Péter Szilágyi, the team lead for Ethereum, has publicly criticized Farcaster, a decentralized social network, for purported bot manipulation, raising concerns regarding the platform’s transparency.
Szilágyi’s criticism of Farcaster emerged in a recent X thread, where he expressed skepticism about the platform’s ecosystem. He pointed to instances where bots allegedly dominate user activity, particularly by engaging in circular transactions to accumulate DEGEN, an unofficial token aimed at stimulating activity within the Farcaster community.
Highlighting what he perceives as a significant conflict of interest, Szilágyi suggested that Farcaster developers may benefit financially from not addressing the bot issue. He emphasized that non-power users, defined as those with fewer than 400 followers, are automatically filtered out from everyone’s feed, leading to concerns about the project becoming a “money and user printer.”
Despite Szilágyi’s remarks, Farcaster has not issued any public statements on the matter as of press time. Crypto.news has reached out to the project for comment and will update the article accordingly.
This isn’t the first time Szilágyi has raised doubts about Farcaster’s transparency. In February, he questioned the platform’s “organic growth,” noting a tenfold increase in his Farcaster account’s followers within a few days despite minimal activity.
Established in 2020, Farcaster operates as a decentralized social network similar to X but utilizes Optimism, a layer-2 solution for Ethereum. Reports in late March hinted at Merkle Manufactory, Farcaster’s parent company, nearing a substantial funding round led by Paradigm, potentially valuing the company at approximately $1 billion. In July 2022, the firm secured $30 million in a funding round led by a16z crypto.
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