Month: February 2024

Democrats flip the House seat vacated by disgraced Republican Congressman George Santos, in New York. House Republicans vote to impeach the Secretary of Homeland Security. A car crashes into a Texas emergency room. CBS's Steve Kathan will have those stories and more on today's World News Roundup:

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Dan Romero, the co-founder of the decentralized social media network, discusses why Frames has become so popular, the central ideas behind Farcaster, and what’s in store for Farcaster’s future. 

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Fountain, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

In the two weeks since Farcaster introduced its Frames feature that allows developers to easily add mini apps to users’ posts, the decentralized social network has become the talk of Twitter, now X, and increased its user base by ten times, according to co-founder Dan Romero. 

Romero joins Unchained to discuss why Frames has become so popular, the philosophy behind Farcaster and its client Warpcast, why the crypto component behind Farcaster is being kept to a minimum, how Apple’s new Vision Pro could lead to the creation of a 3D social network on Farcaster, how he and his fellow co-founder’s background at Coinbase helped shape their decisions about building Farcaster, and his vision for eventually getting Farcaster to a billion-plus users. 

Show highlights:

• What Farcaster is and what problems it’s trying to solve
• How and why Farcaster uses blockchain technology in the background 
• How you can use ENS (Ethereum Name Services) for your handles on Farcaster
• How the recovery of accounts works on Farcaster and what the security implications are
• What Frames is and why it’s significant for developers and creators
• What’s controlled by the protocol vs. the client 
• What Dan imagines could be built with the new Apple Vision Pro
• Whether there’s potential for better economics and ways to monetize content in Farcaster
• Why Farcaster is on Optimism, an Ethereum Layer 2, and whether it could be moved to another network
• How they are working to build a more decentralized network
• What the future of Farcaster and Frames could look like
• How Dan’s background at Coinbase shaped the way in which he decided to build Farcaster
• What the strategy is for scaling the platform to the numbers more associated with Web2 social media

Thank you to our sponsors!  Popcorn Network  |  Polkadot

Guest | 

Dan Romero, Co-founder of Farcaster

Coinbase’s Pragmatic Crypto Culture by Dan Romero

Links | 

Unchained: 

Bounties to Build Frames on Farcaster Are Growing Rapidly

Farcaster's User Base Skyrockets Nearly 500% After Frames Launch

What Is SocialFi? A Beginner’s Guide

The Chopping Block: Is Farcaster the Web3 Social Layer?

Dan’s ideas for Farcaster

Farcaster architecture | 

Architecture

Onchain password reset mechanism

Why Farcaster Frames are important

The layers of Farcaster

Farcaster charges “rent”

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Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC.  Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz. 

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House Republicans voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Aljandro Mayorkas accusing him with refusal to comply with immigration laws and breach of public trust. Vice President Kamala Harris heads to Germany to reassure NATO allies that they can rely on U.S. support. And exit polls show Indonesia's defense minister will be the new president of a country that plays a role in the South China Sea security.

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Today's episode of Up First was edited by Kelsey Snell, Roberta Rampton, Miguel Macias, and Mohamad ElBardicy.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Ben Abrams and Lilly Quiroz.
We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Neisha Heinis.

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After an all-nighter, a $95bn foreign aid bill for Ukraine and other allies passed the US Senate. But amid much division, it may not even make it to a House vote. Stray cows are a growing problem for India’s city dwellers. Could a new census help (09:25)? And, how people are spending less on Valentine’s Day (16:12)

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Alabama

• Deadline to register to vote for March primary is February 19th
• Lt governor Ainsworth attends a school choice event in Montgomery
• $8.5M in opioid settlement money headed to agencies in Alabama
• 9 men arrested in child sex trafficking bust in Limestone county
• Sylacauga pastor believes Super Bowl ad misrepresents Jesus

National

• US House votes to impeach DHS secretary Mayorkas by one vote
• Tony Bobulinski identifies Joe Biden as "Big Guy" in House deposition
• China's shipbuilding efforts puts US production to shame says WSJ
• Cyber security experts reveal more of China's spying apps and electronics