The Great Disruptor: Decentralized Social Is Coming For You In 2023

From the Desk of DeSo Founder Nader Al-Naji:

In crypto, we think there are two approaches to weathering a bear market: Hibernate and wait for your narrative to catch on, or become the bull market by creating the disruption that brings everybody back.

In case it isn't obvious, we're very firmly in the latter camp. Not only because we're so excited by the all of the opportunities in front of us, but also because we're literally incapable of hibernation 😂

The way we see it, being the category leader when the bull market comes is an easy thing we can do just by doubling down on all of our investments in infrastructure, awareness, developer experience, etc...

But, in addition to that, we have a unique opportunity, as the creators of some of the most viral concepts in crypto, to create the next major disruption ourselves. A disruption so powerful that it not only brings everybody back to crypto, but also pulls web2 creators out of the monopolies they're entrenched in today, and into a new world where they're both more free and better paid.

To put it simply, while riding waves is great, we're here to make waves by bringing real fundamental value to the crypto space, and we'll be working day and night to do that, as long as it takes.

In the meantime, thanks for sticking with us! What we're working on together has never been more important, and we will continue to work relentlessly to bring it all to the mainstream.

2023 DeSo Report Card

I don't know about you, but Nader's comments have made me even more bullish for decentralized social and crypto. I am stirred to action. I love that the DeSo team is literally incapable of hibernation. Throughout the 2022 turmoil faced by the crypto industry as a whole, they've continued to work and innovate. There was a lot of talk about other decentralized social platforms last year, but DeSo is in a category all by themselves, the very name DeSo says it all. DeSo is short for decentralized social.

As a category leader, DeSo has taken it upon themselves to create a disruption so seismic that it not only awakens and jolts everyone to the power of crypto, but also categorically snatches all web2 resistant creators out of their daze and ushers them into the possibilities of a freer social media world, one in which they are empowered and paid.

What's Coming to DeSo in 2023

For a complete list see Nader's post here.

Completely revamped deso.com with crazy 3D graphics.

Completely revamped developer hub, with first-class video tutorials, documentation, and much more.

Encrypted Group Chats: Web3 Signal

On-Chain end-to-end encrypted group chats, with an accompanying AAA mobile app.

Tentatively partnering with a major NFT platform on this launch.

Also enables the most advanced and easiest-to-use wallet-to-wallet chat on the market (thanks to the MetaMask integration)

Pearl: Web3 Patreon

Pearl is launching a new concept we think of as "subscription coins" that we're very excited about

Sign up on Pearl's website to be the first to try it.

Stripe for Crypto (MegaSwap Public Launch)

Convert any currency to any currency for easy onboarding, and in-app USDC cash-out. This will give all DeSo apps a major leg-up when it comes to onboarding and user experience.

Decentralized Verifications (On-Chain Associations)

Many interesting growth opportunities arise from the on-chain associations primitive as well.

DeSo x Princeton "Coin-a-thon" (via Openfund)

30-day DeSo "coin hackathon" in Feb 2023 on Princeton campus.

Entrants will be required to launch a coin on OpenFund, and students will be given free DESO to invest in other students' projects.

This new model has the potential to become an inexpensive way to source high-quality builders to create new social experiences on DeSo.

DeSo Vaults: Web3 Dropbox

Inexpensive and secure on-chain end-to-end-encrypted file storage accessible from anywhere in the world and censorship-resistant.

The Decentralized Web

The launch of DeSo Vaults will enable DeSo to become the easiest web-hosting solution in the world, with full censorship-resistance. If you upload an index.html to your vault, which you will be able to do via a clean web UI on your profile page, the path to that file will automatically render as a web-page on every node.

Newsletters: Web3 Substack

"Email my followers" capability via secure on-chain email sharing directly with creators.

Self-Sovereign Content (aka Ultra-Private Content)

The ability to share content only with your followers in a fully end-to-end encrypted fashion.

Launching the Next BitClout

Once all infrastructure upgrades are fully complete, DeSo plans to leverage all of the launches mentioned above in a new breakthrough social app.

Learn more about DeSo on deso.com.