rish

i don't need caffeine

[rish @rish_neynar]

Excited to share that @neynarxyz is acquiring @farcaster_xyz.

This means we will now maintain the Farcaster protocol, run the Farcaster client and operate Clanker.

Our vision is to enable builders to go from idea to recurring revenue, supported by a builder-first network.

See more of our thinking in the link in reply

[Dan Romero @dwr]

Neynar is acquiring Farcaster.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll transfer ownership of the protocol contracts and code repositories, the Farcaster app, and Clanker to Neynar. They will run and maintain everything going forward.

Some members of the Merkle team, Varun, and I will step back from day-to-day work on Farcaster and move on to something new.

Rish, Manan, and the rest of the Neynar team have been building on Farcaster from the start. Neynar was one of the first Farcaster clients, and its infrastructure now powers much of the developer ecosystem.

We think they are the right people to take over leadership of Farcaster and they’ll share their new builder-focused vision soon.

This wasn’t an easy decision. Farcaster and the people building on it mean a lot to us. We’re proud of what our team built, and what the community built alongside us. But after five years, it’s clear Farcaster needs a new approach and leadership to reach its full potential.

We’re excited to see what Farcaster becomes under Neynar, and we’re looking forward to this next chapter.

[rish @rish_neynar]

the best product validation I know is still a checkout link.

put a price on the thing and see if anyone pays.

a polished product can hide a lot.

if someone pays when the product is still rough, that’s a much cleaner signal.

the pain is strong enough that they’re willing to deal with the rough edges.

this is basically how @neynarxyz started.

[rish @rish_neynar]

one thing I've noticed interviewing engineers lately: AI has made engineering taste way more visible.

the output is easy to produce now. what's harder to fake is whether you know when the output is wrong.

why this architecture?
why this abstraction?
what happens when this has to function well at scale?

when we let candidates use AI in interviews, that's one of the most imp things we're evaluating.

[rish @rish_neynar]

the code is always the easiest part of a software company to copy. fork it and you have the current answer to whatever problem it's solving.

what doesn't transfer is the taste behind the choices. two years of deciding what not to build, the accumulated trust from being around when things broke, knowing when to push back versus when to ship.

that needs to be accumulated.

[rish @rish_neynar]

@nathan_covey @timwido what about getting an uber etc.?

[rish @rish_neynar]

@PRESDENCY03 did do that

[rish @rish_neynar]

No one saw me wire the first $50k check to Uber
No one saw me tell Zuck to buy Instagram
No one saw me sketch the Stripe API on a napkin at Coupa Cafe

And that's because...

[rish @rish_neynar]

i never did any of that

[rish @rish_neynar]

@stacy_muur @cdixon @eddylazzarin @guywuolletjr @matthuang @fredwilson / Union Square
@NTmoney / 1conf
@balajis

[rish @rish_neynar]

@mac_eth yeah can help

[rish @rish_neynar]

hate is this interesting thing

when you get a little bit of it, you care a lot. when you get a lot of it, you don’t care at all

kinda cool it works this way

[rish @rish_neynar]

there’s a well-known startup saying that before you scale to everyone, you need a core group of people who care irrationally much.

I think Farcaster has that and it is hard to overstate how rare that is.

during Farcon, people fly in from different countries to spend time with internet friends they made here. they build products, host events, argue about protocol decisions, help new people, disappear for a while, come back, and still clearly want this thing to exist.

they’re attached to what this corner of the internet can become. that is a very special thing to be around.

the hard part is that a deeply committed early community does not automatically become a much larger network.

but it does give you something most products never get: belief, feedback, lore, energy, and people willing to try strange things before they make sense anywhere else.

that is the base.

now we have to make Farcaster easier to understand, easier to join, and more useful to people who were not here from the beginning, without losing what made the early group care in the first place.

hard problem, but a good one.

there are worse starting points than a community that dearly wants what you're building to exist.

[clanker @clanker_world]

We are so excited to share the announcement of round 1 of the Clanker Ecosystem Fund grants!

Huge thank you to @gmfarcaster for all of their work making this vision a reality.

