It’s inevitable.

The change is here, and only time will tell us not if, but when.

Decentralized social media has simply superior traits that make it an almost certainty.

However, Crypto enthusiasts could have little to celebrate, as some of the solutions that are coming out are actually contrarian to the Web3 vision… and could very well succeed without blockchains.

Nostr-Damus is back

This week we’ve seen the official launch on iOS of Damus, the first-ever truly decentralized social media protocol that’s iPhone-compatible, built by the Nostr team.

Already described as yet another “Twitter killer” Damus follows a similar approach to what Jack Dorsey is building with Bluesky, a social media network where users own their data and choose what to see and when, in comparison to platforms like Twitter or Instagram, that manipulate your feed in a centralized manner and, more often than not, in a biased way.

But how does Damus really work? The answer may surprise and, probably, disappoint many of you.

A network of relays

You see… Damus doesn’t rely on blockchains to work. Yes, you read that right.

Despite being decentralized, it’s not a blockchain protocol but a decentralized relay system.

But what does that mean?

It uses relays (servers) that do very simple stuff: you send them the posts you want to send and to who, and the relays do just that. But the key concept here is that those relays can be set up by you or by me.

Anyone gets to be a relay if they want to.

Thus, you don’t require or aren’t subject to a specific central entity deciding who gets to see your content or the content you get to see.

It’s entirely up to you.

Also, these relays are trust-minimized. In layman’s terms, this means that you don’t need to trust that relays will behave correctly, as signatures are verified directly from the client side (your application, basically).

But of course, blockchains had to be in the picture somewhere, right?

And of course… there’s Bitcoin

Adding to all of this, Damus also incorporates the possibility of donations to posts, a similar concept being soon implemented on Twitter.

And the best part is that Damus has native integration with Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, which allows users to seamlessly pay with Bitcoin on the platform.

But does this mean that the future of social media won’t depend on blockchains?

Not at all.

Blockchain has its own set of proposals

Besides non-blockchain solutions like Damus, blockchain developers aren’t oblivious to the decentralized social movement, with projects like DeSo or Lens Protocols offering similar value propositions but from a blockchain perspective.

In a nutshell, blockchain-based solutions like the Lens Protocol offer you the capacity to create a personal identity using NFTs, and use these NFTs as validators of said identity in the different platforms, allowing you to have one unique identity, totally owned by you, that can be transported through decentralized versions of Twitter, Instagram, or even Medium.

A seamless UX experience while giving back ownership of your data to you.

Inevitably, with all these options, one has to ask, what will blockchain’s role be then?

To blockchain or not to blockchain, that question is

It’s pretty easy to assume, just by reading Crypto enthusiasts, that blockchains are able to cure cancer, achieve world peace, and will destroy the traditional financial system.

However, we must be honest with ourselves; many of the Crypto industry’s claims are severely over-optimistic.

Let’s not forget the only certainty we have with blockchains. A blockchain is a ledger.

Let’s make it very clear

Blockchains are one thing and one thing only; systems that, powered by a decentralized network of nodes (servers) that agree on a common state of the ledger and cryptography, provide trust to systems by ensuring data integrity by avoiding single points of failure or governance.

In layman’s terms, blockchains act as trust enablers by ensuring that data stored in them won’t be tampered with. Simple as that.

At first, this seems like nothing, but it’s a quite powerful element, especially when you factor in how much trust matters in today’s world.

Ask yourself this: Would you trust someone that you know nothing about to pay you $2,000 dollars?

Data integrity is fundamental

The truth is you probably won’t trust them.

But when he/she takes out their credit card to pay, you are suddenly much more confident about it. At the end of the day, banks provide the necessary trust for an economic system to work, as they won’t allow anyone to spend money they don’t have, at least not without incurring in debt.

But the fact that financial systems need banks to work proves that they aren’t optimal, as you require these centralized entities to take part in almost any transaction.

But what if we had a system that generates a global, immutable, database of data that is really hard to modify? In that scenario, you can be confident that he/she who claims to have $2,000 dollars to pay you, actually has them.

And with no middlemen like banks in between, the network itself acts as the guarantor of trust. And that’s where most people reach.

The eternal “Bitcoin is money” discussion.

But, to me, blockchains are meant to protect much more than financial data… like your digital identity.

Protecting what’s yours

Your data, by now, is well spread through the Internet.

Heck, someone could be using your data to commit crimes while you’re sitting at home watching Netflix.

We’ve come to accept that, but we shouldn’t.

But what are we supposed to do? As websites don’t trust us, they require our personal information to validate we’re trustworthy individuals.

It’s what we describe as Know Your Customer procedures, or KYC, forced upon all companies so that governments and agencies can know as much as possible about us to fight money laundering or terrorism.

A noble cause, but that doesn’t mean we should be willing to give our personal data that easily.

But what if there was a way to retain ownership over our data while still complying with the aforementioned regulations?

Well, that’s coming, thanks to the blockchain.

Storing our data in blockchains

While it’s certainly unclear the extent to which blockchains will participate in decentralized social media, we can optimistically assume that, at least for certain data, blockchains will be used no matter what.

What data you may ask?

Well, it probably should be very clear at this point in the article.

All data that requires cryptographic guarantees that it will stay untouched, or immutable as Crypto enthusiasts love to say. And we have up to three ways to how this could take form on social media:

So the real question is, which view is more likely?

Keeping feet on the ground

One question hasn’t been answered regarding blockchains to this day.

How do we make them scale?

To ensure blockchains stay decentralized, we need to make sure they can be run by simple hardware, so that anyone can participate. This is the only way to true decentralization.

For that reason, the number of transactions introduced in each block (each new group of transactions that are approved and settled) has to be small so that these servers can handle it.

Consequently, the more decentralized you are, the less performance your blockchain has. However, if solutions like zk-rollups or modular blockchains live up to their promise, performance could be considerably increased.

Technical Note: Other proponents in the space argue that the key to decentralization is ‘breaking’ blockchains into smaller pieces. However, I don’t believe these models will succeed as the tokenomics of the native tokens of those blockchains aren’t really clear. In other words, if breaking down the chain means less rewards for nodes, will there be an incentive to participate?

Anyhow, if this vision fails, the Web3 concept where all data in the digital world is stored in blockchains will inevitably fail.

However, I want to make myself clear that this is just an opinion but, to be honest with you, I believe that the future of blockchains will be constrained to very specific, yet extremely powerful use cases, like the decentralized identity we’ve discussed or decentralized digital services like DePIN, making blockchains fundamental in our lives.

But I don’t believe all data will be stored in them, so solutions like the one proposed by Block or Damus could certainly become true.

Naturally, your opinion, if contrarian to my views, is just as valid as any other, as nobody really knows the outcome. Luckily, one thing seems certain to me: blockchains are part of social media’s future, a social media where your data, finally, belongs to you.

What do you think?