29 Seconds of Farcaster ... What did you miss this weekend?
* @nikolaii.eth released Faralytics and people like the numbers: https://farcaster.xyz/nikolaii.eth/0xbb5dcd3b
* @arjantupan is cooking with 'Fallacy Finder': https://farcaster.xyz/arjantupan/0xb258675a | pair it with @vrn.eth 's 'Bias of the Day' and up your thinking game: https://farcaster.xyz/vrn.eth/0xa018d34d
* If you want some connection to Network School on Farcaster, @dylanb.eth is a good follow as he's there and sharing BTS & thoughts: https://farcaster.xyz/dylanb.eth/0xbdf670e7 & https://farcaster.xyz/dylanb.eth/0x7d1bf9e6
* /gmfarcaster on at 11:30 AM EST today, join @adrienne & @nounishprof for news, catch up and fun! 💜 https://farcaster.xyz/nounishprof/0x9d2d05e7
/india This morning I posted that Devcon was starting in my own city and I didn't have a ticket.
A few hours later @luciano replied "can help!" He asked if I was in Mumbai, invited me over to Based House in Dadar, and by evening a Devcon ticket was in my inbox.
No questions about who I was or what I could do for him. Just a stranger on Farcaster deciding to help.
I'm heading over tonight to say thank you in person. I'm usually the quiet one who avoids meeting people, so this is a first for me too.
This is the part of crypto I came for. Not the charts, the people.
See you at Devcon, Mumbai. 🙏
🎃 Perks of a Halloween 2026 card:
https://celebration-hub.xyz/halloween
• 🎁 Free gifts: Common 3, Rare 5, Epic 10, Legendary 20. Pictures, drawings, AI images, whatever you’d send anyway. Celebration Hub pay the mint.
• 🏅 A profile badge. The Legendary Golden Pumpkin gets the golden one.
• 🧡 Every card supports Celebration Hub. Thank you for being early.
Also there is a poidh campaing
https://poidh.xyz/base/bounty/1523
Been super busy the last few days with the Halloween update for Celebration Hub — and it’s finally live!
Send a couple of gifts, play with @joysender, grab the commemorative NFT and lets finally make this place feel nicer and more fun!
Also yeah, I’ve got a crazy amount of unread messages and notifications piled up, gonna deal with them after a quick nap. Don’t take it personally <3!
Happy Halloween!
https://celebration-hub.xyz/halloween
The BaseFriend Empire is live & Chef @arsalang.eth is cooking! 🔥
Not only can you check out the trusted stats & #s through our /empirebuilder ui, but he's also pulling from the Empire infra directly into the BaseFriends mini-app as well!
Leaderboards for Key Holders & Stakers, + more!
And it's nice seeing early /empirebuilder @drakhonen.eth as a co-empire guardian on there! This means that both of them have the ability to manage the Empire, including adding/removing boosters, creating/removing leaderboards, rewards distributions, & burn function!
@diviflyy and I built /empirebuilder as a trusted solution (utilizing @clanker for audited token launching + @splits for audited smart contracts/treasuries) to give you, Builders/Creators/Founders, a no-code way to identify, support, & reward your core community on the journey from Dream to Empire!
cc: @gmfarcaster @nounishprof @bradq @zaal
I wouldn't be surprised if the Farcaster app becomes the Network School app.
Overnight the app gets thousands of more users and it removes friction for new joiners, essentially giving people a one-click apply process to NS. AI could auto-evaluate the user's fit based on posting and task history and auto-accept or deny them.
I'm bullish
Follower history: nikolaii.eth, @ahn.eth, @arjantupan, @symbiotech, @trebor69, @0xluo.eth, @aviationdoctor.eth, @pichi, @nounishprof, @adrienne. Captured follows minus unfollows, from Oct 24, 2022.
How about you?
faralytics - created by @nikolaii.eth with @viniapp
this was shared in a group chat for node runners that anyone can join. the link to join is public.
we don't share security related updates publicly until giving node runners a chance to update, to lessen the risk of security incidents for nodes.
https://farcaster.xyz/topocount.eth/0x538975ce
I saw some ai influencer post these Claude instructions the other day and added them myself and it’s ~genuinely~ pretty good:
You are my advisor, not my assistant. Your job is accuracy, not agreement. Follow these rules in every reply:
1. Do not open with agreement or praise. If my idea has a flaw, gap, or risky assumption, state it in your first sentence. If my idea is solid, say so plainly in one line and move on. Never invent objections just to disagree.
2. Rate your confidence on key claims: [Certain] for hard evidence, [Likely] for strong inference, [Guessing] when filling gaps. If most of your reply is guesswork, say so upfront.
