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ArkStream Capital’s research team takes a deep dive into the leading decentralized social protocol Lens, examining its place in the decentralized social landscape, its leading applications, and its potential limitations.

Many thanks to Larissa from the ArkStream team for submitting this guest article…

Following the Ethereum Community Conference (ETHCC), Lens Protocol made headlines with the announcement of its latest upgrade, Lens V2. This highly anticipated release includes two transformative upgrades that have caught the attention of the blockchain community. The first upgrade, Open Actions, introduces a groundbreaking feature that allows users and developers to seamlessly integrate external smart contract actions into Lens releases. The second enhancement, a groundbreaking integration with ERC6551, revolutionizes identity management by allowing users to use NFTs as their unique identity and bind all account activity within the Lens ecosystem. Notably, multiple wallet addresses can now be linked to an NFT, streamlining the user experience.

Lens and its competitors

According to the data, Lens Protocol has established itself as the leading SocialFi platform on Ethereum. Compared to its competitors, Lens has shown remarkable growth and user engagement. For example, Fracaster, another social contract with a similar social graph concept, currently has 17,286 active accounts, while Lens Protocol has a whopping 119,241 active accounts, significantly dwarfing its competition.

Another competitor, Cyberconnect, may have a higher number of accounts at over 296,342, but it is worth noting that the Lens protocol imposes access control measures, making direct comparisons difficult. Despite Cyberconnect’s larger user base, Lens Protocol outperforms in total transactions with 21,931,943 transactions compared to Cyberconnect’s 16,249,274 total transactions.

The data makes it clear that Lens Protocol’s ecosystem not only attracts a larger user base but also encourages higher levels of activity among its users compared to other social contract platforms. This level of engagement and activity reflects Lens Protocol’s effectiveness in creating a vibrant and thriving community within its decentralized ecosystem. However, the Lens protocol is not satisfied with its current performance, but is continuously upgrading it to the next level.

The ambitious movement of Lens

Momoka: Lens’ L3

In April, Lens introduced MOMOKA, an innovative Optimistic L3 scaling solution that aims to process Polygon transactions off-chain, achieving unprecedented scalability while reducing transaction costs. Unlike the traditional rollup process where L2 sends transactions to L1, Momoka takes a different approach. It creates transactions and retrieves signatures from wallets, but instead of broadcasting these transactions directly on the blockchain, it uses the transaction signature and entered data to generate Data Availability (DA) metadata, which is treated as a transaction itself. This metadata transaction is then sent to a dedicated DA layer.

Additionally, Momoka offers indexing support, allowing node operators to seamlessly stream and index Lens data without relying on third-party infrastructure. The launch of Momoka gives users the ability to voluntarily store data on Polygon, and releases that do not require the robustness of a trusted execution layer can choose not to use EVM state. In doing so, Momoka offers users the flexibility to tailor their transaction approach to their specific needs within the Lens ecosystem.

The launch of Momoka offers users the opportunity to rely less on Polygon’s services, potentially leading to Lens moving to a layer-one chain and becoming part of the modular blockchain approach.

Integration with ERC-6551

ERC6551 allows NFTs to create token-linked accounts (TBA), meaning NFTs can serve as wallet addresses or on-chain accounts, effectively achieving NFT-as-wallet functionality. Additionally, ERC-6551 will support the creation of smart contract wallet accounts for current ERC-721 NFTs, with the NFT being used as an on-chain identity wallet. This NFT account can contain multiple wallet addresses, held NFTs and ERC-20 tokens, making NFTs true representatives of on-chain identity accounts.

From Lens’s perspective, integrating with ERC-6551 and standardizing the rules for using Lens NFT is a strategic step. Currently, Lens requires users to have the Lens NFT to access its services, and trading the Lens NFT will result in the forfeiture of all associated account activity and transactions. By implementing ERC-6551, Lens optimizes the usage of its NFT and adds an element of identity that fosters a sense of belonging among users.

Lens believes that the current integration with ERC-6551 not only simplifies NFT usage, but also introduces the concept of identity, improving the overall user experience. This innovative approach to integrating identity into NFTs creates a deeper connection between users and the platform.

In the Lens closed beta, users have already created and accumulated over 3.4 million NFTs, which is more than just profile pictures or digital assets. These NFTs now have the potential to generate new use cases in the identity space, offering a new and exciting perspective that is likely to stimulate interest in the market.

Promising projects on the Lens protocol

There are currently more than 134 proven and featured applications in the Lens ecosystem. This diverse range of successful applications has generated great interest and support from various communities and developers who are excited about the promising future of the Lens protocol.

Bullet

Orb is a decentralized social media platform that supports both mobile and desktop versions. Among all the applications, we believe in Orb. Orb is a decentralized social app that stands out not only for its exceptional UI/UX on Lens, but also for its strong community focus. We believe that a compelling and distinctive community will be the most unique feature of a web3 social app and will be instrumental in attracting web2 users from platforms like Twitter. Orb places great emphasis on attracting diverse communities from web3 while creating unique user experiences.

lenses

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Lenster is an innovative and groundbreaking decentralized social media application firmly rooted in the principles of permissionless interaction. Powered by the dynamic Lens protocol, Lenster is redefining the digital social landscape by introducing a novel paradigm of user engagement. On this groundbreaking platform, users have the unprecedented ability to curate and reward posts that resonate with the broader community.

Phaver

Phaver is considered a groundbreaking pioneer in the field of decentralized social media platforms and leverages the innovative capabilities of Lens technology. As one of the early adopters of this revolutionary paradigm, Phaver not only redefines the way users interact with digital communities, but also introduces an innovative incentive dimension through its unique reward token system.

Lens Protocol Limitations

• The submitter is responsible for validating transaction data and creating data submissions to Arweave, similar to L2 sequencers. However, it is not decentralized and the decision-making authority for the submitter lies with the official Lens team.
• Lens decided not to rely on traditional L2 solutions, but instead aggregate data and send it to the DA layer. This decision is due to the fact that Lens data is becoming increasingly complex as a bloated application, unlike financial data which only requires final results. Sending data to the DA layer for processing by Arweave is done a temporary solutionnot a long-term scaling solution.
• Although Lens is considered one of the most developed protocols with a thriving ecosystem and a dedicated team working to build and improve user experiences, it is currently primarily attracts blockchain users. Lens is struggling to attract new users. However, some non-blockchain-based social contracts have successfully attracted large numbers of new users due to their low barriers to entry and smooth user experiences.

In summary, Lens Protocol is a compelling contender due to its inherent technological advantage built on a strong commitment to decentralization. While well-known social protocols such as Nostr and Mastodon have built significant user bases without relying on blockchain technology, the uniqueness of Lens Protocol lies in its true support of decentralization. Nostr’s example highlights the importance of a decentralized architecture that saves users from having to deal with complex blockchain concepts. The elegant Nostr system of clients and relays gives users effortless access to private and public keys, creating an environment suitable for expansion and the creation of diverse applications.

But the recent wave of attention sparked by the innovative exploits of visionaries like Vitalik and Elon on Twitter could potentially realign the preferences of native Web3 users and prompt them to explore alternative, promising social protocols. In this evolving landscape, Lens Protocol faces the challenge of maintaining its relevance and appeal.

We are excited to see how Lens will position itself in this competitive environment.

About ArkStream

ArkStream is a $50M early-stage VC founded by crypto natives from MIT, Stanford, Tencent, Google and Blackrock with over 80 portfolios including Sei Network, FLOW, The Graph, AAVE, Polkadot, Pocket, Republic and more.

Website: http://arkstream.capital

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