Ethereum team lead slams Farcaster over bot manipulation

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As a researcher with experience in the blockchain industry, I’ve followed the developments of various decentralized social networks closely, including Farcaster. Péter Szilágyi’s accusations against Farcaster for alleged bot manipulation caught my attention, as transparency and fairness are crucial aspects of these platforms.

The head of Ethereum‘s team, Péter Szilágyi, has voiced criticism towards Farcaster over suspected bot activity, sparking worries about the platform’s level of transparency.

According to Péter Szilágencyi, Ethereum’s lead developer, he seems to have reservations towards Farcaster, an open-source decentralized social media platform. His stance suggests concerns about potential bot manipulation on the network.

The Farcaster DAU printer:

– Bots pay 5$ to FC to sign up.
– Bots circle-jerk to amass DEGEN tips.
– Degen tokens cover the signup fees.

Rinse and repeat.

FC adds feature to hide bots. “Win-win”. Users live in a bubble, FC can “demo” insane DAU. Completely healthy ecosystem /s

— Péter Szilágyi (karalabe.eth) (@peter_szilagyi) May 8, 2024

In a recent discussion on X, Szilágyi raised doubts about Farcaster’s environment. He pointed out incidents where bots were believed to be heavily influential, repeatedly engaging in transactions to amass DEGEN – an unofficial token intended to stimulate interaction within the Farcaster community.

As a crypto investor, I’ve noticed concerns raised by Szilágyi about an alleged conflict of interest for network developers. He argues that due to the way the platform functions, non-power users with less than 400 followers are effectively filtered out of everyone’s feed by default. This situation is reminiscent of a “money and user printer,” where the focus seems to be on generating revenue rather than addressing the underlying issue.

From my perspective as a crypto investor, I believe the primary issue lies with the Farcaster developers, who have a significant conflict of interest in not eliminating bots. These bots serve as a lucrative source of revenue and user base expansion for them. Their only concern is to make the bots less annoying, but not eliminate them entirely – enough to drive away real users.

At the moment of writing this piece, Farcaster has remained silent regarding the issue at hand. I, as a researcher for Crypto.news, have attempted to contact them for comment, and should they respond, the article will be updated accordingly.

As an analyst, I’ve been monitoring a Farcasters account for the past six months. Initially, there were only 250 followers. However, I’m thrilled to report that as of now, the account boasts an impressive following of 2700 individuals. Indeed, this growth has occurred naturally without any intervention or paid promotions.

— Péter Szilágyi (karalabe.eth) (@peter_szilagyi) February 5, 2024

Szilágyi has previously expressed apprehensions over Farcaster’s transparency. Back in February, this blockchain developer voiced doubts about the authenticity of Farcaster’s growth in an X post. He pointed out that his own account on Farcaster experienced a significant surge in activity and followers with no discernible reason or engagement within just a few days.

Established in 2020, Farcaster functions as a decentralized social network akin to X, yet it operates on Optimism, a layer-2 Ethereum solution. In March 2022, there were rumors that Merkle Manufactory, Farcaster’s parent company, was about to close a substantial funding series, spearheaded by Paradigm, with an estimated valuation of approximately $1 billion. Later in July 2022, the firm successfully raised $30 million through a funding round headed by a16z crypto.

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2024-05-08 15:24