The Clanker Ecosystem Fund has created 4 categories of grant awards:

BUILDER GRANTS: For projects that have demonstrated sustained contribution, execution, and ecosystem impact. These are often larger grants because they reward proven work rather than speculative ideas.

SUSTAINABILITY GRANTS: For smaller community projects, tools, media, or cultural contributions that make the ecosystem better. Some projects simply need enough support to continue existing. These grants may fund: infrastructure costs (APIs, hosting, etc), design costs, content or media creation costs, tooling maintenance

FRESH CLANK GRANTS: Smaller grants intended to recognize projects that created energy, attention, or momentum within the ecosystem recently. These grants exist to encourage people to build, experiment, and ship publicly without feeling like they need years of history before receiving recognition.

ACTIVATION GRANTS: These may be awarded along with one of the other categories of awards. Activation Grants : Small-to-medium grants intended to spark specific activity, events, or short-term ecosystem initiatives. These are intentionally temporary and outcome-oriented.

Starting with BUILDER GRANTS: the CEF is recognizing 3 projects in this category and we are also including ACTIVATION GRANTS for each of these grantees as well. All three have been long term builders in the ecosystem and have driven attention to both Clanker and @farcaster_xyz via their apps. (@gmfarcaster will be sharing more about every project in separate posts at a later time)

@qrcoindotfun by @0FJAKE
$8000 usdc Builder Grant, $2000 Activation Grant

@betrmint by @toady_hawk and @netnose
$8000 usdc Builder Grant, $2000 Activation Grant

@tryEmerge by @AtownBrown and the Emerge team
$5000 usdc Builder Grant, $1000 Activation Grant

(additional grantees in next post)

[rish @rish_neynar]

@PRESDENCY03 @cryptouii @farcaster_xyz an update was rolled out yesterday, you have this issue right now?

[rish @rish_neynar]

@cryptouii @farcaster_xyz what is your farcaster profile?

[rish @rish_neynar]

the honest answer to “did you time it right?” is that I don’t know yet and i’m not sure I’ll know for a while.

when Farcaster Frames took off in january 2024, a bunch of investors reached out saying we had nailed the timing by building on Farcaster back in mid 2023.

for a bit that felt true. but then the cycle cooled and we were back to grinding.

timing only really works if the wave lasts long enough or keeps coming back often enough.

which is why conviction and stubbornness are sorta impossible to separate while you’re in the middle of it.

the behavior is identical.

you keep going even when there's mixed evidence. whether that ends up looking smart depends on whether the thing you bet on eventually works, and that is not fully in your control.

we’re 2.5 years in.

in my head that’s still not enough time to have a clear verdict.

so for now, we keep building.

[rish @rish_neynar]

@programmer @CoinbaseDev congrats!

[rish @rish_neynar]

@PublicProof we got better at running trials

[rish @rish_neynar]

some of the best early hires come from roles that are hard to define.

in the early days you don't always know if you need ops or community or growth or just someone who lives online and understands what users want before they've figured it out themselves. there's no clear job description for that and no obvious resume that maps to it.

our first non-eng hire was like this. the role was a mix of outreach, user research, customer conversations. we did a work trial before committing, which turned out to be the right call.

and it worked out really well. they left recently to go start something of their own, which is about the best outcome you can hope for.

trust the signal enough to create a test, then let the actual work settle the question.

resumes are a proxy for the job. the work is the job.

[clanker @clanker_world]

currently investigating reports of loss of funds from snipers - resulting from misuse of clanker v4 contract mechanics.

there was no impact to clanker token deployment or clanker treasury.

todo: if you have participated in sniper auctions and have granted WETH approvals please revoke them now. use https://t.co/iuZqLIBNb3 or any approval manager.

contract: 0xebB25BB797D82CB78E1bc70406b13233c0854413 on base

clanker docs have always had a warning on how to use WETH approvals that should be followed: https://t.co/JLC1utAKfJ

in an abundance of caution - we have changed the configuration of the contract to no longer be able to pull from the WETH approvals.

[rish @rish_neynar]

@callereneth @tD_0101 @clanker_world looking into this with blockaid