The Farcaster Flywheel
This blog post was originally given as a talk at FarCon 2025.
The best time to build on a social network is when it barely exists. When a network is tiny, every new user or feature bends its trajectory. Early builders get to nudge the shape of the curve, while late builders ride it. That’s why optimism wins: because optimists own the slope.
Farcaster’s slope depends on three stacked primitives. Crypto enables internet native money. Ethereum turns that money into programmable infrastructure. L2s slash the cost of running code. If any one of those primitives compounds, the network grows; if all three do, the growth is nonlinear. Betting on Farcaster is really betting on that stack, with distribution as the payoff.
Builders need to carefully coordinate two variables: burn rate and network size. Burn is a knob you can twist; network size is a curve you watch. Those variables are independent, which means startups die when they get the timing wrong. A team that spends like the network is at scale while the graph is still flat will burn out. A team that doesn't spend enough when the graph goes vertical gets out-competed. Successful teams need a theory of how and why the network will grow, and to plan their strategy accordingly.
Several tactics emerge from this observation.
First, draft behind Farcaster's priorities, but don't mirror them. When the core team dangles USDC rewards, the cheapest way to acquire users is to ride that wave. When they pivot, smart teams pivot their go-to-market, but not their product. Distribution strategies should be light, modular, and disposable; products should be slow, durable, and opinionated.
Second, pass the toothbrush test. If your mini-app isn’t worth opening daily, the feed will bury it. Farcaster is a stream. Streams reward frequency. Complexity collects friction, and friction kills daily habits. Strip features until what’s left feels simple, then measure whether it's useful enough to pull users back tomorrow.
Third, plan to graduate. Even with explosive growth, Farcaster will plateau long before your ambition should. When your signals indicate you've hit an internal asymptote, have the next pond mapped. Mini-apps are a popular trend, with platforms like Telegram and World offering compelling incentives to talented teams. And always remember the ultimate goal is to own your relationship with users through the open web or a dedicated mobile app. The skill is timing your jump so that momentum carries into the next cohort of users.
Distribution is the scarce resource on the internet. Products that solve a real problem and spread by word of mouth compound because each happy user is a sales rep you don’t pay. Farcaster’s mini-app infrastructure lowers the cost of those first users close to zero; your job is to make the first ten care enough to recruit the next hundred. If they won’t, no token emission or L2 incentive will save you.
Bright Moments, Amps, and now NODE all follow the same pattern: pick a frontier, build something people want, let creators tell the story. The pattern isn’t magic; it’s distribution plus retention. Farcaster offers both in embryo. The flywheel spins when builders remember the order: ship a need, earn a habit, export the graph.
If you believe that sequence, the exact number of users today is irrelevant. What matters is slope. The steeper it is, the more mispriced the present feels. And that is your opportunity.