#28 – Varun Srinivasan: Farcaster, building a decentralized social network

This is my conversation with Varun Srinivasan - cofounder of Merkle Manufactory, the company building the Farcaster protocol and the Warpcast client.

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) - intro
(00:01:34) - sponsor: Optimism
(00:02:44) - Farcaster origins
(00:05:59) - sufficient decentralization, namespaces, hubs and CRDTs
(00:16:02) - type 1 vs type 2 decisions
(00:21:23) - the protocol, channels, clients, spam
(00:30:13)  direct messaging and end-to-end encryption
(00:36:38) - a turing complete social protocol
(00:41:58) - sponsor: Privy
(00:43:19) - why frames
(00:52:14) - Facebook, Twitter, Farcaster
(01:03:25) - backstory, growing up in India, Microsoft, YC
(01:08:11) - learnings from Coinbase
(01:15:13) - building a company
(01:18:53) - doing the one thing that matters
(01:28:07) - outro

Thank you to our sponsors for making this podcast possible:
Optimism - https://optimism.io
Privy - https://privy.io

Into the Bytecode:
- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab
- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab
- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.com

Disclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed.