Hearing buzz about Farcaster, $DEGEN, and Layer-3s but don’t know where to start? You’re not alone.
As the community $DEGEN token surged to a $780 million market cap on Sunday (March 31), thousands of new users flocked to the Warpcast application in hopes of sharing in the value being created. Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero tweeted that day that the platform had exceeded 70,000 daily active users, setting a new all-time high.
The Farcaster ecosystem can be a bit confusing to the uninitiated, so Atown has put together a beginner’s guide to getting started with the decentralized social media platform, as well as quick primers for trading and tipping the $DEGEN token. For those who are feeling particularly adventurous about exploring the bleeding edge of blockchain tech, he’s even included instructions for trading on the DegenChain’s Layer-3 decentralized exchange.
As always, our coverage of tokens is never financial advice due to their volatility. Be wary of rug pulls and happy degening!
Getting Started with Farcaster
Farcaster is a decentralized social network built on the Ethereum blockchain, specifically designed for creating and connecting social apps. It focuses on providing a censorship-free environment, where users have complete control over their data and interactions. By utilizing a sufficiently decentralized network architecture, Farcaster enables users to maintain their social graph and supports interoperability across different applications. This approach allows for greater user autonomy and privacy, with individuals owning their accounts and relationships within the network. Users can create profiles, post updates (referred to as “casts”), and follow others, moving freely between various apps within the ecosystem.
Create a Farcaster Account
- Initiation: Farcaster accounts are created through the IdGateway contract, assigning a unique Farcaster ID (fid) to your Ethereum address
- Set-up: You must obtain a username, rent storage, and add a key to activate your account, requiring multiple signatures and on-chain transactions, which may be complex with a standard Ethereum wallet.
Warpcast
Warpcast is a social media application built on the Farcaster protocol, aiming to create a decentralized social networking experience. It incorporates features similar to those of traditional social media platforms, such as Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), but operates within a decentralized framework to offer users more autonomy and control over their data and interactions. Warpcast users, known as ‘Warpcasters,’ need a Warpcast account to interact on the Farcaster network. The platform is designed to foster meaningful public discussions among core web3 developers and its community, promoting a more thoughtful exchange of ideas within the web3 space
Understanding and Using Warps
- Acquisition and Use: Warps can be purchased on-chain using Coinbase Commerce and are essential for various actions within Warpcast, like channel creation, maintenance, and minting NFTs directly from frames.
- Minting NFTs with Warps: Instead of the conventional method, Warpcast requires a contract with a mint function that uses a wallet address. Warpcast handles the transaction, allowing you to pay with Warps while it covers the gas and mint costs. TLDR, minter pays Warpcast in warps, Warpcast in turn pays the contract in native currency, NFT is minted to caster’s wallet
Exploring Frames
- Functionality: Frames transform any cast into an interactive app, extending the OpenGraph standard for creating interactive and authenticated experiences on Farcaster.
- Creation: To create a frame, select an image and add interactive buttons. When a user clicks a button, you receive a callback to send another image with more options, enabling a dynamic and engaging user experience.
Transactional frames within Warpcast are an advanced feature that integrates native Web3 applications directly into the Warpcast social media feed. These frames allow for a wide range of interactive and transactional experiences, enabling users to engage with blockchain-based functionalities without leaving the Warpcast interface. For instance, users can mint NFTs, participate in polls, and interact with various other blockchain elements directly within their social feed. The development of frames, including transactional ones, signifies a significant evolution in how social media and blockchain technologies can intertwine to create more immersive and interactive user experiences.
Creating these frames requires a blend of technical and creative skills. For those without coding expertise, tools like Neynar Frame Studio offer no-code solutions, enabling the creation of frames with multiple steps and engaging journeys. More advanced frames, however, may require coding skills to fully leverage their potential.
The inception of frames has dramatically increased user engagement on Warpcast, illustrating the feature’s appeal and the demand for more integrated Web3 functionalities within social media platforms. This has opened up new possibilities for developers and users alike to explore the intersection of blockchain technology and social networking in innovative ways.
What the Heck is $DEGEN?
- Introduction: The $DEGEN token is an ERC-20 token on the Base chain that gained popularity for its significant value increase and utility within the Farcaster ecosystem.
- Earning and Using $DEGEN: Ensure your wallet is connected and contains at least 10,000 $DEGEN and has made at least three casts.
- Your daily tip allowance is based on recent interactions with your casts. Tips given do not reduce your $DEGEN balance but are deducted from your daily allowance. To tip someone, simply reply under someone’s cast with a comment like “333 $DEGEN” to gift them Degen, without decreasing your wallet’s balance. Ensure you stay within your daily allowance and feel free to reward those you deem most deserving!
- As people tip you in $DEGEN, you will accumulate an allocation that you can claim when the next “airdrop” event happens. You can find your daily tip allotment and leaderboard balance here or by interacting with this frame
Practical Steps for Using $DEGEN
- Bridging ETH to Base: Best done through the Coinbase Wallet, allowing you to either import your MetaMask private key or create a new wallet.
- Swapping for $DEGEN: Use the provided contract address to swap ETH for $DEGEN on Base, then proceed to tip within Farcaster. Contract Address: 0x4ed4E862860beD51a9570b96d89aF5E1B0Efefed
- Tipping: Reply to a cast with the desired $DEGEN amount to tip, enhancing community engagement without affecting your wallet balance.
- Claiming Tips: Accumulate tips for the next airdrop event, where you can claim all the $DEGEN you’ve received through tips.
Expanding Your Engagement
- Daily Allowance and Resets: Keep track of your daily tip allowances to maximize your engagement and support within the Farcaster community. Your Tip allowance resets daily at around 8am UTC / 4am ET / 1am PT.
By following these steps, you can fully immerse yourself in the Farcaster ecosystem, leveraging Warpcast, Warps, Frames, and the $DEGEN token to interact, transact, and contribute to this decentralized social network.
Layer 3: The $DEGEN Chain
What Is Degen Chain?
Degen Chain is a Layer 3 blockchain that was built around the DEGEN community token for the Farcaster social network. It is built using Arbitrum’s Orbit framework with settlement on Base, a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum. The native token of Degen Chain is $DEGEN. Learn more about Degen Chain on its website.
- Bridging to Layer 3: Bridge $DEGEN from Base to the dedicated $DEGEN chain (Layer 3), allowing access to a new realm of meme and niche tokens. You can bridge here: https://bridge.degen.tips/
- Swapping on Layer 3: Use the Degen Swap to exchange tokens on the Layer 3 chain, expanding your cryptocurrency portfolio and engaging with the broader Degen community.
Steps To Add Degen Chain to MetaMask
The process of adding Degen Chain to your wallet may be slightly different depending on the wallet you are using. The steps below are for MetaMask. If you are using a different wallet, there is most likely a similar process that you can follow.
1. Open your wallet and go to the “Add network” page.
2. Enter the required details and click “Save”.
After entering all the required details, you can click “Save” to add Degen Chain to MetaMask.
Network name: Degen Chain
New RPC URL: https://rpc.degen.tips
Chain ID: 666666666
Currency symbol: DEGEN
Block explorer URL (Optional): https://explorer.degen.tips
Alternatively, you can use our one-click button so you don’t need to enter the required details manually.
Editor’s note: If you enjoyed this article, follow Atown on Farcaster and feel free to tip him some $DEGEN under his casts.
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