⚡ Sold twice in nine months; the new owner started by taking the mic away from some users
First, the deal. On October 15, Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School bought Farcaster from Neynar. The main app, protocol codebase, and related products all changed hands; the price wasn’t disclosed. The protocol was renamed Network State Protocol.
This was Farcaster’s second change of ownership this year. On January 21, Neynar had only just taken it over from its original developers, Merkle Manufactory. Neynar co-founder Rish said they received several offers before the sale and chose this buyer because “Farcaster needs a different operating model.”
There’s nothing unusual about the deal structure. What’s unusual is what happened on handover day.
Users opened the main app and had to choose whether to accept a “social smart contract.” Accept, get an on-chain NFT as a pass, and keep posting. Decline, and your account is downgraded to read-only. You can take your private keys, assets, follows, and post history with you, then keep using them in another client. The protocol layer remains open, and third-party clients can still connect to it.
There’s just one gateway.
The rules started settling old scores the very same day. A batch of accounts was restricted to read-only, with the explanation that posts from months earlier violated the new rules. Penalties come in three tiers, from a warning at the lightest end to a permanent ban at the harshest. They’re applied retroactively.
The scale is clear. The main app has 250,000 monthly active users, according to co-founder Dan Romero in December 2025. In May 2024, it raised $150 million in a Series A led by Paradigm at a valuation of around $1 billion. Total funding stands at about $180 million; the sale price this time wasn’t included in the announcement.
It gets more interesting from another angle. The buyer isn’t short on cash. On October 9, Network School announced a new funding round at the Network State Conference 2026, valuing it at $2 billion, with Polychain leading and a16z participating. Its headquarters are in Astana, and on July 21 it signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development. A buyer valued at $2 billion takes over a social protocol valued at $1 billion, with 250,000 monthly active users, that has been sold twice this year.
The math doesn’t add up easily.
What exactly is this money buying? Anyone can fork the open-source code. But you can’t fork the interface that 250,000 people open every day.
Balaji’s framework is the network state. A state needs people, and people need rules. What went live on day one of the takeover was a residency permit.
On-chain ownership puts the private keys in your hands. The microphone is still in theirs. You can take your identity and data with you, but not the crowd.
As I write this, four BTC price sources put it between $81,951 and $82,066, up 0.6% over 24 hours. ETH is between $2,416 and $2,419, down 0.6%.
Whoever controls the gateway writes the rules. Open protocols don’t change that.
$BTC $ETH
#中本聪国际社区Baoluo币商资本 #加密货币 #SocialFi
First, the deal. On October 15, Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School bought Farcaster from Neynar. The main app, protocol codebase, and related products all changed hands; the price wasn’t disclosed. The protocol was renamed Network State Protocol.
This was Farcaster’s second change of ownership this year. On January 21, Neynar had only just taken it over from its original developers, Merkle Manufactory. Neynar co-founder Rish said they received several offers before the sale and chose this buyer because “Farcaster needs a different operating model.”
There’s nothing unusual about the deal structure. What’s unusual is what happened on handover day.
Users opened the main app and had to choose whether to accept a “social smart contract.” Accept, get an on-chain NFT as a pass, and keep posting. Decline, and your account is downgraded to read-only. You can take your private keys, assets, follows, and post history with you, then keep using them in another client. The protocol layer remains open, and third-party clients can still connect to it.
There’s just one gateway.
The rules started settling old scores the very same day. A batch of accounts was restricted to read-only, with the explanation that posts from months earlier violated the new rules. Penalties come in three tiers, from a warning at the lightest end to a permanent ban at the harshest. They’re applied retroactively.
The scale is clear. The main app has 250,000 monthly active users, according to co-founder Dan Romero in December 2025. In May 2024, it raised $150 million in a Series A led by Paradigm at a valuation of around $1 billion. Total funding stands at about $180 million; the sale price this time wasn’t included in the announcement.
It gets more interesting from another angle. The buyer isn’t short on cash. On October 9, Network School announced a new funding round at the Network State Conference 2026, valuing it at $2 billion, with Polychain leading and a16z participating. Its headquarters are in Astana, and on July 21 it signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development. A buyer valued at $2 billion takes over a social protocol valued at $1 billion, with 250,000 monthly active users, that has been sold twice this year.
The math doesn’t add up easily.
What exactly is this money buying? Anyone can fork the open-source code. But you can’t fork the interface that 250,000 people open every day.
Balaji’s framework is the network state. A state needs people, and people need rules. What went live on day one of the takeover was a residency permit.
On-chain ownership puts the private keys in your hands. The microphone is still in theirs. You can take your identity and data with you, but not the crowd.
As I write this, four BTC price sources put it between $81,951 and $82,066, up 0.6% over 24 hours. ETH is between $2,416 and $2,419, down 0.6%.
Whoever controls the gateway writes the rules. Open protocols don’t change that.
$BTC $ETH
#中本聪国际社区Baoluo币商资本 #加密货币 #SocialFi