Messari warns of the decentralized social shift: Farcaster acquired, Lens changes ownership, DeSoc enters restructuring cycle

January 22 News, Messari researcher AJC stated that decentralized social networks are entering a new adjustment phase. Between January 14 and January 21 alone, several core projects experienced directional changes in succession, triggering a reshaping of the DeSoc track landscape. Base App shifted from a social tool to a trading application centered on token exchange and wallet functions; Lens Protocol handed over control to Mask Network; Farcaster was acquired by its long-term infrastructure partner Neynar. These chain reactions in a short period indicate that the first round of experiments with “decentralized social platforms” is coming to an end.

These changes expose the real difficulties faced by DeSoc. Although Farcaster has raised approximately $180 million, most decentralized social applications remain niche, with user retention and monetization struggling to break through. The high operational costs and sluggish revenue create a gap, forcing teams to seek more direct monetization paths, making trading and wallet tools higher priority. However, this also causes overlap between SocialFi and DeFi tools, increasing competition, and community enthusiasm for “social as finance” has noticeably cooled.

Structural reorganization is also happening simultaneously. After Mask Network took over Lens, the original team continued to participate as technical advisors, while Aave chose to return to core DeFi business. Farcaster’s protocol contracts, main application, and Clanker are unified under Neynar’s operation, with co-founders Dan Romero and the Merkle team gradually stepping back. A leaner organizational structure may help improve protocol iteration efficiency and community response speed.

In AJC’s view, this is not the end, but a necessary “reset.” The exit of large teams frees up space for new developers, and the next generation of decentralized social products may focus more on genuine interaction, identity, and data sovereignty, rather than purely speculative traffic. As ecosystems like Ethereum continue to expand, cross-chain identity and social data composability are expected to become new breakthroughs. After the first chapter concludes, the second chapter of DeSoc is beginning, and the market will test which models can truly achieve scale and sustainable growth.