Please indicate that the reprint is from the "Biteye" community
Author: Biteye core contributor Louis Wang
Editor: Biteye Core Contributor Crush Community: @BiteyeCN
* The full text is about 3800 words, and the estimated reading time is 8 minutes
The social protocol Lens Protocol was officially launched in May last year. After more than a year of growth, Lens has established its own ecosystem. More than one hundred projects have been built on the Lens platform. The cumulative number of users holding Lens Profile has exceeded 110,000, making it a leading social project.
At the recent Ethereum ETHCC event in Paris, Lens founder Stani announced Lens Protocol V2, an important step for Lens to achieve an open and decentralized social network layer.
In this article, we will first introduce the key changes of several upgrades of Lens V2, and then delve into the real protagonist - the changes that ERC-6551 brings to Lens.
Lens V2 Upgrade
Several key changes in Lens V2 are as follows:
Open Actions
Smart contracts will be embedded in Lens posts to enhance interactivity. In short, Lens is no longer just an information flow platform. It can directly integrate various Dapps, and users can directly operate external smart contracts in published posts.
For example, you can click "Mint" directly on a Lens post to create an NFT on Lens through the OpenSea contract;
Or when you find that the lending rate of GHO stablecoin is very friendly, you can insert the GHO lending interface in AAVE into the post you published, allowing other users to borrow and lend with one click through the interface.
This integration is similar to seeing product recommendations on Xiaohongshu and purchasing them directly through Taobao’s built-in plug-in with one click, without having to copy the link to go to the shopping platform.
This integration can even support cross-chain operations and will be extended to Ethereum and other second-layer networks with the help of oracle support in the future.
Collective Value Share
In the creator economic chain of Lens, creators serve as the source and publish their content on various Lens applications.
These contents are delivered to the target audience through algorithmic recommendations, which can be end users or suitable curators. The content can also be forwarded by curators to expand its dissemination range and gain more attention.
Ultimately, end users can pay for valuable creative content through collection.
In the entire creator economy value transfer chain, each link plays an important role. A healthy creator economy system should balance the interests of each role.
Creators can share revenue to reward those who contribute across the value chain, thereby enhancing the value chain and strengthening the business models of ecosystem partners.
Let’s use an example to illustrate this process: a creator publishes an article on Orb, a user makes a comment, and then another user sees the article on another application (such as Buttrfly) because of the comment, finds it meaningful, and pays to collect the article.
Then the algorithms and curators along the way now have the opportunity to share revenue and encourage more interactions.
Next Generation Accounts (Profiles V2)
The introduction of ERC-6551 enables each Lens Profile to create a smart contract wallet account, thereby obtaining all the functions of an Ethereum account, such as holding NFT and Token assets and interacting with Dapps.
In this way, Lens Profile has programmability and interoperability. An account is a wallet that can hold and control assets, and an account can also log in and initiate interactions. Lens Profile can therefore build a new attention system.
By introducing these changes, the social asset system has changed from the original NFT to Wallet to NFT to Profile, which greatly increases the value of the Profile itself. The value of all social graph relationships is directly attached to the Lens Profile.
Profile Manager
The account management function of Lens V2 provides users with more flexible options. Now you can host the Lens Profile in a secure cold wallet, and delegate social functions (such as posting, commenting, etc.) to other wallets to operate, further decoupling the association between the Profile and the wallet address and improving security.
Lens V2 supports more association modes. Now one profile can be bound to multiple wallet addresses, and different operations can be delegated to different wallets for management; or one wallet address can manage multiple profiles.
Users can also host wallet functions to some dApps, which will be used for unified operations, thus bringing a decentralized social experience without gas or signatures.
In addition, V2 also supports account abstraction addresses as Profile Managers, opening up more application scenarios and use cases for users.
（Source: Lens Blog）
Trust and Security
In Lens V2, the following features are also introduced to protect users' social environment and account security.
The first is the on-chain blacklisting function, where users can add other users to the blacklist, thereby preventing any interaction with these users, such as following, commenting, forwarding, etc.
In addition, the Profile Guardian mechanism in LIP-4 was introduced, which improves the security of Lens Profile and minimizes the risk of Lens Profile theft through phishing.
Users now have to wait for a 7-day cooldown period before transferring a Lens Profile, buying more time to protect assets.
The introduction of these safety features makes Lens V2 a more reliable and secure platform.
In the functional updates of Lens V2, more open operations are expected to bring a better user experience, allowing users to interact with the outside world within Lens; secondly, the creator economy has been the focus of Lens for a long time, and sharing revenue on the social chain is not an aha moment.
Among these upgrades, the one that has a profound impact on Lens is actually the account system upgrade, which is the introduction of ERC-6551 into Lens Profile. Only by fully understanding the changes brought about by ERC-6551 can we understand the changes in the Lens account system.
