortless to migrate to new services as all user data and experiences are stored within the NFT itself.
Content published to a Lens NFT is referred to as a publication. Publications encompass posts, comments, and mirrors (retweets). It’s important to note that Lens does not store the content itself in the NFT. Instead, when a user posts content, Lens creates a ContentURI that points to the content, which can be hosted on decentralized services like Arweave or centralized services like AWS. Consequently, the NFT functions as a record of the content rather than storing the content itself.”
While the number of newly minted profile NFTs has declined since the beginning of this year, user engagement is reaching new heights. From 18,000 to 20,000 engagements (posts, comments, and mirrors) at the start of the year, engagement skyrocketed to an all-time high of 168,000 by the end of last month. A significant portion of this increased engagement can be attributed to the rise in mirrors (retweets on Lens).
Lens Protocol follows a creator-first strategy, with a focus on making content monetization simple. By prioritizing the onboarding of creators, Lens aims to foster rapid growth. All it takes is a few influential creators to join Lens, and once signups are opened to the public, user growth could explode. Creators can allow other users to mint or collect their posts and comments as NFTs, setting specific conditions such as a certain duration or number of mints for collection.
Since the beginning of this year, the number of collects or mints has also surged, reaching an all-time high of 67,800 in February 2023.
Ecosystem & Partnerships:
Some of the biggest web3 leaders have shown faith in the Lens ecosystem and support its vision of decentralizing the social creator economy space. This has enabled an accelerated growth trajectory environment for the Lens Protocol ecosystem even before they have gone public in a full-fledged way.
Lens recently unveiled a scaling solution that will process most transactions off-chain to accommodate this growth, relying on its data-availability layer. However, it will still have a verifier component to validate user transactions on-chain. Initially named Bonsai, the team rebranded this initiative to Momoka due to potential trademark issues with a similarly named crypto project.
Say hello to the Lensverse:
Lens is growing at a phenomenal speed and the platform offerings are a testimony to the the same. Social graph has been taken to the next level in the Lensverse.
Lens Protocol is one of the most promising and innovative projects in this space, we will closely monitor Lens’s growth, particularly as they prepare to open new user signups to the general public, which is expected to result in explosive growth.
Lens is a protocol built on top of Polygon, an Ethereum scaling solution. Social media platforms that utilize Lens can leverage smart contracts and NFTs to tokenize social data, allowing users to have ownership and control over their posts, preferences, and network. This ownership is not limited to a specific social network but can be transferred to any other social network built on Lens.
Conclusion:
Stani Kulechov, the founder and CEO of Aave, emphasized the significance of users having ownership of their profiles, the content they create, and the audiences they build. He believes that traditional social media users will increasingly seek to monetize and assert ownership over their creative work, a feature currently lacking in mainstream Web2 social media platforms.
Lens aims to attract a wide range of users beyond the Web3-native privacy and decentralization advocates, expanding its reach to a broader audience that previously had to start from scratch when transitioning between different social media platforms.
While decentralized alternatives to dominant social media platforms have been emerging in recent months, Lens sets itself apart by prioritizing ownership. The team behind Lens envisions a future where a common network is shared among major social media platforms, enabling seamless content and follower migration.
By becoming this common network, Lens aims to facilitate the free flow of content and followers across platforms. This emphasis on ownership distinguishes Aave’s social media network from other decentralized social media experiments.