Degen (DEGEN): The Community Currency of Social Network Farcaster

For a long time, the social media niche of the crypto industry lagged behind areas such as gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi) in terms of growth and adoption by users. That all started to change last year, in 2023, when a host of innovative SocialFi projects, such as friend.tech, Steem and Pop Social, appeared on the horizon. Since early 2024, another key web3 social media platform — Farcaster — has experienced rapid growth, quickly changing the dynamics of competition in the field.

The Farcaster social media protocol has become home to several "channels" and apps, with active community engagement. Farcaster's flagship app, Warpcast, is a gateway that’s used for accessing an ecosystem whose users can broadcast digital content and communicate à la X (formerly Twitter). 

By now, there are thousands of channels within the ecosystem, of which Degen is the most popular. Degen is a unique Farcaster community product that’s launched its own crypto token, DEGEN — which, interestingly, has functions well beyond memes and lighthearted fun. In addition to being a typical social media meme coin, DEGEN is also used to reward active user engagement on Farcaster. Various apps have also integrated the token for functions such as trading fee payments, and the allocation of grants to digital content creators.

Key Takeaways:

• Degen (DEGEN) is an community channel on Farcaster’s decentralized social media protocol.

• The channel’s native crypto, DEGEN, was launched to reward users for sharing digital content liked by others.

• In late March 2024, the project introduced its own EVM-compatible Layer 3 blockchain, the Degen chain, which opens up new use cases for the DEGEN token.