The real protagonist——ERC-6551
ERC-6551 was first proposed in the Ethereum community in February this year, but it quickly became one of the hot topics this year. In the ETHGlobal Waterloo hackathon, 4 out of 11 projects were related to it.
ERC-6551 aims to create a smart contract wallet for each ERC-721 type of NFT. This wallet has all the functions of an Ethereum wallet account. It can connect to various dApps, interact with other smart contracts, hold various tokens and NFT assets, and is forward compatible with all ERC-721 NFTs. This means that all existing NFTs on the market will be able to have their own smart contract wallet accounts!
As shown in the figure above, the NFT holder (User Account) holds NFT A and NFT B. The two NFTs can generate one or more smart contract wallet accounts (Account A/B/C), or bound accounts, through the ERC-6551 specification Registry.
The owner of the generated NFT-bound account is the NFT itself, not the NFT holder, but the operating rights of the NFT-bound account are actually controlled by the NFT holder.
In other words, the account follows the NFT. If the NFT holds tokens or NFT assets, all of them will be transferred together when the NFT is transferred, and the control of the NFT-bound account will be handed over to the next holder.
Account system under Lens V1: Ethereum account as the main one, Lens Profile as the auxiliary one
After understanding ERC-6551, let’s review the original account system of Lens. NFT is one of the most important elements in the Lens account system:
The Lens Profile of a personal account is itself an NFT. Actions on Lens, such as following and collecting, are also performed by minting NFTs of the corresponding form and sending them to the holder's Ethereum address.
Obviously, under this account system, the main body is still the Ethereum wallet, and Profile NFT plays the role of a membership card, allowing holders to participate deeply in the Lens ecosystem and filter out other wallets that do not hold Lens Profile NFT.
Account system under Lens V2: Lens Profile as the main system, Ethereum account as the auxiliary system
ERC-6551 allows each Lens account to generate a smart contract wallet. The bound wallet generated by the Lens Profile already has all the functions of the Ethereum wallet, including logging in to interact with dApps and holding assets. The two can almost reach an equal status, thereby decoupling the Lens account from the Ethereum wallet.
In this way, the Lens Profile account will naturally be elevated to an account status independent of the Ethereum wallet in the Lens ecosystem, thereby bringing about changes in the attention system and collection system.
That is, the NFT generated after fans follow, or the NFT minted through the collection function, will no longer be an asset of the Ethereum wallet, but an asset of the Lens account. Even the income from creation and monetization will be directly allocated to the Lens account.
Through this change, all interaction records and creation records of the Profile become part of the value of the Lens account, making the accounts more differentiated and more growth-oriented. The value of all social graph relationships is added to the Lens Profile, greatly increasing the value of the Profile.
When users want to trade Lens Profile on OpenSea, it is no longer a simple NFT transaction. The implicit value of the account needs to be considered. For example, an artist's Lens account may continue to receive copyright fees. Buying his account is equivalent to buying his future copyright fees.
In addition to added value, ERC-6551 also opens up many new scenarios for Lens accounts:
Game Account
The previous focus of Lens was on gaming, because gaming naturally has social attributes. After the V2 upgrade, users can log in to the game directly with Lens Profile, and the equipment and income obtained in the game will also belong to the Lens account.
This allows the sale of game accounts with one click, and the account sold is a complete entity that includes game records and game assets, rather than a scattered pile of NFTs.
DAO Governance
For a DAO built on Lens, the contribution records of all DAO members can be distributed in the form of SBT to the corresponding Lens account instead of the holder's Ethereum address.
In this way, the more contributions one makes, the richer the credentials the Lens account will have, making it easier for the DAO to manage member contributions.
Account Operation
Currently, when operating a Twitter account, the project party needs to completely hand over the account password to the operator, which actually poses a risk of theft.
However, if the account is operated on Lens, the official account profile can be safely hosted in a cold wallet, and the operation authority can be delegated to designated personnel. This can reduce the number of official Twitter accounts being stolen and false phishing information being released.
NFT community based on Lens
Lens accounts can own other assets, and other NFTs can also own Lens accounts. This feature provides NFTs with their own social relationships and voice. NFT holders of the same series can use this to build a follow-up chain on Lens, form a community, and strengthen consensus.
For example, a CryptoKitty can have a Lens Profile, follow other CryptoKitties, and create and publish content to build its own value chain.
Summarize
The biggest change in Lens V2 is the introduction of ERC-6551, which upgraded the account system and evolved the Profile from an NFT to a smart contract wallet account. The overall composability and operability have been greatly enhanced.
The original interaction around Ethereum accounts has been changed to the interaction around Lens Profile. ERC-6551 can bring more application scenarios to Lens, and the open development environment will also become the entrepreneurial soil for more small and exquisite products.
