1. An announcement, an era ends
On January 21, Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan sent a brief 300-word farewell letter on Warpcast: The Farcaster protocol, official client, Clanker, and all code repositories will be handed over to Neynar in the coming weeks. The two founders will only retain the identity of 'observers' as they turn to 'search for the next mountain.'
This is just 20 months away from Farcaster completing a financing round led by A16z at a valuation of $1 billion in May 2024; it’s also only a Christmas season away from the community rumors circulating in Q4 2025 that 'Coinbase will take over.'
The story did not take the route of a 'Coinbase acquisition' but welcomed a more profound ending: the largest 'shovel merchant' at the infrastructure layer, Neynar, officially upgraded to 'miner'.
Two, the market is cold to the bone, while M&A heats up to a boil.
On-chain data does not lie.
• In December 2025, Farcaster's daily active users fell below 40,000, down 72% from the peak;
• The protocol's monthly revenue is $118,000, down 61% from Q3, unable to cover even node operating costs;
• The same track's Lens V2 and CyberConnect have both postponed token issuance, and social protocol narratives have entered a 'capital winter'.
However, the M&A market is exceptionally lively:
• In October 2025, Uniswap Labs acquired the on-chain chat protocol Session for $180 million;
• In November, EigenLayer devours the Ethereum DA project WireNetwork;
• In December, the Solana Foundation strategically merges the NFT standard Metaplex.
Capital no longer pays for 'narratives', but for 'cash flow'—whoever can turn open-source protocols into sustainable SaaS will be able to pick up bloody chips during the bear market. Neynar is just the most resolute one.
Three, Neynar's 'Coinbase Gang' trump card.
• CEO Rishav Mukherji: Harvard graduate, former group PM at Coinbase, grew USDC's market cap from 1 billion to 34 billion;
• CTO Manan Patel: Former engineering manager at Coinbase, responsible for Uber's real-time scheduling system, has handled 20 million concurrent requests;
• At the seed round, there were two Farcaster founders, with $11 million in Series A jointly invested by Haun Ventures, USV, a16z CSX, and Coinbase Ventures.
In other words, Neynar is not an 'external financier', but an 'ecological side chain' that shares the same milk as Farcaster. When protocol revenue runs dry and team morale declines, handing the keys to those who understand developers, monetization, and compliance best is a rational choice.
Four, Wallet-first: Farcaster's last lifeline.
In December 2025, Dan wrote in Cast 'social-first is dead', shifting the product focus to 'wallet-first':
• Frames 2.0 directly embeds Swap, Subscription, and Paymaster, turning content into a checkout page in three steps;
• The official client removes channel thresholds, using 'asset holdings' as the only admission rule;
• On the protocol level, a new Asset Graph is added, where user relationships are no longer indexed by 'following', but by 'shared holdings'.
In one sentence: Social is just the surface of traffic, trading is the revenue engine.
And Neynar happens to hold the three cards that developers need most and are most willing to pay for:
1. Real-time event stream: delivering on-chain transfers, NFT transactions, and contract events to the client within 90 ms;
2. Signature custody: $0.3/month/address, helping project parties avoid $200/month AWS node costs;
3. Data availability: 62% of Farcaster data tables on Dune are provided by Neynar, with query fees settled per GB.
When 'wallet-first' transforms the payment scenario from 'posting' to 'trading', Neynar's API call volume aligns with the revenue model in an instant—this is exactly the dirty work that Farcaster's officials fail to do well.
Five, What will Neynar do after vertical integration?
From the recent recruitment announcements, we can piece together three roadmaps:
4. Stablecoin yield layer: Launching 'Cast-to-Earn' in collaboration with USDC, users can earn 2%-5% annualized coupons for each branded Cast they post, directly reusing Coinbase's compliant yield pool;
5. On-chain advertising network: transforming Frames into bidable ad spaces, accurately placing ads based on 'holding similarity', settled on CPC;
6. Developer revenue-sharing market: launching 'Neynar Revenue Share', any third-party Frames generating transaction fees through Neynar can take a 10% cut, directly transferring to the multi-signature on-chain.
In one sentence: Let the protocol, client, infrastructure, and cash flow all close the loop, turning open-source ideals into SaaS cash flow.
Six, Short-term impact on users: seamless migration, with airdrops.
Neynar's announcement clearly states 'zero downtime within four weeks', all FIDs, usernames, and historical Casts are fully retained; the Warpcast brand will be kept temporarily, and whether to rename it will be decided by community vote after six months.
More critically, the 'ecological incentive token' FARM (Farcaster Acquisition & Reward Mechanism) has been submitted for audit, with an airdrop expected in March:
• 60% goes to active addresses that have interacted in the past 90 days;
• 25% goes to Neynar's paid developers;
• 15% reserved for staking rewards within the next two years.
If you are still lying in Farcaster, remember not to uninstall the App, who knows, the next 'bear market lucky fish' might just be your FID.
Seven, Long-term metaphor for the industry: the protocol layer's 'AWS moment'.
Open-source protocols were once like Linux in the 90s: anyone could compile, but no one could maintain;
Neynar's acquisition is like Red Hat turning Linux into an enterprise version: transforming 'free software' into 'invoice-able services'.
When the infrastructure of the crypto world is fully modularized, what ultimately matters is no longer TPS or narratives, but:
• Who can keep the nodes stable;
• Who can sell data standards;
• Who can pamper developers to the point they can't live without it.
The handover of Farcaster is not 'decentralization is dead', but 'decentralization enters a professional operation era'.
In the future, we may get used to:
"The protocol is open-source, the operating company is corporate; tokens remain on-chain, servers are hosted on AWS; ideals stay on GitHub, cash flow stays on Stripe."
This sounds very Web2, but it may be the inevitable path for Web3 to truly reach hundreds of millions of users.
Eight, Conclusion: Hand ideals to the market, and let time handle the market.
Dan and Varun spent five years taking 'portable social identity' from 0 to 1;
Neynar took three years to elevate the 'payable developer experience' from 1 to 100;
Next, it will be the market's turn to verify: when social graphs and wallet transactions completely merge, will users be willing to continuously pay for 'on-chain identity + asset subscriptions'?
The answer won't be written in the white paper, but in the wallet balance during the next bull market.
If you have ever left a Cast on Farcaster, or if you are hearing about the 'wallet-first' social experiment for the first time, why not:
• Follow this account, we will continue to track FARM airdrops and Neynar's roadmap;
• Like, share, let more builders see this historic case of 'infrastructure swallowing protocols';
• Leave your FID and thoughts in the comments: do you believe Neynar can turn Farcaster into 'on-chain WeChat'?
What the bear market lacks is not funds, but consensus. Every comment you leave is a vote for the next bull market.#达沃斯世界经济论坛2026 #neynar #Farcaster #特朗普取消对欧关税威胁 #特朗普对欧洲加征关税 $BTC
