Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan, co-founders of Farcaster, a decentralized social network protocol, share their journey from Coinbase to reshaping social media. They discuss the need for truly decentralized platforms, emphasizing user engagement over mere architecture. The duo explores innovative features like crypto-enabled interactions and the importance of open programmability. They also reflect on the evolution of decentralized networks, comparing them to giants like Twitter and the challenges of user adoption in a rapidly changing landscape.
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insights INSIGHT
Sufficient Decentralization Focus
Farcaster focuses on sufficient decentralization with two significant apps having active users.
Decentralization matters less than user growth to build a meaningful protocol and ecosystem.
question_answer ANECDOTE
From Coinbase to Farcaster
Dan Romero joined Coinbase in 2014 without much crypto interest, seeking consumer products at scale.
The journey led him and Varun to build Farcaster, centered on decentralized social protocols leveraging Ethereum.
insights INSIGHT
Decentralization Done Right
Farcaster decentralizes identity and data with a single global state for usernames and content.
This approach avoids Mastodon's fragmented server model, improving user experience and developer consistency.
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In this episode of The Slow Hunch, I spoke with Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan, the co-founders of Farcaster. Farcaster is a social app and protocol that is open, programmable, and crypto-native.
Before starting Farcaster, both Dan and Varun spent a few years at Coinbase. That experience deeply shaped their perspective on crypto infrastructure, user behavior, and what it takes to build a “sufficiently decentralized” experience at scale.
In this conversation we trace their slow hunch: the idea that social networks needed to be rebuilt from the ground up, as decentralized protocols with credible neutrality, shared state, and a design space open to builders.
We talked about what they got wrong early on (too much focus on architecture, not enough on user acquisition), how crypto enables new interaction primitives like tipping and token-based identity, and why open programmability (not just ideology) is Farcaster’s biggest edge.
Hope you enjoy!
Chapters:
00:00:00 Cold open
00:02:20 What makes Farcaster different
00:06:45 Early crypto days at Coinbase
00:10:30 Discovering a shared vision for decentralized protocols
00:16:07 Why the infrastructure is ready now
00:20:55 The social landscape in 2020: Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky
00:23:00 Elon acquires Twitter, FTX, and the narrative shift in decentralized social
00:24:53 Designing for "sufficient decentralization"
00:29:26 Why the obsession over pure decentralization is a distraction
00:32:05 The Farcaster launch story - how they got their first users
00:34:30 Why social protocols take time to grow
00:36:28 Inventing new content primitives instead of choosing political sides
00:41:00 What crypto rails enable: Wallets, tipping, and programmable social UX
00:42:38 Reframing money as social interaction
00:43:56 Why crypto feels contrarian
00:45:59 Crypto as the last frontier of indie building
00:47:01 AI vs crypto as platforms for small creators
00:49:40 Hiding vs embracing crypto in UX
00:50:55 Dan and Varun’s evolving view on abstracting away the chain
00:54:00 The adjacent possible: mini-apps, embedded wallets, AI video
00:59:00 Using AI to surface context + trending content
01:00:54 What big platforms won’t do: programmable money
01:03:57 Crowdsourced Q&A – early Farcaster days
01:06:53 Why mobile UX is everything
01:07:00 The surprising difficulty of building other clients
The Slow Hunch 
