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⌐◪-◪ → Decentralized social is the future, and it’s finally starting to get some real traction with Farcaster, a new protocol for social apps.

The optimism-based protocol saw a 10x increase to 19,100 daily active users since it released Frames on Jan 26th. Frames are embeddable mini-apps that bring unique digital experiences right to the user.

The most popular app built on top of the social protocol is Warpcast, which just surpassed WeChat in AppStore downloads.

I tend to ignore new social apps because they rarely offer anything new or significant value vs. the incumbents — but with that said, Farcaster feels different.

So, I went ahead and secured @Valko to support the decentralized social movement and check out Frames. If you want to join me and lock down your dream username, use my invite link!

⌐◪-◪ → GoDaddy, the Illuminati of web2 domains, just announced a partnership with ENS! Starting now, millions of customers can use their standard DNS domains in the ENS ecosystem. The best part, it’s totally free and the setup looks SUPER easy.

This is a pretty big deal if you ask me, it’s a beautiful merging of web2 and web3, and a massive simplification of online identity as a whole. Think about it, now your brand, website, email, and wallet are the same word/phrase. This is going to change online business forever.

If you want to learn more about the integration from ENS and GoDaddy directly, make sure to tune into their X space on Wednesday later this week.

⌐◪-◪ → Gmoney just took out a $1M loan against his ape CryptoPunk and in doing so set the record for the largest singular NFT loan in history.

It’s a 180-day loan and he’ll owe $69,029 in interest (14% APR) or forfeit the monkey JPEG.

Gmoney wrote a short thread on X about the loan, highlighting the supply shock we could see in certain NFT collections when holders no longer need to sell to access liquidity, a simple idea with profound market implications.

Now, everybody is wondering, what’s he gonna do with the $1M? I look at this in two ways:

1. He may just be levering up ahead of the halving, there are a lot of macro tailwinds in crypto’s favor right now

2. He’s an investor in top lending platforms: Gondi, Arcade, NFTfi, and MetaStreet — this brings attention to them

In short, it's a $70k marketing campaign that will probably have a much higher return on ad spend (ROAS) than traditional methods like ads, sponsorships, promotions, etc. Levering up on BTC or another low-risk investment is just the cherry on top. It’s brilliant really.

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