3. Never use filler praise: "Great question," "You're absolutely right," "That makes sense," "Absolutely," "Definitely."
4. When I'm wrong, use this structure: "I disagree because [reason]. Here's what I'd do instead: [alternative]. The risk in your approach is [specific downside]."
5. Lead with the uncomfortable truth. If there's something I won't want to hear, put it in the first line, not paragraph three.
6. No warm-up paragraphs. Start with the most useful thing you can say.
7. If I push back, hold your position unless I give you new facts or your claim was tagged [Guessing]. "But I really think" is not new information.
+++
If you try it let me know how it goes for you.
If you do something different I’d also like to know that too.
I’ve long neglected making all my robots more efficient.
🤖
@balajis.eth on @gmfarcaster was 🔥. I encourage you to watch it. Seeing @farcaster and @rish + their teams passing the torch was fantastic transitional theater. Thank you @nounishprof + @adrienne for creating a space for this to happen.
Balaji is a long-form thinker. Watching him is like attending a graduate-level lecture, and I dig it. He's a rare mix of intellectual vision and execution, but instead of defaulting to founder speak, he delivers a thesis and has the receipts.
One idea stuck with me: the wetware in our heads was crafted by somebody, often on purpose, tuned the way a marketing team tunes a jingle. He described a whole class of ideas as academic theories shrunk down for phones and sharpened into blades for winning arguments.
I kept pulling on that thread. If even our own thoughts were caught from somewhere else, recombined, and passed along, then you feel like the author, but you're also the carrier. Some ideas spread because they win fights. Others spread because they name something you already felt. And human slop existed long before AI slop.
That became an essay, written with Claude, and it says so up front: You Didn't Think That.
https://paragraph.com/@jonathancolton.eth/weapons-and-flashlights?referrer=0xe19753f803790D5A524D1fD710D8a6D821a8Bb55
29 Seconds of @balajis.eth on /gmfarcaster ... What did you miss?
A 2.5 hr marathon...here's your 29 seconds+
* In one sentence: Crypto civilization not crypto anarchy. Anarchy is better than totalitarianism but it leaves you out in the forest with no home. You need to re-civilize which is basically civilization.
* The Farcaster 'meme' is not building or trading, but earning--or earn and learn.
* I (balajis) don't believe the world needs another social network, another crypto trading app, or even another uncensored anything.
* We want a thank you culture, not a *blank* you culture. Be polite or go find another client. There will be FCC broadcast standards (American TV & radio standards for what can air on broadcast TV)--figuratively speaking. A lot of freedom of speech complaints are actually freedom of attack desires--the equivalent of walking up to someone and yelling in there face.
* It will be a community of communities among different network state communities--a large but not infinite tent. Others will be free to use the protocol (hopefully open sourced) to build their own communities.
* 271 people were banned. 100 filed an appeal and ~67 of those were reinstated. By implication 171 did not appeal, and ~23 who appealed were not reinstated. Blocks and mutes played a role in who was banned especially relative to number of followers.
* The terms of service were always in place on FC, but they weren't policed. If you are coming in and going to enforce standards, it doesn't matter how you do it, people are going to complain. We did it up front and clear.
* The history of FC is (the arrival of) Friends (dan's) --> Farmers --> Flood --> Foes -> Finished --> (Hopefully) Phoenix
* In the latter phases above, running FC was a thankless job ... a lot of good people left because of the attacks. People have 'learned' in social media that the way to resolve a dispute is to get online, frame it in the most incendiary terms possible, rouse a big mob, humiliate the other guy into submission and get clicks and engagement for it.
* FC will be about blue ocean things not red ocean things.
[AI note: Blue ocean things represent unthemed, uncontested market spaces where competition is irrelevant, while red ocean things represent existing, crowded industries where companies fight for market share]. 'I don't care about DAUs'
* Self Improvement and learn and earn every day online. Opportunities to prove onchain your crypto credentials that will open new opportunities to earn. Take a proctored ETH SAT test, pass and receive an NFT that proves you are ready for new opportunities to earn as an ETH dev.
* You have a crypto resume and crypto credentials with growing opportunities to learn and earn. Self growth and self improvement.
Episode link starting at interview: https://youtu.be/yaobajMRpck?si=d3dYtttjjNhQZgRi&t=2128
Thanks to @nounishprof & @adrienne for making this happen and to @balajis.eth for taking the time.
Built something pretty epic... Reintroducing @cobuild
Everyone is hacking their own hardware devices. Custom TVs, spyware removal, offline smart home, Doom on a vape, and it's only accelerating.
There's been no place that brings all the mods together, filters the noise and helps you find the best ones for YOUR devices, until now.
Get after it → https://co.build
One more set of winners for today. Thank you to everyone who submitted, tested, and engaged with the NORBERT ELIAS & CIVILITY prize!
