As the social media industry faces pressure over privacy and content moderation, another blockchain-based alternative, Towns, was launched today, Cointelegraph reported.
Towns completed a $25.5 million Series A financing round led by Andreessen Horowitz (A16z) in February 2023 and officially announced its launch on October 15.
Founded by Houseparty and Meerkat co-founder Ben Rubin, Towns aims to provide a “new standard for digital communications” and runs on the River messaging protocol.
The River Protocol includes an EVM-compatible Layer-2 chain, decentralized nodes, and smart contracts deployed on the Base protocol, prioritizing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to enhance communication privacy and security.
The Towns interface is similar to Discord or Slack, and users have full ownership and control of their data, with transparency ensured by the River smart contract on Base.
A Towns spokesperson said blockchain is critical to communications because it ensures transparency, security and decentralization, making trustless interactions possible without intermediaries.