Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he plans to refocus fully on decentralized social media in 2026, arguing that only platforms built on shared, decentralized data layers can foster true competition and support mass communication systems focused on user interests reasonably than engagement metrics.
In a Wednesday post
“If we wish a greater society, we’d like higher mass communication tools,” Buterin said, arguing that decentralization enables competition by allowing multiple customers to operate on a standard social data layer.
Source: Vitalik Buterin
Buterin criticized many crypto-native social projects for counting on speculative tokens as an alternative to meaningful innovation, arguing that SocialFi experiments have repeatedly failed by rewarding pre-existing social capital and short-term price speculation reasonably than content quality and constructive discourse.
He compared these efforts to creator subscription models like Substack, which he said higher align incentives with quality content.
Buterin called for broader community participation and encouraged users and developers to spend more time in decentralized social ecosystems. The industry needs to maneuver beyond a single centralized “info war zone” and toward a more competitive frontier where latest types of online interaction could emerge.
The state of decentralized social media
Decentralized social media or SocialFi refers to platforms built on open or blockchain-based networks where user identities, content and social graphs aren’t controlled by a single company. While protocols like Lens and Farcaster gained traction early on, the sector has to this point struggled to translate that momentum into sustained mass-market adoption.
On Wednesday, core infrastructure provider Neynar Farcaster acquired from Merkle. Announcing the news, Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero said: “After five years, it is obvious that Farcaster needs a brand new approach and latest leadership to succeed in its full potential.”
Lens also saw a leadership change this week as Aave transferred responsibility for the open-source social protocol to Mask Network, tasking the Web3 social company with driving consumer-grade on-chain social applications.
Farcaster has greater than two million total registered users and a whole bunch of 1000’s of day by day interactions, measured by posts and reactions. According to Dune Analytics data, Lens has about 506,000 users.
Source: Dune Analytics 
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