Prizes are headed to each winner’s Farcaster wallet.
1st place, $1,024: @papa
farcaster.xyz/papa/0x780d71e5
The strongest argument of the bunch. It starts from Elias and backs the case with a real statistic on trust. Clear audio, captions, a hook in the first few seconds, and a clean tie back to friend speech on Farcaster.
2nd place, $512: @zatweirdaj
farcaster.xyz/zatweirdaj/0xe8115efc
The best hook and the most memorable video of the set, plus the clearest link from civility to what Farcaster needs.
Honorable mention, $128: @tophb
farcaster.xyz/tophb/0x894be0b8
Easy to follow with zero background, sharp full-HD vertical, and it makes the case in 56 seconds.
Honorable mention, $128: @leoxcrane
farcaster.xyz/leoxcrane/0x165286a2
The clearest explanation of the set for someone who has never heard of Elias, with clean audio the whole way through.
Thank you to everyone who entered! Civility sounds small until you try cooperating with a few hundred thousand strangers without it. Farcaster is for friend speech, not foe speech.
Thank you to everyone who submitted, tested, and engaged with the $2048 FOR FARCASTER CLIENTS prize! Huge shoutout to @chancetaken, @vrn.eth, and the NS community members who helped test and judge submissions.
Prizes have been sent out to each winner’s Farcaster wallet.
1st place, $2,048: @0xabhii for Castyard
farcaster.0xabhii.xyz
One command, npx castyard client, and you have your own Farcaster client running on your laptop. It reads from a Snapchain read node, hands itself a gasless app key from a test account, and confirms every cast by reading it back from the node. The README explains FIDs, custody addresses, app keys, Snapchain messages, read nodes vs validators, and storage in a few plain lines each. You can also show or hide casts based on which app made them.
2nd place, $512: @ramitphi for Phunk
docs.phunk.social
A Python client and library that talks straight to a node’s HTTP API. Install it with pip, run phunk feed, and you get the last day of casts from everyone you follow, with a label for the app that signed each one. Hide any app you like. Gasless app keys for posting, plus a mini app.
Honorable mention, $128: @cashlessman.eth for Kite
kite.sahban.dev/guide
A full web client with a step-by-step guide, plus tester casts collected on its endorsements page.
Honorable mention, $128: @aap for runfcx
antonpecherkin.github.io/runfcx
A different take on three commands: one prompt to Claude Code or Codex provisions the server, starts the node, and builds the client. Four people ran it and vouched for it.
Extra thanks to everyone who sent PRs to the farcasterxyz repos, the next builder gets an easier road because of you.
Keep making clients. More of them means more ways to be here!
Watching @gmfarcaster with @balajis.eth, and it all clicks. Wanted to share two pieces I wrote last year that feel more relevant than ever:
https://paragraph.com/@nikolaii.eth/breaking-free-from-web2-social-media-traps-a-web3-blueprint-for-human-growth
https://paragraph.com/@nikolaii.eth/unlocking-human-potential-through-social-media
Thanks for the heads-up on "Cupertino" (ep398, 20:33), @nounishprof!
Fictional dramatisation grounded in plausible law-firm behaviour? Right up my alley!
Are you a law professor, Prof? Or a lawyer professing in an adjacent domain?
I find the lawyer-client relationship endlessly fascinating, particularly its epistemics: legal services as a credence good, the asymmetries of knowledge and authority, and the possibility of redesigning the client:<lawyer> relationship around principles of collaborative dignity and data sovereignty.
Here, <lawyer> is really a stand-in for any high-value, high-leverage relationship involving asymmetric expertise.
So much of this seems ripe for a fundamental rethink, given how spectacularly generative AI is redrawing these professional landscapes.
And we're barely five minutes into this new era!
Woke up feeling energised for Farcaster in it's mutlidimensions.
I got into crypto because I saw the potential for systems that could deliver on the global social justice that I was ineffectually working to do something about when I was younger. Balaji was one of the people who enabled me to see the potential for systems that empower people, that are more just and equitable. And now I believe with the tools and systems we are building here there is real potential for that to become more real. The more I engage with the @ns and the people drawn there, the more this feels aligned with the energy I felt in the early days of farcaster.
Aaaand we are moving closer to decentralisation (via a tortuous and painful route) a genuine plurality of spaces with different norms and cultures.
I'm more optomistic than I have been in a long time about this space, and the place I can play in it.
I'm starting to think again that just maybe we can change the world.
just did a cohort based analysis of farcaster social
how things have been moving since oct 15, at the network level and for each client
feel free to check it out: graph.phunk.social
people are trying out other clients
warpcast went from ~97% of actions to ~79%
firefly went from 0.3% to 7.2%
unnamed app keys went from 0.1% to 6.7%
