The Rise of Pseudonymous Social Networks: From Sealcaster to Rumours

The practice of pseudonymity has enabled people to freely share ideas and truths without fear of retaliation. Throughout history, Voltaire,

From the anonymous authors of The Federalist Papers laying the groundwork for democratic discourse to whistleblowers exposing global injustices like WikiLeaks, the practice of pseudonymity has enabled people to freely share ideas and truths without fear of retaliation. Throughout history, Voltaire, Publius, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), Satoshi Nakamoto, and countless others have furthered the spread of ideas through pseudonyms.

Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Proofs

Zero Knowledge Proofs is a groundbreaking cryptographic technology that enables one party to prove to another party that they possess certain information without revealing the specific information itself. For instance, you could prove that you meet the age requirement to enter a venue without showing the full personal information on your ID card. This technology ensures the confirmation of key facts (such as age) while safeguarding other private data.

In traditional platforms, users are typically required to submit personal data, which is centrally stored in servers and vulnerable to being leaked or misused. Zero-knowledge proofs alter this paradigm, allowing users to verify credentials or asset ownership without disclosing personal information, thus greatly enhancing privacy protection capabilities.

Genesis

Sealcaster is the first zero-knowledge application built on the Farcaster protocol, developed by Big Whale Labs. Its development team includes Nikita Kolmogorov (borodutch), Jason Kim and other members. They use Circom (a programming language designed for zero-knowledge circuits) to generate proofs, enabling users to complete identity verification without revealing personal information. Through Circom's constraints and signaling mechanisms, Sealcaster is able to verify the authenticity of user credentials while protecting their privacy.

Sealcaster is among several zero-knowledge products launched by Big Whale Labs, including:

As one of the first practical zero-knowledge projects on the Farcaster protocol, Sealcaster demonstrates the vast potential for privacy protection and verifiable communications on decentralized platforms.

Superanon

As the Farcaster community continued to grow, an advanced user client called supercast (founded by woj and later renamed super) gradually formed a user group and gave rise to superanon.

Supercast is a paid client that caters mainly to advanced users. It supports posting content from multiple accounts and enables users to operate anonymously using superanon.

ANON

Within the Farcaster community, the AI-driven token launcher CLANKER has facilitated the creation of over 10,000 tokens, with a cumulative transaction volume of $1 billion and millions of dollars paid out to creators. One day, a superanon user anonymously created a token called $ANON while woj was sleeping, reflecting the permissionless characteristics of the operation.

When Woj woke up, he officially launched the $anon Token (no capitalization) as a support tool for the superanon account and distributed the donated $ANON to all supercast users via airdrops.

Following this, developer slokh (who previously developed the nook client) built a platform called anoncast.org, which enables users to post content anonymously as long as they hold $ANON.

The platform combines Noir and Rust technologies, and its open source code has attracted many developers to iterate and experiment, opening up new possibilities for the future of anonymous social networks.

In addition to constant feature updates and optimizations, such as allowing users to reveal that they are the author of a popular content at a later time, Farcaster's features have also attracted many well-known users, including Vitalik and Jesse Pollack. It is worth mentioning that 0xLuo is the creator of the feature on the right.

33Bits

33bits.xyz was an experimental platform that was limited to users with FID numbers below 20,000, the early adopters of Farcaster. The tool was built by developers Kugusha and Sergey. To expand access, they later launched 66bits.xyz, which not only provided access to more users but also added additional features for token holders.

Rumours

Developed by Disky and Leovido, rumourcast.xyz is a Farcaster protocol based client that builds upon the popular Anon Cast but adds some unique innovations.

As long as users hold enough supporting tokens, they can publish content as anonymous accounts. Future development plans include:

Frames V2 integration: Enhance the user interaction experience by creating unique frame functions.

NFT Minting: Supports the casting of rumor content into collectible NFTs, and may be combined with prediction market functions to add more interactivity and value to the content.

RumourAI Agent: Uses AI technology to expand and optimize rumor content, adding more depth and creativity to each release.

The iteration of these functions is ongoing and the future is worth looking forward to.

Pseudonym Economy

A wholesale shift to a completely financialized pseudonymous framework risks ignoring the complexity of human social interactions. However, the real potential lies not in absolute anonymity but in building diverse and complex identity models.

These online and on-chain social experiments provide users with a special space where individuals can build reputations, share insights, and collaborate without revealing their true identities, thereby