“Farcaster is not shutting down,” Romero wrote. “The protocol works and will continue to work.” He added that venture-backed startup Neynar plans to “shift Farcaster in a more developer-focused direction.”
Merkle, meanwhile, plans to “return the full $180 million raised” back to its investors, he said.
Given some rumors, wanted to post a few clarifications:
Farcaster is not shutting down. The protocol works and will continue to work. There were 250,000 MAU in December and over 100,000 funded wallets. The acquirer, Neynar, is a venture-backed startup and plans to shift…
Merkle Manufactory was founded in 2020 by Romero and Varun Srinivasan and raised a total of $180 million from investors including a16z Crypto and Paradigm.
The handover comes as decentralized social media has drawn renewed attention from the crypto industry, as major changes happen across ecosystems.
The transitions place Farcaster and Lens under new operators drawn from their existing infrastructure ecosystems, with Neynar taking ownership and operational control of Farcaster, while Mask Network assumes a stewardship role over Lens without acquiring the protocol.
Observers say those moves point to a maturing phase for decentralized social, with infrastructure-focused teams taking on greater responsibility for operating and scaling protocols.
"On-chain social isn’t dying, it’s just shedding the myth that decentralization alone is enough,” Lia Savillo, Head of Socials at creative strategy agency Hype, told Decrypt. “The next era will be built by teams that prioritize infra, UX, and sustainability over ideology.”
The recent moves feel “like a healthy correction,” she said.
“We need mass communication tools that serve the user's long-term interest, not maximize short-term engagement,” Buterin wrote Wednesday.
The transfer of Farcaster’s contracts, code, and core app to Neynar shows a concrete instance of that design, where operational control could change, but the protocol itself would continue to run.
“Early on-chain social was driven by culture and ideals, but long-term viability requires operators who treat it like infrastructure, not a movement,” Hype’s Savillo said, adding that these changes across decentralized social indicate the space is “growing up, shifting from founder-led experimentation to teams optimized for reliability, scale, and developer velocity."
